Welcome back to our monthly blog about improving your small business’s Local Seo. If you’re in the Miami area and running a small business one of the keys to improving your online presence is to ensure that your website pages load quickly and effectively when a potential customer accesses your website. Using tools like plugins can help you speed up your website for your users, but you can also add location tags that will help customers find your faster to start with. There are several ways to improve your page speed, and today we are going to go over topics including image optimizations, content loading, geotagging, and plugins, breaking each down into easy to understand sections.
Image Optimizations
Have you ever visited a website that loaded so slowly that you just gave up and went somewhere else? Often this lag is caused by images. High-quality images contain a lot of data that has to get sent to your customer’s device, which causes the page to load slowly (or not at all.) If you notice that your website has a few pages that aren’t loading as quickly as you’d like, it is a great idea to see if that page has one or more images. Luckily, it is possible to reduce the size of these images without making your beautiful photos and graphics looks blurry or distorted. One easy way to do this is just to search online for “Image Optimizer for Web.” As a general rule of thumb, try to avoid resizing images to less than 72 dpi. This number, called resolution, refers to the number of pixels in the image and matches the resolution most screens use. Sticking to 72 dpi or higher will protect the quality of images without making your pages lag.
Content Loading
Another way to optimize the performance of your website is to consider content loading. One of content loading, called Selective Content Loading (or SCL for short) is a technique that first loads the main page of the website, and then each additional “chunk” of information as it is needed. SCL can be really useful if your customer might have an unreliable wireless connection (for example, rural customers or folks who mostly access your website from their phones,) or if you have several smaller pieces of content on one page that users scroll through to see (like a shop page or a social media feed.) Adding SCL to your website can be done using a plugin, but if you have questions or concerns about how effective it might be for your website, it is always a good idea to get in touch with eSasson Studios to get more information or help with implementation.
Geo-Tagging
You might have never heard of geotagging, but you have definitely encountered it online. Geotagging is the process of connecting the information to a physical location somewhere in the world. Adding a geotag sometimes inserts a map for the user, but more importantly, it adds machine-readable information to your website, which adds to a website’s searchability. Because geotagging links you (and your products or services) to the neighborhood you work in, it is a great tool for improving your Local Seo. Often, the geotagging uses either Google Maps API or OpenStreetMaps, two location databases, to insert a map or location. One great example of geotagging is adding a Google map of your location to the about page on your website. Because this can be useful to your customers, they won’t even notice that it’s simultaneously ranking your website higher in local search results. If you’re using a WordPress website, adding geotags to posts is pretty simple; just go over to the “more options” tab along the side of the post editor and add your location. Most content management systems will have similar features but if yours doesn’t provide the option or you want to get more technical, adding geotags can be as easy as finding the right plugin.
Plugins
Plugins, pieces of software that can modularly be added to a website, are a great way to easily add functions and features to your website. As we’ve just discussed, using a plugin is one way to add geotags to your website. Plugins can also be powerful tools for adding forms, security features and even streamlining image optimization. If you’re using a WordPress website, adding plugins is pretty simple. First, just find the plugin you’d like to install and follow the instructions on the page for installation. (To find a WordPress plugin, head over to their website and choose “Plugins” from the “Features” tab.) If you find that you’re having any trouble, feel free to contact eSasson Studios today to get help finding and installing the best tool to suit your needs.
Optimizing the images on your website, considering the techniques you use to load pages, and adding geotags are all great ways to improve the speed with which customers find use your website, improving your online visibility and profitability. Using plugins makes these changes easier to implement too. If you find that you have more questions or need a little bit of help, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at eSasson Studios.
