Let\u2019s look at ways to improve your website\u2019s ranking on Google and get your SEO right.<\/p>\n
Research the competition<\/h2>\n
There are several aspects of your competition that you can research – their interviews with online and mainstream media, annual reports made by an annual repost template, their promotional materials, and most importantly their FAQ page. These could give you insights that can you can leverage and can help you set up your SEO game plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s pause for a moment and think about the FAQ. Why would you want to look at your competition\u2019s FAQ? It will give you insights into their business model, customer relationship management, sales process, and their competitive edge. You will then compare these with your own and see the aspects that you can improve on.<\/p>\n You can use competitor analysis tools to see competitor pages and keywords that rank higher than yours like\u00a0SEMrush<\/a>, spyFu<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Alexa<\/a>.<\/p>\n These are the two aspects of your website that your potential customers will interact with first. Here is an example of titles and meta descriptions that a user gets after keying in \u201cmoving company Los Angeles\u201d:<\/p>\n Let\u2019s get into page titles and meta descriptions a little deeper:<\/p>\n The page title is what internet users see on search engine result pages when they key in your brand\u2019s name or related search terms. The page title determines whether a user clicks on your web page or not. If your moving company is based in Toronto, and when a user keys in \u201cmoving companies in Toronto\u201d, a site with a page title like \u201cRoyal Movers Ontario\u201d will be irrelevant for that user, and they will not click on it.<\/p>\n An SEO meta description<\/a> is a summary of your web page\u2019s content. It is displayed as part of results in search engine result pages. The meta description is what will determine whether users get to actually click on your site or not. It is your brand\u2019s first impression, and you do not want to mess it up. It is one of the distinguishing factors that will make a potential customer choose your moving company over the competition. Better still, Google uses it to determine your site\u2019s relevance in search engine results.<\/p>\n See the image below.<\/p>\n Your meta description needs to be highly relevant, in that it needs to actually summarize what your webpage is about. Here are more ways to use this tool to your brand\u2019s advantage:<\/p>\n Did you know that Google can automatically create a meta description for you if you leave it out? You, however, do not want the noble job of crafting your own brand\u2019s message to be left to Google.<\/p>\n We had mentioned that one of the ways to leverage UGC is via Google reviews. You can only get Google reviews if your business is listed on \u2018Google My Business\u2019. All you need to do is add your business\u2019 address, location, and contact information, operation hours, images and links to your content. People can also leave reviews.<\/p>\n This listing takes advantage of local results where people search for information based on their location. Someone looking for a move might search for \u2018movers in Oklahoma\u2019. If your Google listing shows that you are located in Oklahoma, then you have higher chances of showing among the top results.<\/p>\n Your website design<\/a> should be attractive, and a reflection of your brand in terms of the brand colors, and logo. The theme should also be consistent across the pages. The users should be able to easily navigate through your site. Most importantly, your site needs to load within 3 seconds, otherwise, you risk losing your customers to your competitors. Optimize your images to ensure that your site loads fast. Let\u2019s further explore website design:<\/p>\n You need to ensure that your site\u2019s navigation is simple and intuitive. Most importantly, you need to guide your customers by telling them what to do at several stages on your site. A great way to understand site navigation is to apply Hick\u2019s law – the time a person takes to make decisions is determined by and is directly proportional to the number of options available.<\/p>\n If your customer has too many options to choose from, they are highly likely to abandon your site, as they will take a longer time to make decisions. Call to action buttons are necessary, as they make it easy for your customers to make decisions. They also make navigation easy and intuitive.<\/p>\n This is a concept used in photography and has been adopted in web design. This is where a site is \u2018divided\u2019 into three parts horizontally and three times vertically. This results in a grid with 9 squares.<\/a> Users\u2019 eyes scan the 4 mid-intersections of the grid. See image<\/a>.\u00a0 What does this mean for your site? That you need to place your most important content at these 4 intersections. This way, users actually\u00a0take the time to focus on it. This is where your call to action should be.<\/p>\n It is imperative that you understand the basics about color when choosing the colors to use on your site. Why would such a seemingly\u00a0minute task be necessary? Well, the colors that\u00a0you choose for your site determine how the customers view and perceive your brand. The color that you choose will invoke certain emotions in your customers. Red would bring to the fore passion, importance, and aggression, while orange would invoke a feeling of playfulness, energy and affordability. You can read more about color and branding\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of importance when it comes to color is contrast. It helps to highlight and emphasize certain areas of your site that users need to pay attention to. The color wheel comes in handy here. \u00a0It shows the relationships that exist between colors, and the color combinations that would work together without clashing.<\/p>\n As you know there are a variety of schemes you can try…<\/p>\n This is one color but with different shades resulting in a full-color palette.<\/p>\n Colors opposite each other on the color wheel. This is a great way to create contrast.<\/p>\n Evenly spaced colors on the color wheel. This scheme is great for contrast too. The users will be able to easily see the call to action buttons for example.<\/p>\n Colors that are\u00a0next to each other on the color wheel. Here, unlike when using the monochromatic scheme, there is a larger color range. The contrast created here is relatively low.<\/p>\n Negative space refers to the unused space on your site, usually white space. If your website has a background color, the unused space will not be white. It can also be defined as anything that does not draw the attention of your users on the site.<\/p>\n White space can be classified into macro and macro. Micro is the space between the small elements on your sites – words, letters, and lines. Macro is the space between the large elements on your site.<\/p>\n Here is an\u00a0illustration\u00a0of how to effectively use white space:<\/p>\n Breadcrumbs make it easier for users to navigate a website that has many pages. They give users a path that they can use to \u2018trace back their steps\u2019. This way, users can go back to a specific location on your site without going back to the menu.<\/p>\n An example here would be a movers\u2019 website with an about page. The about page then contains the company profile, previous projects, the moving process, and even after sales. As you can see, such a page will be multi-layered. When users try to go back to the home page, they may literally have to close the tabs and enter your business\u2019 name again. With breadcrumbs, navigation would be way easy. Here is\u00a0DHLs breadcrumb:<\/p>\n Breadcrumbs will make navigation easier, which means that users will spend more time on your site, and the bounce rate will be much lower. All these are positive signs for Google and will see your site ranking higher.<\/p>\n Your landing page is where your users will literally \u2018land\u2019 first when they come to your site. It needs to be catchy and communicate the brand\u2019s message within a short period of\u00a0time.<\/p>\n It may be necessary to differentiate between your mobile site and desktop site. The former is the same as your desktop version, only that it is specifically designed for smaller screens with touch screen interfaces. There are subtle differences between mobile and desktop versions, for example, lesser elements on the mobile version, in order not to affect loading times, or even larger buttons on smaller screens to cater for the fact that the user will use their fingers to tap on the elements.<\/p>\n On the other hand, responsive design is where a website is designed in a way that it adapts to the screen size being used, including mobile.<\/p>\n An interesting question here might be the difference between a mobile site and a mobile application. The latter is downloaded and installed from the Google PlayStore or App Store, while the mobile site is accessible from a browser.<\/p>\n This should entirely be decided by your goals, your users and the experience you want your customers to have. If your brand has a moving game that allows users to visualize the end result after moving, then the app is the way to go. If you have customers who use different devices to access your site, for instance, smartphones and tablets, then responsive is the way to go. If your users access your site from their smartphones, then go for mobile design. The important thing is to ensure that the options chosen are based on your goals and objectives, and are within your budget.<\/p>\n While over 50% of web traffic comes from mobile, a study by Google<\/a>\u00a0showed that conversion rates were still lower on mobile. This was attributed to the fact that mobile pages had too many elements (images, titles, and text). Above the fold content (that which a user sees without scrolling) took 5 seconds to load, and 7 seconds to fully load all the visual content on the site. As page load time increases<\/a>, the probability of a user leaving the site increases by 123%.\u00a0Worse still, as the images used on the site increased, the conversion rate decreased by 95%.<\/p>\n What do all these stats mean? That you need to go slow on the images, especially on mobile. Better still, you need to optimize your images in order not to affect page loading speed.<\/p>\n There are tools that you can use to optimize your website page speed. Tools like Pingdom<\/a>\u00a0and GTmetrix Performance Report <\/a>will help you see how fast your site loads. You can also use the Inspect Element on Chrome Dev Tools <\/a>or the Site Speed Page Timings <\/a>on Google Analytics.<\/p>\n After using any of these tools, you need to know the cause of the slow site speed, if that is the result that you get. Tools that you can use include the PageSpeed Insights Tool by Google<\/a>, PageSpeed Insights Chrome Extension<\/a>, and Site Speed Suggestions on Google Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n If the image size is an issue, you can resize your site\u2019s images and upload them again. But if your site has too many images, you can use tools like Icons8 Smart Upscaler<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and Shrink Pictures<\/a>, \u00a0which allows for bulk resizing of images. Let\u2019s explore image size more:<\/p>\n Compression means that the image file is minimized in bytes, without affecting the quality of the image. Bulk compression tools that you can use include Compressor.io, \u00a0Kraken.io<\/a>, ImageOptimizer<\/a>, \u00a0TinyPNG<\/a>, and Imagify.io<\/a>. You can also achieve this using the PageSpeed Insights tool on Google Chrome extensions.<\/p>\n A final tactic that you can use here is using the lazy load images approach, where the images only load when the user needs to see them. This is achieved via Javascript where the loading is based on an event, for instance, mouse hovers, or when the user scrolls down the page. Plugins<\/a>\u00a0can also achieve this.<\/p>\n You can also learn how to use Cloudflare CDN and the W3 Total Cache plugin that will go a long way in optimizing your site.<\/p>\n Include images with a human face. These images are more likely to trigger emotion, allowing people to connect and engage with your brand. You could have images with negative space on one side, where you can add a call to action as in this\u00a0webpage:<\/p>\n Such images communicate effectively, and you do not need to write too much text and descriptions. You can include your movers’ team \u2018in action\u2019 as they actually serve your clients. This will help in building customer trust and brand credibility. It also gives the customers a sense of the people they are dealing with.<\/p>\n You need to know how visitors are navigating your site in order to identify any issues, for example, bottlenecks, bugs, and broken links. If you notice that they are dropping off at a particular point, for example, then you can try to identify the cause. You also get to identify the most visited pages, clicked buttons, most clicked menu items, and mouse hovers.<\/p>\n You can record your visitors using tools like CrazyEgg, Hotjar and Google Analytics. Such data will make it easier to optimize your site.<\/p>\n You need to not only choose the correct keywords for your moving company, but you need to rank for them on search engine results. After you have the right keywords, it is now time to put them into use. In comes on-page SEO.<\/p>\n On-page SEO is optimizing individual pages, resulting in a higher rank in search engine results. It also allows your brand to get more relevant traffic – potential customers looking to use your moving service. Let\u2019s look at these two concepts further in this section.<\/p>\n We had briefly looked at keyword research when discussing lead generation<\/a>. In this section, we look at how we can use it for effective SEO.<\/p>\n When we talk about on-page SEO, we refer to the sections of a page\u2019s source code (both HTML and content) that can be optimized.<\/p>\n Moz defines off-page SEO as actions that are taken outside your site but that have an impact on the site\u2019s rank on search engine results. It has to do with improving both the user\u2019s and search engine\u2019s perception of how popular, relevant and trustworthy your site is.<\/p>\n Off-Page SEO techniques are the things that are directly done off your website to improve your search ranking. Using the right ranking tool like\u00a0Linkio<\/a>\u00a0could help your rankings boost and higher organic traffic to your website.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at how to implement off-page SEO for your moving company.<\/p>\n Backlinks are the strongest indicator of a brand\u2019s trustworthiness, relevance, and popularity. There are three types of links: natural, self-created and manually built.<\/p>\n You need to mix all these link types for your site to benefit from them.<\/p>\n Other efforts that involve creating references to your site on other places on the web are also part of off-page SEO. These include social media shares, brand mentions, and guest blogging.<\/p>\n As a moving company, You are highly likely to serve a particular geographical area or several areas. You need to show up in search engines for users whose intent is to use a moving company’s services in a certain area. To do this, you need to have geo-targeted pages. These are pages that deliver content based on a user\u2019s geographic location. Such content is therefore highly relevant to the user. Sometimes, geo-targeted pages may be significantly different from the main landing pages. Their color could be different, images and even the calls to action.<\/p>\n As you may have seen, with geo-targeting, it is a matter of testing variants and iteration. Over time, you will get to understand what works for each audience. If your moving company serves only one location, then you need to craft your site, its content, and elements to that particular audience.<\/p>\n As you can see there are tons of SEO tricks you can use to get your moving company ahead of competitors.<\/p>\n Your website needs to be optimized in a way that benefits you, while also benefiting others. Fortunately, the things that will help your rankings, will make your site more user-friendly anyway. So it\u2019s a win-win.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t set up a company website yet for your moving company, you might be missing out on potential customers. Be sure to audit your website<\/a>, set one up and follow the above tips to create a site that brings you the traffic you want.<\/p>\nBe sure to review page titles and meta descriptions<\/h2>\n
![\"image8\"](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/image8.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nPage titles<\/h3>\n
How to effectively use page titles<\/h3>\n
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Meta descriptions<\/h3>\n
![\"image8](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/image8-1.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nHow do you make meta descriptions work for your SEO?<\/h3>\n
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List your business on Google<\/h2>\n
Have a great website design<\/h2>\n
Provide easy navigation<\/h2>\n
Use the rule of thirds<\/h2>\n
Play with color and contrast<\/h2>\n
Color schemes on the color wheel:<\/h3>\n
Monochromatic<\/h4>\n
Complementary<\/h4>\n
Triadic<\/h4>\n
Analogous<\/h4>\n
What are the other areas that you need to highlight using contrast?<\/h3>\n
\n
Maximize negative space<\/h3>\n
What are the benefits of using negative space?<\/h4>\n
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How to effectively use white space<\/h4>\n
![\"spacing\"](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/spacing.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
Leave a trail of\u00a0breadcrumbs<\/h2>\n
![\"DHLbreadcrumb\"](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/DHLbreadcrumb.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nHow to effectively use breadcrumbs<\/h3>\n
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Create a clear landing page(s)<\/h2>\n
Factors to consider when creating a landing page<\/h3>\n
\n
Create a responsive design and mobile sites<\/h2>\n
Should you use responsive design, a mobile site, or a mobile app?<\/h3>\n
Think of page speed<\/h2>\n
Testing page speed<\/h3>\n
Image size<\/h3>\n
Image compression<\/h4>\n
Lazy load images<\/h4>\n
Site optimization<\/h4>\n
Image choice<\/h4>\n
![\"melanie](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/melanie-duncan.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nMonitor your visitors\u2019 site navigation<\/h2>\n
Do keyword research and on-page SEO<\/h2>\n
Keyword research<\/h3>\n
How do you effectively use keyword research?<\/h4>\n
\n
\n
On-page SEO<\/h3>\n
How to effectively use on-page SEO<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"image3\"](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/image3.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
Don\u2019t forget about off-page SEO<\/h2>\n
How to use off-hat SEO effectively<\/h3>\n
Link-building<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
Other off-page aspects<\/h3>\n
Expand the geography of your service<\/h2>\n
How to effectively use geo-targeted pages<\/h3>\n
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Conclusion<\/h2>\n