Search Engine Optimisation, you've probably heard SEO referred to often. It may be a confusing concept to wrap your head around, but there are some SEO fundamentals that can be mastered relatively easily. This optimisation guide will show you how to add the O in SEO on your website.
Important Optimisations That Will Help Your SEO
Optimise Your Photos
Photos can add load time to your website, as well as leave blanks that Google can't understand unless you have added the right sort of meta data to them. Here are some ways to optimise your photos to ensure they work FOR you not AGAINST you.
Optimise your photos before loading them onto your site:
- Resize them to the size used by your site (usually below 1200px);
- Save as a jpeg file (a lightweight file type);
- And name them correctly ("white-bus-newcastle.jpg" instead of "IMG2046.jpg")
- Keep your files under 200kb if possible
If you have a lot of photos already on your site, use a plugin like [Smush](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/) to apply compression to files already onsite
- Having Smush or any other photo compression / lazy loader will ensure that future uploads are compressed, and that pages will load only as people scroll, which speeds up your site
Add ALT text to all your photographs
- When you add photos, it's important to add ALT text to each image. Input a brief description of what is in the photo - e.g. "Woman and toddler feed the birds in Hyde Park"
- ALT text is used by screen readers for users suffering from blindness, so from an accessibility stand point it is very important.
- This is also useful information for search engines as it correlates what the article is about with the content of the photos
- You get bonus points by naturally including keywords and phrases into the ALT text - e.g. If your key phrase is "Carpet fitters in Newcastle", then make sure you include a photo and alt text such as "Four carpet fitters completing a job in a house in Newcastle".
We can help: If you need help with your plugins or optimising your images, get in touch to discuss your needs.
Optimise For Mobile
Did you know that around half of all search traffic comes from mobile devices? That's a huge chunk of clientele that you may miss out on if your site isn't optimised for mobiles. If you are working with us to design your site, we will build you a responsive site that looks as great on mobile as it does on a desktop.
If you are building your site yourself, be sure to choose a theme that is mobile responsive. Address any errors in Google Search Console if they arise.
Optimise For Speed
You might ask "What does speed have to do with SEO?" It all comes down to user experience. If users receive server errors or slow load times, they won't stay on your site. You want to ensure that you are answering the questions your potential customers have, and ensure that they can get to that information as quickly and easily as possible.
We can help: Our technical team can make all the system changes, caching and speed optimisation changes needed to have your site running clean and fast.
