Tag Archives: Website Development Wexford

How to Improve Your Website Page Speed

Website Page Speed
Category: Tips and Tricks
March 19, 2019
Website page speed is the measurement of exactly how fast the content on your page loads. This means how long it takes to fully display the content of your page. One of the best ways to evaluate your page speed is to use the free tool Google PageSpeed Insights. In one of our most recent posts we went into great depth on how important having good results on Google PageSpeed Insights really is. In that post we made the point that page speed is a very important factor for SEO as it is known that Google uses page speed as one of it’s many signals used by its algorithm when ranking pages. As well as being important to Google, page speed is very important to user experience also which plays a part in how your website ranks. There are many ways to improve your website’s page speed such as: Fully Switching over to https: Ensuring that your website has an SSL Cert not only shows that your website is safe to browse on and to purchase products/services safely with your credit card but it will also help with your SEO as Google looks favorably on websites who have an SSL Cert over those who have none. Where this affects page speed is when the http version of your website is cached and redirects to your https version. By ensuring that your website automatically redirects to the https version you can greatly enhance the page speed. Rectifying Image Related Issues: Images tend to be a common issue that cause an unfavorable page speed. Images can cause issues unnecessarily as they can be a huge size and of too high of an image quality than required or needed. To rectify these two issues it’s recommended to take a look at all your images and to both compress and resize them as necessary. By resizing them to a more appropriate size and by compressing them to a more appropriate image quality you will reduce your page load time which will in turn improve your page speed. Browser Caching: By implementing browser caching on your website you are telling visitors to your website exactly how long their browsers should retain information/memory of your website for. This means that a message would be sent to the users browser that images on the website should be cached (remembered) for three weeks so that when this specific user visits the website again within this three week period your website will load more quickly as the resources to remember the images are being pulled from their device instead of your website. This takes some of the workload away from your website and in turn this will improve your page speed also. Improving your page speed is a never-ending goal and something that should be continuously worked on to improve it as much as possible as it is so important not only to SEO and User experience but the overall success of your website. If you would like to inquire about improving your website’s page speed please contact 2Cubed and get your business the traffic and success it deserves. You can call us on 01-9058114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie or else get in touch using the live chat on our website! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

How to Use Adwords

How to Use Adwords - Adwords Agency Wexford
Category: Tips and Tricks
February 15, 2019
Google ads formerly known as google adwords is an online based advertising tool that businesses can use to promote their website and acts as Google’s platform for pay per click ads. Google ads give businesses complete control over all aspects such as the ads they create, when those ads start and stop, how much money they wish to spend with daily budget options available and you can even set specific goals which you wish to achieve with your ad such as increasing website visits and product sales to conversions for completion of contact forms etc.. Google adwords basically works like an auction with businesses bidding on keywords and search terms and phrases that are used to match your specific ad with the similar terms that your target demographic is inputting in their searches online. When people search for keywords relevant to your ad the chances that google will display your ad to them are greatly increased. A great thing about using CPC (Cost per Click) advertising through a tool such as Google ads is that you will only ever be charged when people actually click on your ad. This means that you are not generally wasting money as you are guaranteed that these people are at least visiting your website. The key however is to make sure it’s the right people visiting your site, your target demographic which would be the people in which you will generate conversions from. To ensure that you are targeting and reaching the right audience with your ads google offer excellent tools such as the keyword planner tool which will aid you when doing keyword research which is a vital thing to ensure you have done before embarking on any advertising campaign as it will inform your strategy. While there is no cost to set up a Google Ads account, it will cost you to have your ads appear. To have your ads run successfully Google Ads will have you bid on the keywords you most wish to target just like an auction. Google follows the CPC (cost per click) bidding model for most of its ad services which means that if you tell google that your maximum daily budget is €20 and the click costs €5 your budget will buy you 4 clicks for the day. When used wrongly adwords can be a waste of money but when used correctly as part of a structured and cohesive targeted campaign it can generate you a lot of conversions and success that make the cost per click well worth the price. If you would like more information or would like to inquire about using cost per click advertising through Google Ads we can help. Please contact 2Cubed and get your business the traffic and success it deserves. You can call us on 01-9058114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie or else get in touch using the live chat on our website! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Shopify – Custom Design, Reskin & Templates

Shopify for Ecommerce Websites - website ecommerce design wexford
Category: Tips and Tricks
December 10, 2018
Shopify is a complete commerce platform that lets you start, grow, and manage a business. Shopify is completely cloud-based and hosted, which means you don’t have to worry about upgrading or maintaining software or web servers. This gives you the flexibility to access and run your business from anywhere with an internet connection. Shopify has become so popular due to 3 main reasons:
    1. It allows you the ability to Create and customize an online store 
    2. It gives you the opportunity to sell in multiple places, including web, mobile, social media, online marketplaces, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops 
    3. It allows you to manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping
In the past when websites wished to set up an ecommerce element they had no choice but to use the designs that the ecommerce software they were using offered unless they had the budget to hire a designer and a programmer to code to make the online shop look unique and stand out. As most businesses did not have this budget they were stuck with having a very visually restrictive and uniformed look that every other website had. Thankfully things have changed alot since those days and nowhere is this more prevalent than with Shopify. With Shopify you can choose from a whole library of unique themes that are well designed and contain beautiful pre-made design themes for your ecommerce website. You can rest assured that any theme that you select from Shopify’s theme store is of great quality. This is because all themes that are in shopify’s theme store are all rigorously evaluated firstly by the whole shopify team. Shopify themes are very flexible and customisable and are suitable for all budgets. This is what makes shopify so special as unlike the old days you no longer need a huge budget to have a unique and beautifully designed online shop on your website.   In terms of doing custom design and reskins on shopify there is a lot of debate on whether one should customise further or just use one of the existing shopify themes as they are so uniquely designed anyways that further customisation is not required to make it look visually unique and different from the rest. Three main reasons why you shouldn’t over customise your Shopify theme are the following:
  • It’s usually not necessary
Most times when users want to make changes that require customization it’s because they want to change a visual aspect on the website. While making little visual changes here and there may be nice to do the bottom line is that these types of little visual changes usually have very little if any real impact on the actual online shop when it comes to sales etc..
  • It’s expensive
While it’s true that Shopify is very affordable and offers themes that suit all budgets, when one starts to get in the customization end of things of their purchased theme they can see costs rise. Even simple customization can see costs inflate. The main reason Shopify was created was to provide to small and medium sized businesses with the opportunity to have a unique designed template for an online shop for their ecommerce website so that they can launch with a working website.
  • You can always customize later
The most important thing with any website is that it is actually successful, therefore if it’s an ecommerce website the main goal is obviously to sell as much products as possible to make the website and the business commercially sustainable. By first placing your focus and the majority of your efforts on ensuring that your online shop and website actually sells well rather than worrying about tweaking and fine tuning visual elements you will be much more likely to build a successful and sustainable ecommerce website. Only when your website is successful and running well should you begin to start looking at customization. The bottom line is that Shopify is an excellent commerce platform that lets you start, grow, and manage a business. If your business is small or medium sized or even just has a limited budget, then selecting one of the themes off of Shopify themes for the online store on your ecommerce website makes perfect sense for you. When you have got your website established and your shop is performing well then would be a good time to look at customization if you wish to have a visual overhaul of the website. To find out more about website design Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie

Website Redesign or Website Reskin?

Website Redesign or Reskin
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 28, 2018
There comes a point for every website when they are faced with a crossroads. The website may have been around for awhile, it may have become outdated and stale or perhaps it simply just isn’t performing like it use to anymore. It’s at this point where you the website owner will have to make a decision on how to rejuvenate and breathe new life into your website so it will hopefully perform well again. It’s at this point where you will decide whether your website needs a reskin or a complete overall website redesign. Think of your website as a house, sometimes a house simply needs a fresh coat of paint to improve it however if the issues are deeper, simply painting over the cracks won’t solve the issues in the long term and thus a reconstruction would be required, your website acts much the same. A full website redesign refers to overhauling all, or nearly all, of the code and look of a website and would generally require a lot of programming work to give the website a brand new distinguishable look. Using the house metaphor from earlier, in this case, by doing a full website redesign we would be tearing down the old house and building a brand new improved one in its place. A website refresh (commonly known as a website reskin) is akin to as we mentioned before giving your house a fresh coat of paint to improve its overall look and make it more appealing. A website reskin is a way to change things on your website without doing a complete overhaul with the time and money involved in a website redesign. The huge difference between a website redesign and a website reskin is that a website reskin won’t necessarily change your website’s core functionality at all but it will give it a new look so with a reskin you are changing the external aspect of the website so visually it’s different but the internal remains the same whereas with a website redesign the external and the internal both change drastically. When you are deciding on whether you should have your website redesigned or re skinned there are a few factors in particular you should take into account such as:
  • Budget
A website reskin is generally always less expensive than a full website redesign as the time involved is less. Sometimes a website only needs a reskin instead of a complete redesign but this is something you need to be sure of because if you pay for a reskin and then a complete redesign 6 months later it was a waste as you should have just went straight for the redesign.
  • Time
The time involved in doing a full comprehensive website redesign would require a lot more time and effort than just a reskin therefore since a website redesign will take more time than a reskin it will come down to budget as more hours will equal more cost. If time and budget is too much of an issue for you then a reskin may be a more fitting option for you than a full redesign.
  • Security
As well as budget and time, the security of your website can also be a mitigating factor in your choice to do a reskin or redesign. When your security is poor on a website you can experience a whole host of issues such as slow load times, errors and even risk of viruses all which will drive customers away. Often these issues can be easily solved and rectified through correctly and efficiently òptimising the existing code and content and through the use of free tools and plugins such as malware scanning, setting up firewalls etc.. However if the actual platform that the website itself is running on is an insecure or unstable platform then in this case doing a full complete website redesign and enhancing or changing the website platform would be the best course of action. It is generally recommended that a website goes under a full website redesign every 2-3 years and a reskin or refresh every year or so. By implementing consistent website redesigns and reskins this will ensure that your website will always look modern, user friendly and will help increase success for your business. To find out more about getting your website redesigned or re-skinned Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Why you should check and change your SEO regularly

seo agency wexford
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 22, 2018
SEO when done effectively helps your website to soar up the rankings and rank high on the first page of google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page). So the merits of doing SEO are clear and already established, but how often should one be doing SEO? The answer is often, quite often actually! SEO  is not something that works well when only done once and left to go stale. It needs to be done regularly as to keep it fresh and relevant. SEO is forever changing and not something that can just simply be done correctly, to keep up with competition you really need to keep up with your SEO therefore true SEO is forever an ongoing and ever changing process. Google is frequently changing its algorithms, which means that what worked a few months ago might not work anymore.  To combat this effectively you should be able to check, tweak, revise and adapt your SEO as often as necessary. Efficiently revising and freshening up your SEO on a regular basis can be done by doing the following:
  • Changing your Keywords
The keywords that are used by your target demographic won’t always stay the same so when you notice a change in the keywords that are popular you should update the keywords that you are incorporating on your website to match these which will then hopefully lead to an increase in your SEO performance.
  • Updating your SEO Meta Title and SEO Meta Descriptions to incorporate new keywords
When you are doing the previous point mentioned of updating the keywords that are incorporated throughout your website one of the main places where you will be incorporating these new keywords is through your SEO meta title and SEO meta description as well as in the content, old and new when you refresh it.
  • Freshening up old content
As mentioned above refreshing the content is one of the ways you can incorporate your keywords and this is great because it also gives you another opportunity to rework your content putting a new spin on it and hopefully improving it further by incorporating your new chosen keywords. This will also be seen by google as new “fresh” content so it will show that your website is still live and publishing new content which will aid you when it comes to ranking.
  • Amending bad back-links and creating new correct ones
When you are refreshing the actual word content you can also use it as an opportunity to review what back-links you have put in place. This is words in your text which when clicked on will redirect you to another page on the website. By reviewing the existing ones you can make sure that they are still linking correctly, this is important because if for whatever reason you had decided to delete a page that was being linked to but not remove the link to it then you would be left with a bad link which brings the user nowhere when clicked on, this will reflect badly for your SEO and your website will suffer for it. When you are happy that you have no bad links in place you can then look at opportunities for where you could possibly link to further by creating new back-links to drive traffic to where you wish to increase chances of conversions. Revisiting your SEO strategy and refreshing it shouldn’t be seen as a regular chore but rather as a fresh new opportunity every time to further improve your website’s SEO performance which can help lead to a more profitable and successful website. To find out more about excellent tools and SEO strategies to use to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Common SEO mistakes to avoid making!

seo mistakes image
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 16, 2018
SEO when implemented correctly can work wonders for a website. However as there are many different ways of doing SEO many people can fall prey to making some common mistakes. Below we have outlined the most common mistakes that people make when implementing SEO: Not doing SEO on a continuous basis Websites who fail to do SEO on a continuous basis are making a mistake as SEO is simply not a one and done deal. It works best when SEO is done on a regular basis either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. This is because the content is not becoming stale as you are changing and updating it regularly as part of your SEO strategy. SEO strategies work best when they are informed by the analytical data that can be mined from google analytics which when used appropriately can help guide you as to what terms and phrases you target for on a regular basis. Abusing link building While it’s true that link building is great for website’s SEO it’s definitely a case where quality over quantity rings true as having too many links especially ones that are unnecessary would be classified as an SEO mistake. You should only have links where it naturally makes sense and never duplicate links on one page numerously as this will be penalized by google. Trying to focus too much on PPC over organic SEO PPC (Pay per click) methods can be tempting as they can provide quick results but obviously this is for a price. The price being that the success from PPC will only last as long as your budget does. For this reason Organic SEO becomes so important as while it takes longer to get results, it does provide you with more real sustainable results that you can build a future on. Organic SEO allows a site to stand on its own two feet. Paying attention consistently to PPC over doing organic SEO is a huge SEO mistake. Unrealistic expectations Your website will not rank number one on google a day after you have done the SEO. It simply does not happen that way. There is no way to cheat Google’s system so that you can fast track yourself to number one. The best way to get there is to do your SEO as best as possible throughout the website and continuously work and improve upon it. Do that and you will eventually see results. If you expect it to rank straight away after doing SEO once then you are making another SEO mistake. Not incorporating keywords effectively Effectively incorporating keywords into your meta title and meta description is how best to correctly implement SEO in today’s market as the days of keywords and particularly keyword stuffing are long gone. By not using the opportunities presented by SEO titles and descriptions and general website content to incorporate the keywords and phrases you wish to target for you are making an SEO mistake. If you can avoid making these mistakes when doing SEO then your chances of ranking will have gone up drastically. To find out more about excellent tools and SEO strategies to use to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

SEO Audit – Why you should do one!

SEO AUDIT
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 8, 2018
SEO Audits are a type of review which is done of your website that focuses on discovering the strengths and weaknesses of your website from an overall SEO perspective. SEO Audits when done correctly can provide you with valuable information such as the following:
  • Gives you an insight into the technical health of your website
  • Provides you with data which will help to inform your planning when it comes to developing SEO strategies
  • Helps you spot issues to resolve which will aid towards generating a better overall user experience for visitors to the website
  • Helps to identify areas for improvement that will lead to improving your search visibility on Google
To compile a complete, thorough and accurate SEO Audit report one would usually focus around examining three key areas which would be Technical SEO, On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. Technical SEO is the part of the audit from which the information gained will actually help you to find out just how healthy your website is overall from a technical point of view. The Technical SEO aspect of the audit can also help you to make improvements to the website as while doing it you can end up discovering issues that need to be rectified such as crawl issues etc.. On-Page SEO is the part of the audit where you review how you can further optimize content that is visible on the pages of your website. This literally means everything that you can see on a page on your website so images and text. The information gained from the On-Page SEO aspect of the audit provides us with really helpful information such as information regarding keywords like which keywords you are ranking for. By using this information gained from your in-depth keyword research you can use it to inform your strategy in the future when it comes to incorporating keywords into future content. Off-Page SEO is the part of the audit which allows us to review how off-site activities can be improved such as link building, anchor text etc.. Off-page SEO primarily is about SEO which can be done outside of your website by you elsewhere on the internet to improve your presence online. Any effective SEO strategy for your website should include at least one element which addresses off-site activities. Strategies such as when you reach out to other websites to develop link building is a perfect example of an off page SEO strategy one can take. Doing an SEO Audit is something that is a must do for any website who wishes to further enhance and improve their business through using the information gained to develop a robust strategy. By clearly discovering and identifying problems one can form a strategy of actionable steps to take which can help place your business on a positive trajectory which will lead to long-term growth. It’s in your interest to do an SEO Audit today! To find out more about excellent tools and strategies to use to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon

Evergreen Content

Evergreen Content
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 2, 2018
Evergreen content refers to content that stays relevant all year. It’s forever “green” and fresh. Most content is fresh and popular for a short time after being initially posted and then goes stale becoming less and less popular until it fades into obscurity. Evergreen content by its very nature is the very opposite of this as it stays fresh and relevant all the time. Having evergreen content is great for websites as it keeps visitors consistently coming to the site as they are interacting and clicking on the content available on your website, this in turn is great for their ranking on google as google will look favourably upon them when indexing the website. You’re probably thinking “Evergreen content sounds great how do I get it?”, well it can be achieved in a number of ways. The best written evergreen content is content which can appeal to as many different types of readers as possible. Content such as how to guides, tips, case studies etc.. will always be relevant info no matter the date published and they also have the ability of appealing to many different people who normally wouldn’t consume and access the same content as each other. Basically at its core evergreen content is content you have published which contains information that won’t go out of date and cease to be relevant at any time. To ensure that your content is of an evergreen nature make sure that it achieves the following three points:
    • Your content not only provides readers with advice and insight but it also gives them actionable information that they can take with them and put to use.
    • Your content is easy to understand by all audience. Even if the subject matter is of a complex nature your content needs to break it down and make it simple enough so any and all customers can understand it. Keep the tone and style simple and friendly so it’s inviting to the readers.
    • Your content is easy to access. If you wish for this content to be accessible make it easy to find. If it’s not on the landing page perhaps have a link to it and also share it through your social media to encourage more users to engage with your evergreen content and visit your website.
If your content can achieve these points then it’s well on its way to being evergreen and will be in a position to get you clicks and views all year round! To find out more about excellent tools and strategies to use to improve your website Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles. facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon Instagram icon Google+ icon