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In today’s digital landscape, the relationship between social media and search engine optimisation (SEO) has become more intertwined. Although social media platforms don’t impact search engine rankings directly, they do play a significant role by driving traffic to your website, improving brand awareness and recognition, influencing search engine algorithms and more. This article takes a closer look at the impact social media has on SEO and how it’s critical for businesses looking to enhance their online presence and reach their target market.

In today’s digital landscape, the relationship between SEO and social media has become more intertwined. Although social media platforms don’t impact search engine rankings directly, they do play a significant role by driving traffic to your website, improving brand awareness and recognition, influencing search engine algorithms and more.

This article takes a closer look at social media impact on SEO and how it’s critical for businesses looking to enhance their online presence and reach their target market.

Social signals and SEO: how they impact search engine rankings

While comments, shares, and likes on platforms such as Facebook are not direct ranking factors according to Google, they play a crucial role in how social media helps SEO. For instance, when your social content receives a lot of comments and shares, it indicates to search engines that your content is relevant and engaging, emphasizing the importance of social signals for SEO. The result over time is higher rankings and increased visibility.

Another thing to note is that social profiles appear in search results. This gives your business even more opportunity to be found, showcase your brand and attract free organic traffic to your social content and website.

Using social media to increase brand visibility and build authority

Many social media platforms are powerful tools for increasing brand visibility, as well as building authority for your website, demonstrating how SEO and social media work together. Both of these are important for any SEO strategy. Every time you share valuable content and engage with your followers, your business establishes itself as a thought leader and a trusted source of reliable information. This is even further enhanced if you participate in industry conversations taking place on social channels (LinkedIn as an example) as part of your social media strategy. Potential results of this social media activity are backlinks and brand mentions, both of which can influence search engine rankings.

Social media drives traffic to your website

So much of the internet is interlinked. One path leads to another. Your social media accounts act as pathways to your website, driving traffic to your content, product listings, latest offers, services and so on.

By sharing links to your content on social media, you can attract users to your site who may not have found it otherwise. The result is increased engagement, users spending more time on your site and, ultimately, improved search engine rankings. By now you’re clearly starting to see what a crucial role social media plays in SEO.

Social sharing and backlinks

The more active your business is on social media channels, the more people you’ll reach who will interact with your website’s content. This leads to people sharing your content on their social channels or even linking to your posts and pages in their blogs. These valuable backlinks will elevate your website in the search results. The more your content is shared, the more visible it becomes. 

When you post on your social media accounts, always encourage people to share your posts and your website’s content. Sometimes people just need a subtle prompt to do so.

Social listening and user engagement

Social media provides your business with a unique opportunity to listen to your audience and engage with them in real-time. When you monitor conversations taking place on social media, you can gain insights into what makes your customers (and potential customers) tick. For instance, you’ll discover more about their interests, preferences and behaviours.

This information is invaluable and can be used to improve products and services, create new content strategies, enhance the user experience and more, all of which positively impact your SEO.

Tips for leveraging your social media for SEO

To optimize your social media presence for better SEO results, follow these key social media SEO tips:

• Always share content that’s of high quality, and content that’s relevant to your audience and brand
• Optimise your social media profiles with relevant keywords and craft a clear description of your brand
• Engage with your followers. Respond to comments and messages expediently
• When posting, add relevant keywords and hashtags. These make your posts more discoverable
• Share your content on social media to build backlinks, encouraging others to link back to your site

Wrapping up

To sum up: how does social media affect SEO? Although social media doesn’t directly impact search engine rankings, it certainly plays a pivotal role in SEO. Take advantage of social media to share content, drive traffic, increase brand awareness, enhance your online presence and improve search engine rankings.

Contact our team of SEO experts at Known in Norfolk. We’ll collaborate with you to devise an SEO strategy that will see your website rise up the rankings and outperform the competition.

One of the primary considerations when building a website is to decide what colour scheme to go with. While the website needs to be user-friendly, its design and appearance also matter a lot. You cannot just pick any random colour scheme. It should match your brand voice and send out a message out loud. Poor colour choice can negatively affect your website’s overall usability.

You would want the users to engage with your site and its content. Any professional web designer will tell you that colour communicates on an emotional level. A good colour scheme can impact how users interpret what they see. Most importantly, it can have a positive influence on their vision of your brand in general. Poor colour choices that clash with visuals may lead users to leave your website instantly and try out other sites. Now, you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

With that in mind, we have created this post where we will share some tips regarding how to choose the right colour theme for your web design. So, keep on reading.

What does colour mean for a website?

Before you start looking for colours, you are advised to know colour psychology basics. It will help you in the long run when you design different websites. The colours for brand identity design influence moods and emotions, and are more than just personal preferences. If you like the red colour, it doesn’t mean that you should also create your website with a red-coloured theme. You can, but it should do justice to your brand identity. Please note that colours have the power to convey the right message about your brand and business right away.

Primarily, there are three different colour schemes:

1. Warm colours – yellow, orange, red, pink
2. Cool colours – purple, blue, green
3. Neutral colours – black, gray, brown

Each colour conveys a different message. For example, neutral colours like gray depict intelligence, longevity, modernity, patience, wisdom, and respect. And warm colours like red depicts intensity, love, strength, passion, emotion, and activeness.

When a person sees a colour, it automatically conveys a message into his/her subconscious mind that what this colour represents. So, a colour scheme not only acts as a key function to create desire, attract attention, and drive conversions but also makes the user familiarize with the brand so much so that they can tell if it is your brand without seeing the name or logo.

Apart from using colours to convey different messages, brands often use certain colour trends to create recognition. These are odd colour combinations that easily get etched in a user’s mind. For example, McDonald’s has a yellow and red combination, CNN has black, white, and red, and luxury brands pack their products in black.

Reasons your colour Choice is so important

• colours can become a memorable part of your brand – Coca Cola’s red shade is a great example
• Complementary colours are pleasing to the eye as it won’t distract users from the website content
• Contrasting colours can make key elements stand out – CTAs (call to actions) can use bold colours to grab the attention of the users
• The right colour scheme can help increase readability

When you go through the logos and websites of these prominent brands, you’ll get an idea of how to use the right colour scheme for your website and brand. Also, learn about what different colours depict and mean so that you can resonate with your brand voice with the right colour choice.

Quick Tips to Choose a Starting colour

The biggest hurdle when deciding a colour scheme for your website design is choosing a starting or primary colour. The primary colour you choose will define your brand in the future. Here is what you need to consider:

• Use what you have – If you have a logo with an established colour, it will be your primary colour. Work around to get the right colour combination.
• Using competitors’ colours is a big NO – no matter what, never use the same colour palette as your competitors. The first thing you should do is determine what colour palettes your competitors are using and eliminate them from your colour palette. Then, start with what you have left.
• Think about your audience – your audience will play a vital role in deciding the right colour scheme for your website. For example, the colours of a website for a children’s apparel store would be totally different from the colours of a nursing home. Think about who will access your website regularly and how you want them to feel – serious, excited, hopeful, etc.
• Avoid being a typical stereotype – what many web designers do is if they are designing a website for girls, they will use the colour’ pink.’ You don’t have to do that. You cannot always gain credibility by using clichés.

Developing Tints and Shades

Once you have got your primary or starting colour, it’s time to work on the colour scheme. Take your primary colour and combine it with other colours. Make sure that your primary colour remains dominant. So, choose accordingly. When choosing a base colour for shades and tints, you have to keep in mind your primary colour. But, it doesn’t always have to match in any way. Even odd combinations will work if you can combine them intelligently and strategically. Nevertheless, always use the primary colour for buttons, CTAs, and web components that require users to take action.

How Many colours Should My Website Have?

One of the biggest mistakes that most beginner designers make is they end up using several colours. You are advised not to have more than two or three colour combinations. Two is perfect – primary and base. You can include a third colour if the brand, service, or voice demands it. But not more than this. It is a big blunder. If you want to make your website colourful, instead of adding more and more colours, you can consider high-quality photographs and infographics. Set the tone and contrast of the photos according to the tone of the primary and base colours. This is a start. You can always experiment with colours until

Bespoke website design or an off-the-shelf template? In this post we take a look at why choosing a customised website is a savvy move for your business.

Seventy five per cent of consumers judge a company’s credibility by its website. Which means your site has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders.

It has to make customers believe in your brand – and the products and services you offer.

The very best websites do this through a combination of eye-catching design, flawless functionality and exceptional user experience.

So what’s the best way to incorporate these essentials into your website?

When you first build a site you have two primary options: create a DIY website using a template builder or choose bespoke website design.

Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by bespoke website design – and some of the reasons why we think it’s the best choice for any business.

What is bespoke website design?

Bespoke website design involves a web design team building a custom website from scratch. They’ll use a ton of complicated code to create something completely unique.

But not all websites are made in this way.

Some websites are built using templates, provided by companies like Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and ThemeForest.

You can use these free and paid templates to create a DIY website. Or hire a designer to edit a template for you.

We’ll be honest. Template websites are quicker, easier and cheaper to build. So why would you bother forking out for bespoke website design instead?

7 benefits of bespoke website design

There’s a bunch of great reasons why bespoke website design is well worth the money.

Your website is completely unique

The best templates are popular. Which means you’ll see the same designs popping up all over the web.

Sure, you can edit templates to a certain extent. You can switch colours around, add your company logo and upload your own images.

But your design is boxed in by the limitations of each template. You don’t get free rein to change every single element on a webpage.

This means template-based websites tend to look a bit… samey.

And this is a problem that bespoke website design can help you to overcome.

A custom website is coded from scratch. Which means anything and everything is possible.

You get a website that feels 100% yours – tailored to reflect your branding, your customers and your requirements.

This helps your company website to stand out from the millions of others on the web, and ensures you stick in the mind of consumers.

It has all of the functionality you need

An out-of-the-box template doesn’t necessarily offer the website functionality you want to incorporate.

You may find it difficult to build a truly mobile responsive website. Or to include a customised sign up form. Or to create an ecommerce layout that works for your products.

Bespoke website design can do all of the above – and then some.

It’s speedy

One of the ways you can add functionality to a template-based website is by downloading plugins and extensions.

But these add-ons can cause problems. They lead to website “bloat”. They aren’t always compatible with one another. And they’re famed for slowing your website down.

A bespoke website doesn’t rely on plugins to the same extent. So you have lean, clean code that makes your website super quick to load.

It’s optimised for conversions

Websites with great UX guide users on a clear customer journey.

Users understand what your website is about within seconds of landing on the page. They find it easy to navigate around your site. And they instinctively know where they should click next.

It’s much easier to achieve this type of UX when you opt for a bespoke website. That’s because you get greater flexibility and can craft a user experience that works for your users.

You can place calls to action at the points where they stand to make the most impact.

And you can use your knowledge of customer behaviour and your product/service offering, to create a clear and effective path to conversion.

It’s future-proof

Where do you see your business in two years’ time? Or five? Or ten?

Wherever you plan to take your business, a great website will be able to scale with you. This is something you can take for granted with a bespoke website.

You’re not confined by the limitations of a template that once fit your business – but no longer does.

Instead, with the right coding expertise you can easily adapt your custom website to meet business needs in the here and now.

Another reason why bespoke web design is good for the long term?

Your site is easy to update and maintain. Because the back end of your website isn’t populated by a bunch of messy plug-ins.

It’s built with SEO in mind

• Great user experience? Tick.
• Fast loading times? Tick.
• Code that Google can trawl with ease? Tick.

Google likes sites that load quickly, that are well-maintained and that offer a safe and satisfying experience for users.

With a custom website you get to tick all of these boxes, which means more effective SEO.

As long as you’re targeting the right keywords and including optimised content, your site won’t hold you back from reaching those SERP top spots.

It drives sales

Hiring a bespoke website design team is undoubtedly more expensive than choosing the DIY template route.

But in the long-term, it’s often the more cost-effective option.

That’s because you end up with a website that looks professional, communicates your brand personality and offers an exceptional user experience.

You’ll also be getting more organic traffic because your SEO is on point.

A custom website increases your company credibility – and guides users to buy, download or get in touch. This means you’ll turn more of your website visitors into loyal customers.

Want a bespoke website for your business?

There are plenty of templates available if you want to create your own DIY website. But if you’d prefer to go down the bespoke route, Known in Norfolk can help.

With our bespoke website design, development, branding and ecommerce services, you can have a company website that does it all.

How do we work?

We start by sitting down with a coffee and getting to know absolutely everything about you and your business.

Want to schedule a chat with one of our friendly web design pros? Then get in touch today!

Any business that sits at the top of SERPs understands the importance of SEO website design. Along with designers and developers, these top spot champs created a company website that delights users and meets the requirements of search engines, like Google.

But what is SEO website design? And what elements does an SEO friendly website have to include?

What is SEO website design?

SEO website design means designing and developing a site so that it appears high up in search engine results.

By understanding SEO principles and incorporating them into the design and development of a website, you provide the best possible basis for good website ranking.

Unfortunately for us, Google (and we talk about Google because around 97% of all searches in the UK are made on this search engine) doesn’t reveal exactly what it’s looking for. There’s no definitive SEO recipe to follow.

However, the info that Google does share, plus the trial and error of web designers and developers the world over, tell us that there are three key elements to all good SEO website designs.

All websites should have:

• A technically sound structure
• An excellent user experience
• Content crafted around the things that your customers actually search for

Ticking all of these boxes is tricky if you’re trying to build a DIY website. Or if you rely on readymade website templates.

But, because there is so much to gain from an SEO friendly website, it really is worth going the extra mile

Why bother with SEO web design?

Anyone who has ever had a website ranking in the top position in search results will tell you that it offers a lot of benefit for your business.

More organic traffic

Do you ever scroll past the first page of Google search results? Nope? Well, you’re in good company. Because very few people do.

In fact, according to Moz research, 71% of search traffic clicks go to first page results (with extra benefits if you feature in the top three spots).

If you nab one of those top spots, thanks to sound SEO web design, you increase visibility and clicks. So your website gets more organic traffic.

Spend less on marketing

A high level of organic traffic means you have to spend less money attracting people to your website.

Because you have a high Google page rank for a variety of keywords, it’ll be easy for potential customers to find you.

Whilst paid ads may still feature as part of your marketing mix, you can rely on them less heavily. Your website SEO will do lots of the hard work for you – both now and into the future.

Provide a better user experience

Because good SEO web design is so closely linked to user experience, you don’t tend to get one without the other.

So why is a good user experience so vital for your company?

Firstly, it gives a great impression of your brand. Second, it means users can navigate your site with ease – and know where you want them to click next.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it improves conversion rates. Because there are no points of friction getting in the way of a sale or a sign up.

Want to get SEO website design working for you and your business? Then get in touch with the team at Knowninnorfolk to discuss a redesign or a brand new website.

What do Top Gun’s Maverick, a famous cartoon Roadrunner and your average website user have in common?

A relentless need for speed.

In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the ideal website speed – and how to increase website speed if yours is too slow.

What is the ideal website speed?

The best websites are fast ­­– across all devices. Ideally, your website should load within three seconds. Running an ecommerce site? Then a super speedy two seconds is your benchmark.

Many websites fall short of this figure, particularly on mobile devices. But don’t take that as an excuse to follow suit.

It’s well worth trying to achieve site speeds of 2-3 seconds. By making your website leaner and more agile than the majority, there are lots of benefits to be gained.

Why website loading speed could make or break your business

So why is website load time so important? Because it affects your website – and therefore your business – in a couple of significant ways.

Bounce rate

The longer your site takes to load, the higher your bounce rate. That’s the proportion of visitors who leave your website after only viewing one page.

The seconds count. A site that loads in two seconds tends to have a bounce rate of around 6%. Leave your users waiting for five seconds and that bounce rate jumps to 38%.

Mobile users have even higher expectations. According to Google research, 53% of visits are abandoned if a page takes more than three seconds to load.

So a slow loading site gets fewer engaged visitors.

Conversions

Amazon famously said that a one second delay in their site speed would cost the company $1.6 billion per year in sales.

And, according to Portent, sites that load within one second have a 3x better conversion rate than sites that take five seconds to load.

The upshot? Your website loading speed could be seriously affecting your ecommerce conversion rate and your bottom line.

User experience (UX)

A survey conducted by Unbounce found that slow load times negatively impact a consumer’s willingness to buy and the likelihood that a consumer will return to a site.

Nearly 12% of survey respondents said they’d be likely to tell a friend about a slow website experience.

User experience is really important if you’re looking to develop user loyalty to either your product or brand. And slow website speeds could be getting in the way of a long-term customer relationship.

SEO

Great UX. An impressive conversion rate. Low bounce rate. A speedy website ticks several important SEO boxes.

What’s more, Google lists site speed as one of its ranking factors. Simply put, a slow loading site gets less visibility in search engine result pages (SERPS).

Backlinko research backs this up. They looked at 11.8 million Google search results and found that the average page loading speed for a result on the first page of SERPs was just 1.65 seconds.

How to do a website speed test

So how do you know if your website is fast enough?

The easiest way to assess website load time is to do a website speed test. And there are lots of free page speed tools available online, including one from Google.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights gives you a ton of useful info about site speed and performance. Simply enter your URL and click Analyze to see how your site is doing.

Any results in green are good. Amber indicates that improvements are needed. And red results need immediate attention.

You’ll get a green, amber or red rating for a range of site speed metrics. Here’s what all of that complex PageSpeed Insights terminology means.

• First contentful paint (FCP): The time it takes for the first text or image to load.
• Largest contentful pain (LCP): The time it takes for the largest webpage element to finish rendering and become usable for website visitors.
• First input delay (FID): How long it takes for your browser to respond following a user’s first interaction with the page.
• Cumulative layout shift (CLS): How much the content shifts during loading. The more static the page, the better.
• Time to first byte (TTFB): As its name suggests, the time it takes for a browser to receive the first byte of data from a server.
• Total blocking time: The total amount of time between FCP and full interactivity.
• Speed index: How long it takes for your webpage content to appear.

That’s all pretty complex information. But if you stick to the green-amber-red system, you’ll get a pretty good idea of whether your site is meeting user expectations.

You can tab between desktop and mobile versions of your site to view performance for each. Then scroll down to see recommendations from Google that will help you increase site speed.

Or just jump straight to our recommendations below.

8 ways to increase website speed

Too many reds and not enough greens? Then take a look at the various ways you can speed up your site.

1. Optimise images

You should always use high-quality images on your website. But large images can lead to slow website loading speeds. That’s why it’s important to compress and optimise any images you use.

By compressing images, changing their file format and enabling lazy loading (which means your images will only load when they are needed), you can really speed things up.

So how do you do this?

You can get WordPress plugins, like Converter for Media, that automatically compress uploaded images for you. This particular plugin supports WebP images in the free version and higher quality AVIF images in the paid-for pro version.

Alternatively, you can compress images manually by using a free service such as TinyPNG or Squoosh.

2. Consider switching hosting providers

The website hosting provider you choose has a big impact on the speed of your site. There are lots of different hosting options to choose from including:

• Shared hosting – where you share disk space and RAM with other sites using the server
• Virtual private server (VPS) hosting – where you share a server with other websites but get your own dedicated part of it
• Dedicated server – your very own server that you don’t have to share

Shared hosting is the cheapest option but also the slowest. Having a dedicated server is much more expensive but you get guaranteed site speeds.

Most businesses don’t have the budget to set up their own dedicated server. So if you’re choosing between cheaper, non-dedicated hosting options, remember that some are better than others.

A general rule of thumb? If you skimp on hosting you’re unlikely to get decent site speeds. Invest in a hosting provider that prioritises website speed and performance for the best results.

Here at Radical Web Design, we like to recommend SiteGround hosting. We think these guys offer an excellent cost/performance balance.

3. Minify code

When search engines find it easy to read your CSS, JavaScript and HTML code, your website loads faster.

Minifying this code means removing any spaces, characters, elements or comments that aren’t needed. This then reduces the size of your files and makes combining them much easier.

A little code spring clean could help to speed up page load time. And there are various ways to approach the minification process.

Ask a web developer to take a look. Or use a website plugin that will do all of the hard work for you.

4. Get rid of unnecessary plugins

Website plugins offer lots of great functionality. But add too many of them to your site and you may see website speeds start to suffer.

So try to reduce the number of plugins that your site uses. Start by deactivating and deleting any that you no longer use.

Also, check for any plugins with overlapping functionality. It may be that one plugin can do the job of two.

And if you’re worried that one particular plugin is the primary culprit for your slow site speeds, do a little experiment. Try deactivating it. Then see whether your scores in PageSpeed Insights have improved.

If a single plugin is making a big difference to your website speed, it may be time to find another solution.

Remember those early smartphone days when desktop websites were squeezed onto teeny tiny screens? So you had to zoom in to read any of the text? And you felt like an elephant wearing boxing gloves every time you tried to click a button?

Thankfully, mobile friendly website design rescued us from painful smartphone browsing. And now the experience is much more enjoyable and intuitive. That’s because, these days, lots of websites use responsive web design.

So what does responsive web design look like? How does it compare to adaptive website design? And why is responsive design important for a business website?

What is responsive web design?

Responsive web design means creating a single website that automatically responds and resizes to any device screen.

This helps to ensure an optimal user experience, no matter which device a person is using when they view your website.

A responsive website doesn’t just switch between desktop, tablet and smartphone versions. It is built to scale intelligently, based upon the size and resolution of any given screen.

Responsive web design vs adaptive web design

Back in the day, mobile friendly websites were set up as a separate, additional site. Remember those m.example.com URLs?

Now, most websites are set up as one of two options: responsive or adaptive web design. So what’s the difference?

Adaptive website design uses templates. Different templates (usually around six of them) are created for different device screens.

It’s a best-fit approach. Website developers set parameters. And devices that fall within each parameter are served a different website template version.

Adaptive website design gives you complete control over the design for each screen size. But it involves a lot of work.

Each template has to be developed, designed, maintained and optimised for SEO on an individual basis. And you have to create new templates when new technology is released.

Which is why the majority of new websites now use responsive website design.

Why is responsive design important?

Wondering whether you need to make your site more mobile responsive? Here are all of the reasons why responsive design is so important.

It’s what users want

According to the most recent stats, around 60% of global web traffic now comes through mobile phones. And in the UK, people are as likely to use their smartphone as their desktop computer or laptop when heading online.

With people accessing websites via desktops, tablets, smartphones and even their smart TVs, websites have to work well across all devices.

It offers better UX

Today’s website users are picky. They expect a great user experience (UX). In fact, 88% of online shoppers said they wouldn’t return to a website once they’d had a poor experience.

Responsive website design ensures the best possible UX across all devices. So your website visitors never have to put up with slow, clunky or confusing pages.

And if they choose to visit your site using their smartphone one day, and their laptop the next, they can always count on the same, seamless experience.

This helps consumers to trust your company. It encourages them to revisit and recommend your website. Which translates into more traffic, more leads and more sales.

Improved conversion rates

Responsive sites offer good UX. That means that, whatever the device, a user finds it easy to navigate your site.

They know how to find the information they need. High quality image and video comes as standard. And it’s clear where they should click next.

This makes it much more likely that your users will make it through your sales funnel – and to your checkout page. A responsive site makes it easy for users to travel this customer journey, and it helps to improve your conversion rates as a result.

Easier SEO

Google uses the mobile version of your site to decide how to rank and index your website. Just take a look at this mobile-first indexing info.

This means that a responsive website that provides the best possible experience for users is more likely to feature on the first page of search results. Create a fast and responsive website, and more consumers will discover it.

Longevity

A responsive website adapts to any screen size. And with new devices making their way onto the market all the time, responsive design is a way to future-proof your website.

A responsive site isn’t limited by a set of predetermined templates. Instead, it’s able to adapt to whatever the tech world throws at it next – even devices that are yet to be invented.

How responsive website design works

Work with a responsive web design agency and they’ll incorporate all of the following when creating your new website.

A fluid grid

Responsive websites are often described as fluid. And it’s a useful image to keep in mind. When your website is fluid, it can flow to fit any device screen.

This is possible because – instead of using fixed numbers to indicate the size and spacing of web page elements – responsive design uses percentages.

Elements occupy the same percentage of space, no matter how big or small the screen.

Breakpoints

For example, when comparing your website on a large and small laptop screen, you’ll see the same content, in the same layout, scaled to fit the screen.

However, when a user views your site from a smartphone, a breakpoint dictates a different layout – one that is better suited to the small screen size. For instance, you may see webpage content presented in one column, rather than in two or three.

By including a number of breakpoints in your responsive website development, you make sure that your website looks amazing on every screen size and resolution.

A mobile-first approach

A responsive web design agency is likely to take a mobile-first approach to your website.

Mobile-first design means starting with a website layout that looks good and works well on a small smartphone screen. Then scaling things up to fit a bigger screen.

This encourages minimalistic design. And it helps to prevent too much information being crammed into too small a space.

Layout hierarchy

A responsive website serves the same website version to users regardless of their device. Content is simply adapted and rearranged to ensure the same great user experience.

To do this effectively, designers will consider layout hierarchy. This means ensuring that any key messages are as prominent on one device as another.

So calls to action, eye-catching visuals and essential navigation functions are always positioned in all the right places.

Interaction

The way users interact with a website varies depending upon the device they’re using.

Smartphone users like to swipe through a carousel of images. Or get diverted to a call screen when they click on your phone number. Or use a hamburger menu icon to access your navigation options.

Desktop users, on the other hand, interact with your website in the old-fashioned way – by moving and clicking a mouse. They can cope with more drop down menu options. And there’s the option for hover text and cursor-triggered animation.

The best responsive web design takes these interaction needs, expectations and preferences into account. Then develops interactive elements that work across all devices.

Ready to delight your users with responsive web design?

Responsive website design is incredibly important for a business website. It provides your users with the ultimate mobile friendly website experience.

Website visitors enjoy the same fast loading speeds, top-notch content and seamless UX across all devices. And you get improved SEO, better organic traffic and more conversions.

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In digital marketing, keywords are terms and phrases people use to search for something on the internet, whether it be information, products, services or more. Anytime you jump on Google (or any search engine) to find something, the phrase you’re searching is a keyword.Let’s take a closer look at keywords and their importance, identifying the right keywords for your brand and where to use those keywords.

Keywords make up a big part of everyone’s day to day; if you’re searching for something online, you’re probably using keywords. In digital marketing, keywords are terms and phrases people use to search for something on the internet, whether it be information, products, services or more. Anytime you jump on Google (or any search engine) to find something, the phrase you’re searching is a keyword.

Having played an important role in SEO for years already the role of keywords remains unchanged, despite the evolution of search results. Why are keywords important for SEO? They feed into a website’s entire strategy. Understanding how people are seeking out your content is key to getting it in front of them in the search results. 

Let’s take a closer look at keywords and their importance, identifying the right keywords for your brand and where to use those keywords.

How are keywords important?

Keywords feed into your research, your competitor analysis and your on-page optimisations. To better understand how, let’s dig a little deeper into each of these key areas. 

In research

Keyword research is one of the first steps in any SEO strategy, or even PPC strategy. When you perform keyword research, you are building a greater understanding of the audience you are targeting and what search terms they are using in order to find the content they seek.

Keyword research also helps you to understand your own business and content better, arming you with the knowledge of what keywords you should be looking to incorporate into your content to attract your target audience. It also gives an insight into how your website is currently performing; are you ranking for the keywords your audience is searching? Is the content that ranks for these pages getting the right engagement? Knowing these answers helps guide the next steps for your content.

In competitor analysis

No matter which industry or niche your business operates in, it’s vital that you gain some insights into your competitors. After all, these websites are all vying for the largest piece of the search engine pie; it’s them you’re up against to get your fair share.

Tools such as AHRefs and SEMRush can also help with competitor research; input your competitor’s domain into either tool and you’ll gain access to their current rankings. However, if you’re in need of a more budget friendly approach, then play around with the search results yourself.

One way you can determine who your competitors are for organic search is to enter the keywords your brand wants to target and see who crops up in the top positions. Sites that show up across multiple keywords are ones to keep an eye on. Once you have a better understanding of the search landscape and of who the competition is, you can start to delve deeper into their websites to get an idea of the content they’re producing that’s earning them a top position in the search results.

For on-page optimisations

When it comes to SEO optimisations, why are keywords important?

We know that consumers use keyword phrases to find the content or information they’re looking for, so whether you wish to optimise existing content on your site or you’re creating new content, referencing your keywords on the page will still play a pivotal role.

However, the key is for content to read naturally. Long gone are the days when black hat SEO tactics like keyword stuffing were effective. These days, it’s all about providing a positive user experience first and targeting the search engines second. Therefore, you’ll want to sprinkle primary and LSI keywords naturally throughout the content without over-using them.

Over the last several months you’ll have seen that generative AI is also on the rise and is being incorporated into search engines, whether as an AI tool like Google Bard, or as a feature in the search results. With big changes to come still, understanding how generative search works will be important for the future success of your SEO strategies.

How to identify the right keywords for your brand

When conducting keyword research, you want to make sure you pick the keywords that best fit your content. Making sure you have an SEO strategy in place that focuses on the keywords that best align with your brand is key to growing traffic to your site that converts. Focus on the wrong keywords and though you might grow traffic to your site still, it won’t be from the right audience. So people may visit only to exit, reducing your site’s engagement and limiting the number of conversions you get out of this traffic growth.

To help identify which keywords are right for your brand, a competitive keyword analysis can help. This will give you an idea of what your competitors are doing and if there are any opportunities your brand can jump on board for. 

But when selecting keywords to focus on, it’s about striking a balance between the metrics. Keyword search volume (how popular a search term is), relevance and  keyword difficulty competition are all metrics you should be considering when reviewing any keyword research. Striving to rank for a keyword that has a high search volume but also high competition can be extremely difficult. Targeting keywords with moderate search traffic and lower competition is generally more effective in the short-term. It also gives you a foundation to build on when progressing your strategy to target more competitive search terms.

Variety is key when selecting keywords. Therefore, you’ll want to target different keyword types in order to attract a good cross-section of your market. Don’t just focus on keywords that sound relevant to your brand and ones that have favourable metrics. Consider the long-tailed keywords; these are keywords where the search volume is typically quite low, but the user intent is very specific. The specificity of the query can often make them easier keywords to target. 

Consistently review the keywords you’re targeting, to ensure they still remain relevant for your brand. You also want to keep an eye on your market as a whole in search; which keywords are showing a growth in interest and which show a decline in search trends? Pay attention to how the language your audience uses evolves over time to make sure your brand is keeping up and staying relevant with your target audience. Otherwise, you may find you website falling to the wayside.

Where to use these keywords

Now that you know how to research the right keywords to use and have acquired a list of relevant keywords, you need to know where to use these keyword phrases in on-page SEO optimisations and content development.

Here is a list of some key areas where keywords can be used effectively:

• URL

• Title tag

• Meta description

• H1 (the main heading)

• Subheadings (H2s – H6s)

• In the body of your content

• Image alt tags

Wrapping Up 

In answering the question – Why are keywords important for SEO? – we’ve been able to clarify that keywords still play a pivotal role when it comes to being found in the search engines. With the right keyword research and implementation of those chosen keywords, you can devise SEO strategies and optimisations that will increase search engine rankings and website visitors exponentially.