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Use software like AdobePhotoshop and you can compress image file sizes from 3MB down to 250KBwithout visual loss in quality, by using Photoshop's "save for web" feature.An easy-win for image-heavy sites.The above are just a handful of the infinite possibilities for improving a site’sload speed. Fortunately, there's several tools making easy to identify speedimprovements, and speed bottlenecks, irrespective of the technology your siteis built on.Load speed analysis tools.1. Google Page Speed Insightshttps://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insightsGoogle's great free tool, Page Speed Insights, will give you a page load scoreout of 100. You can see how well your load speed compares to other sites.You can also see how well your site loads on mobile and desktop. Scorescloser to 100 are near perfect.After running a test on your site, the tool will give you a list of high priority,medium priority and low priority areas for improvement. You can forwardthese on to your developer to speed up your site, or if you are a bit of a tech-head, you can have a crack at fixing these up yourself.2. Test My Site - Think With Googlehttps://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/Around late June, 2017 Google updated their mobile load speed testing tool,Test My Site, to include benchmarking reports against industry competitors.This tool is both easy-to-use and indispensable for finding easy-win loadspeed improvements for mobile users—and handy for seeing how your
website performs against competitors.You might be shocked the first time you use this tool—many site ownersdiscover they are losing up to 30%-50% of traffic, due to poor loading timeon 3G mobile devices, not a great outlook.Fortunately, the handy tool provides free reports and actionablerecommendations on how to supercharge your load speed with a strong focuson improvements for mobile users. If you follow the recommendations andget your site performing better than competitors, you can make out like abandit in the search results, with load speed being a top ranking factor drivingthe search results.
3. Pingdom Tools – Website Speed Testhttps://tools.pingdom.com/Pingdom Tools Website Speed Test is the cream of the crop when it comes toload speed tools, providing detailed breakdowns of files and resourcesslowing your web site down, listing file-sizes of individual files, server load times,and much a lot of.
It goes into much greater depth than the other tools, thoughprobably best suited for a web developer or someone with a basic level ofexperience building websites.After the test is completed, if you scroll down you'll see a listing of files eachvisitor has got to transfer when they visit your web site.
Large images are easytargets for load speed improvements. If you have any images over 200kb,these can usually be compressed in Photoshop and shrunk down to a fractionof the size without any quality loss. Take a note of any large files, send themto your web developer or web designer, and ask them to compress the files toa smaller file size.4. Lighthouse – Tools For Web Developers – Googlehttps://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/For advanced developers working on complicated projects or sites—i.e.programmers who know what a Node module is—Google released apowerful Chrome extension called Lighthouse. Lighthouse provides reportson website performance, accessibility, adherence to programming bestpractices, SEO and more—with actionable steps on improving each of theseareas. While owners of basic websites probably won't get additional insights
from this tool, on top of recommendations provided by the earlier tools,programming ninjas looking for a well-rounded tool to enhance his or herperformance chops will find Google's Lighthouse is the Swiss Army knife ofsite performance analysis.The usual suspects—sitemaps.xml and robots.txt.Sitemaps.xmlSearch engines automatically look for a special file on each site called thesitemaps.xml file. Having this file on your {site|website|web web site} may be a should for creating it easyfor search engines to find pages on your site.
Sitemaps ar basically agiant map of all of the pages on your web site.
Fortunately, making this file and getting it on to your web site may be a easy method.Most CMS systems have a sitemap file mechanically generated.
This includes systems like Wordpress, Magento, Shopify. If this is not the case onyour site, you may need to install a plugin or use the free XML SitemapsGenerator tool. The XML Sitemaps Generator will automatically create asitemaps.xml file for you.XML Sitemaps Generatorhttps://www.xml-sitemaps.com/Next ask your web developer or web designer to upload it into the maindirectory of your site, or do it yourself if you have FTP access. Onceuploaded, the file should be publicly accessible with an address like thebelow example:
http://www.yoursite.com/sitemaps.xmlOnce you have done this, you should submit your sitemap to the GoogleSearch Console account for your site.If you do not have a Google Search Console account, the below article by Google gives simple instructions for web developers or web designers to setthis up.Add a website property – Search Console Help https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592
Login to your account and click on your site. Under “site configuration” click“sitemaps”, and submit your sitemap.Robots.txtAnother must-have for every site is a robots.txt file.
This should sit within the same place as your sitemaps. xml file.
The address to this file should look thesame as the example below:http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txtThe robots.txt file is a simple file that exists so you can tell the areas of yoursite you don’t wish Google to list within the programme results.There is no real boost from having a robots.txt file on your web site.
It is essentialyou check to ensure you don’t have a robots.txt file blocking areas of yoursite you want search engines to find.The robots.txt file is just a plain text document, its contents should looksomething like below:# robots.txt good exampleUser-agent: *Disallow: /adminUser-agent: *Disallow: /logsIf you want your site to tell search engines to not crawl your site, it shouldlook like the next example. If you do not want your entire site blocked, youmust make sure it does not look like the example below. It is always a goodidea to double check it is not set up this way, just to be safe.# robots.txt - blocking the entire siteUser-agent: *Disallow: /The forward slash in this example tells search engines their software shouldnot visit the home directory.To create your robots.txt file, simply create a plain text document with
Notepad if you are on Windows, or Textedit if you are on Mac OS. Makesure the file is saved as a plain text document, and use the “robots.txt goodexample” as an indication on how it should look. Take care to list anydirectories you do not want search engines to visit, such as internal foldersfor staff, admin areas, CMS back-end areas, and so on.If there aren’t any areas you would like to block, you can skip your robots.txtfile altogether, but just double check you don’t have one blocking importantareas of the site like the above example.Duplicate content—canonical tags and other fun.In later chapters I will describe how Google Panda penalizes sites withduplicate content. Unfortunately, many site content management systems willsometimes automatically create multiple versions of one page.For example, let’s say your site has a product page on socket wrenches, butbecause of the system your site is built on, the exact same page can beaccessed from multiple URLs from different areas of your site:http://www.yoursite.com/products.aspx?=23213http://www.yoursite.com/socket-wrencheshttp://www.yoursite.com/tool-kits/socket-wrenchesIn the search engine’s eyes this is confusing as hell and multiple versions ofthe page are considered duplicate content.To account for this, you should always ensure a special tag is placed on everypage in your site, called the canonical tag.The canonical tag indicates the original version of a web page to searchengines. By telling Google the page you consider to be the “true” version ofthe page into the tag, you can indicate which page you want listed in thesearch results.Choose the URL that is the most straightforward for users, this should usuallybe the URL that reads like plain English.Using the earlier socket wrenches example, by using the tag below, Googlewould be more likely to display the best version of the page in the search
engine results.<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.yoursite.com/socket-wrenches"/>As a general rule, include this tag on every page on your site, shortly beforethe </head> tag in the code.Usability—the new SEO explained.Mobiles and tablets have overtaken desktops within the vicious battle for Internetmarket share, creating up fifty six of all traffic in 2017.
To keep a goodexperience for all users, Google square measure progressively giving benefits to sitesproviding an honest expertise for users on all devices.
Usability has increasedimportance in the SEO industry as a result, as many SEO pundits found youcan get an advantage simply by making your site easy to use.For example, let’s say a mobile user is searching for late night pizza deliveryin Los Angeles. One local business has a site with a large amount ofbacklinks but no special support for mobile users, it’s difficult for the user tonavigate because it doesn’t automatically fit to the screen, and the menu textis small and hard to use on a touch screen.Another competing local business has low amounts of backlinks, but goodsupport for mobile users. Its design fits perfectly to the screen and has specialnavigation designed for mobile users, making it easy to use.In many cases, the second site will now rank higher than the first, for mobileusers. This is just one example of how usability can have a significant impacton your rankings.While a term like usability can understandably seem a little vague, let’s lookat practical steps to improve your usability and also the SEO strength of your web site.
1. Make your site accessible for all devices.Make your site accessible and easy for all users: desktop, mobile and tablet.The simple way to do this is to make sure your site is responsive, whichmeans it mechanically resizes across all devices and has mobile-friendly
This should sit within the same place as your sitemaps. xml file.
The address to this file should look thesame as the example below:http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txtThe robots.txt file is a simple file that exists so you can tell the areas of yoursite you don’t wish Google to list within the programme results.There is no real boost from having a robots.txt file on your web site.
It is essentialyou check to ensure you don’t have a robots.txt file blocking areas of yoursite you want search engines to find.The robots.txt file is just a plain text document, its contents should looksomething like below:# robots.txt good exampleUser-agent: *Disallow: /adminUser-agent: *Disallow: /logsIf you want your site to tell search engines to not crawl your site, it shouldlook like the next example. If you do not want your entire site blocked, youmust make sure it does not look like the example below. It is always a goodidea to double check it is not set up this way, just to be safe.# robots.txt - blocking the entire siteUser-agent: *Disallow: /The forward slash in this example tells search engines their software shouldnot visit the home directory.To create your robots.txt file, simply create a plain text document with
Notepad if you are on Windows, or Textedit if you are on Mac OS. Makesure the file is saved as a plain text document, and use the “robots.txt goodexample” as an indication on how it should look. Take care to list anydirectories you do not want search engines to visit, such as internal foldersfor staff, admin areas, CMS back-end areas, and so on.If there aren’t any areas you would like to block, you can skip your robots.txtfile altogether, but just double check you don’t have one blocking importantareas of the site like the above example.Duplicate content—canonical tags and other fun.In later chapters I will describe how Google Panda penalizes sites withduplicate content. Unfortunately, many site content management systems willsometimes automatically create multiple versions of one page.For example, let’s say your site has a product page on socket wrenches, butbecause of the system your site is built on, the exact same page can beaccessed from multiple URLs from different areas of your site:http://www.yoursite.com/products.aspx?=23213http://www.yoursite.com/socket-wrencheshttp://www.yoursite.com/tool-kits/socket-wrenchesIn the search engine’s eyes this is confusing as hell and multiple versions ofthe page are considered duplicate content.To account for this, you should always ensure a special tag is placed on everypage in your site, called the canonical tag.The canonical tag indicates the original version of a web page to searchengines. By telling Google the page you consider to be the “true” version ofthe page into the tag, you can indicate which page you want listed in thesearch results.Choose the URL that is the most straightforward for users, this should usuallybe the URL that reads like plain English.Using the earlier socket wrenches example, by using the tag below, Googlewould be more likely to display the best version of the page in the search
engine results.<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.yoursite.com/socket-wrenches"/>As a general rule, include this tag on every page on your site, shortly beforethe </head> tag in the code.Usability—the new SEO explained.Mobiles and tablets have overtaken desktops within the vicious battle for Internetmarket share, creating up fifty six of all traffic in 2017.
To keep a goodexperience for all users, Google square measure progressively giving benefits to sitesproviding an honest expertise for users on all devices.
Usability has increasedimportance in the SEO industry as a result, as many SEO pundits found youcan get an advantage simply by making your site easy to use.For example, let’s say a mobile user is searching for late night pizza deliveryin Los Angeles. One local business has a site with a large amount ofbacklinks but no special support for mobile users, it’s difficult for the user tonavigate because it doesn’t automatically fit to the screen, and the menu textis small and hard to use on a touch screen.Another competing local business has low amounts of backlinks, but goodsupport for mobile users. Its design fits perfectly to the screen and has specialnavigation designed for mobile users, making it easy to use.In many cases, the second site will now rank higher than the first, for mobileusers. This is just one example of how usability can have a significant impacton your rankings.While a term like usability can understandably seem a little vague, let’s lookat practical steps to improve your usability and also the SEO strength of your web site.
1. Make your site accessible for all devices.Make your site accessible and easy for all users: desktop, mobile and tablet.The simple way to do this is to make sure your site is responsive, whichmeans it mechanically resizes across all devices and has mobile-friendly
navigation for mobile users. Mobile support is covered in more detail, in theMobile SEO Update section in the Google ’s Algorithm Updates chapterlater in this book, but you can enter your site into the tool below quickly tosee if Google registers your site as mobile friendly.Mobile friendly Test - Googlehttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
2. Increase your content quality. Gone are the days of hiring a bunch of writers in India to bulk out the contenton your site. It needs to be proofread and edited, and the more “sticky” you make your content, the better results you will get.
If you give compelling content, users can pay longer on your website and ar less seemingly to get well to the search results.
Users will also be much more likely to share your content. Google will see this and give your rankings a boost.
3. Use clean code in your site.There’s a surprisingly high amount of sites with dodgy code, difficult for both search engines and Internet browsers to read. If there are HTML code errors in your site, which means, if it hasn’t been coded according to industrybest practices, it’s possible your design will break when your site is viewedon different browsers, or even worse, confuse search engines when they comealong and look at your site. Run your site through the below tool and askyour web developer to fix any errors.Web standards validatorhttps://validator.w3.org/
4. Take it easy on the popups and advertisements.
Sites with spammy and aggressive ads ar usually graded poorly within the searchresults.
The SEO gurus have reached no agreement on the quantity of adsleading to a penalty from Google, therefore use your logic.
Ensureadvertisements don’t overshadow your content and occupy the bulk ofscreen realty.
5. Improve the overall “operability” of your site.Does your site have slow web hosting, or a bunch of broken links and images?
Simple technical oversights like these contribute to a poor user expertise.
Make sure your site is with a reliable web hosting company and doesn’t go down in peak traffic. Even better, make sure your site is hosted on a server inyour local city, and this will make it faster for local users.
Next up, chase up any 404-errors together with your internet developer.
404 errors areerrors indicating users are clicking on links in your site and being sent to anempty page. It contributes to a poor user experience in Google’s eyes. Fortunately, these errors are easy fixed.You can find 404 errors on your site by logging into your Google SearchConsole account, clicking on your site, then clicking on “Crawl” and “CrawlErrors”. Here you will find a list of 404 errors. If you click on the error and then click “Linked From” you can find the pages with the broken links.
Fix these yourself, or consult with your internet developer.
Google Search Console https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ If you want external tools to speed up improving your site’s usability, I havefound these two resources helpful:BrowserStack - Free to try, plans start at $29 per month.https://www.browserstack.com BrowserStack allows you to test your site on over +700 different browsers atonce. You can preview how your site works on tablets, mobile devices, andall the different browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer,and so on. It’s helpful for making sure it displays correctly across manydifferent devices.Try My UI - Free to try, additional test results start at $35.https://www.trymyui.com/ Try My UI provides videos, audio narration, surveys of users going through your site, and reports on any difficulties they uncover.
Usability tests are good for larger comes requiring objective feedback from traditional users.
The first test result is free, making Try My UI a good usability test provider to start with.
2. Increase your content quality. Gone are the days of hiring a bunch of writers in India to bulk out the contenton your site. It needs to be proofread and edited, and the more “sticky” you make your content, the better results you will get.
If you give compelling content, users can pay longer on your website and ar less seemingly to get well to the search results.
Users will also be much more likely to share your content. Google will see this and give your rankings a boost.
3. Use clean code in your site.There’s a surprisingly high amount of sites with dodgy code, difficult for both search engines and Internet browsers to read. If there are HTML code errors in your site, which means, if it hasn’t been coded according to industrybest practices, it’s possible your design will break when your site is viewedon different browsers, or even worse, confuse search engines when they comealong and look at your site. Run your site through the below tool and askyour web developer to fix any errors.Web standards validatorhttps://validator.w3.org/
4. Take it easy on the popups and advertisements.
Sites with spammy and aggressive ads ar usually graded poorly within the searchresults.
The SEO gurus have reached no agreement on the quantity of adsleading to a penalty from Google, therefore use your logic.
Ensureadvertisements don’t overshadow your content and occupy the bulk ofscreen realty.
5. Improve the overall “operability” of your site.Does your site have slow web hosting, or a bunch of broken links and images?
Simple technical oversights like these contribute to a poor user expertise.
Make sure your site is with a reliable web hosting company and doesn’t go down in peak traffic. Even better, make sure your site is hosted on a server inyour local city, and this will make it faster for local users.
Next up, chase up any 404-errors together with your internet developer.
404 errors areerrors indicating users are clicking on links in your site and being sent to anempty page. It contributes to a poor user experience in Google’s eyes. Fortunately, these errors are easy fixed.You can find 404 errors on your site by logging into your Google SearchConsole account, clicking on your site, then clicking on “Crawl” and “CrawlErrors”. Here you will find a list of 404 errors. If you click on the error and then click “Linked From” you can find the pages with the broken links.
Fix these yourself, or consult with your internet developer.
Google Search Console https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ If you want external tools to speed up improving your site’s usability, I havefound these two resources helpful:BrowserStack - Free to try, plans start at $29 per month.https://www.browserstack.com BrowserStack allows you to test your site on over +700 different browsers atonce. You can preview how your site works on tablets, mobile devices, andall the different browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer,and so on. It’s helpful for making sure it displays correctly across manydifferent devices.Try My UI - Free to try, additional test results start at $35.https://www.trymyui.com/ Try My UI provides videos, audio narration, surveys of users going through your site, and reports on any difficulties they uncover.
Usability tests are good for larger comes requiring objective feedback from traditional users.
The first test result is free, making Try My UI a good usability test provider to start with.
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