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Website Indexing 101

Website Indexing 101

As a small business owner, you know that your website is one of your most valuable assets. It’s your online storefront and potential customer’s first impressions of your business. You may also know that it’s essential to make sure your website is indexed by search engines so that potential customers can find you. But what does that mean, and how do you go about indexing your site? In this blog post, we’ll answer those questions and more. We’ll explain what website indexing is and how it works, as well as walk you through the steps to index your own site. So, read on to learn more!

Why is website indexing important for your online presence?

Websites that are indexed by search engines are more likely to receive organic traffic from users who are searching for relevant keywords. This organic traffic can result in higher ROI since it is typically more targeted and leads to more conversions than other forms of marketing. In addition, website indexing is important for building brand authority and generating backlinks. When your website is indexed by a search engine, it helps to create trust and credibility with users. Backlinks from high-authority websites can also help to improve your website’s ranking in search results. As a result, indexing your website can have a significant impact on your online presence. In short, indexing is vital for any website that wants to succeed online.

How does indexing work?

When you publish your website, you’re essentially making it available for anyone in the world to access. However, unless people know your website exists, they’re not going to be able to find it. This is where search engines come in. Search engines are designed to help people find relevant information on the internet, and they do this by indexing websites. The crawling process is when search engine bots visit websites and read their content. Then they take the data and add it to an index, which is effectively a giant database of websites. When someone uses a search engine to look for something, the search engine will check its index to see if there are any websites that match the person’s query. If there are, the search engine will rank the websites in order of relevancy and display them to the user. You can submit your website to a search engine, which helps them to find your site and add it to their index. Once your website is indexed, people will be able to find it when they use a search engine. Indexing is an essential part of how search engines work, as it allows them to provide relevant results to users who are looking for information on the internet.

How long does search indexing take?

New websites and pages on a website can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks to index, but most content gets picked up by search engines within 1 week. There are sometimes technical issues that could result in things taking longer than expected; this is rare though as it usually depends upon how fast Google’s algorithms pick out new information about your site!

How can you check if your website is indexed?

One way to check if your website is indexed by google is to do a google search for your website’s URL, for example, “site:yourdomain.com”. If your site appears in the results, then it is indexed. If it does not appear, then it is not indexed.
There are a few ways to speed up the process if your site is not indexed. One way is to submit your website’s URL to google through their search console. This will notify Google’s search spiders to crawl your site. Another way is to create and submit a sitemap. This is a file that tells google what pages on your site are available for crawling.If neither of these methods works, it is possible that your site has been penalized by google and will not be indexed no matter what you do. In this case, the best course of action is to consult with a professional SEO specialist. They will be able to help you figure out what the problem is and how to fix it.Looking at your google analytics data can also be helpful in determining whether or not your site is being indexed. If you see that google is not crawling any of your pages, then this indicates that there may be an issue that needs to be addressed.

What challenges can search engines have when indexing?

Search engine crawlers use advanced artificial intelligence with a human-centric approach to index websites. As advanced and intelligent as they are, they still face some challenges. Some scenarios that might prevent indexing are:

1. Audio and Video Files

If you have audio files on your website, the search engine has a hard time understanding the content within the audio which is why you also publish a transcript separately to the audio/video. A transcript can be read and the context of your audio or video can be understood by search engines.

2. Too many 301 Redirects

Newer websites need to be careful how many redirects are put in place, especially due to a redesign. Too many redirects can cause your site to get ‘sandboxed’

3. Too many 404 errors

Search engines want to supply the best websites first in searches. They don’t want to list websites that have too many broken links, images or pages that no longer exist.

4. Repetitive title tags

This is an issue that can be easily fixed but is heavily penalised when websites are indexed. Make sure every page on your website has a unique title tag.

5. Using Flash or iFrames

Flash and iFrames are hard for search engines to decode, much like audio and video. With the help of Alternative text descriptions and proper titles for media files, you can help search engines understand their content.

Conclusion

Website indexation is a complex process that requires significant time, effort and resources from webmasters all over the world. The way it works seems simple enough at first glance but if you look deeper there are actually of intricate details involved in making sure your site gets found by search engines when people do searches on them online!Hopefully, you found this article helpful and that you get your website indexed so that people can find it when they do a search!

Troubleshooting

Key Technologies can help you with all of your website indexing and SEO needs. Contact us today to have a free chat with one of our specialists.
Is your website neglected?

Is your website neglected?

Websites are like cars and need to be regularly serviced. Outdated and neglected websites can hurt your business in many ways:

  • they can look unprofessional
  • they may not be mobile-friendly
  • they may not rank as well in search engines!

In addition, regular website maintenance can help ensure that your website is running smoothly and securely. Contact us today for more information about our website maintenance services. We’d be happy to help!

Website maintenance includes tasks such as updating plugins, checking for broken links, and optimizing images. Maintaining your hosting server is also a crucial part of website maintenance. If the server and components of your website are not up to date, your website may lose functionality or crash completely.

A website that is well-maintained will be more likely to show up higher in search engine results pages – meaning more people are likely to find and visit your site. In addition, regular maintenance ensures that your website runs smoothly and looks its best, giving visitors a positive impression of your business. Finally, by keeping your website up-to-date, you’ll be able to take advantage of new features and services as they become available – ensuring that your business always has the latest and greatest tools at its disposal. In short, there are many good reasons to keep your website well-maintained – so don’t neglect this important task!

Our team can help you with all of your website maintenance needs, from updates and security checks to redesigns and SEO optimization. Don’t let your website fall into disrepair – contact us today for a free consultation!

Renee, Our Web Developer
5 Popular Marketing Strategies in 2022

5 Popular Marketing Strategies in 2022

As a small business owner, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to marketing trends. By knowing what’s on the horizon, you can plan your budget and strategies accordingly. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most anticipated marketing trends for 2022. We hope this information helps you stay ahead of the competition and continue growing your business!

1. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is evolving from a trend to a common marketing strategy. It is said to be one of the highest ROI-generating marketing strategies in use. Why? Influencers have a following who are engaged in the field or topic they talk about, and therefore, they influence by the information they provide.

Can’t afford to hire a celebrity influencer? No worries! More than 56% of marketers work with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers have a smaller niche of followers but often have higher engagement with their followers in their industry. Followers consider Micro-influencers to be “regular” people and are likely to relate to and trust their opinions.

2. Content 

Well-produced content is a traditional marketing method that is still effective. Content has had to evolve due to many factors including the various platforms our consumers utilise.

Great content shows your customers that you are an expert in your field or why your product is superior to others. Content can be in any format including text, image, audio and video (see Video Marketing below).

 

Show your audience that you are an expert in your field

3. Video Marketing

YouTube and TikTok are two popular platforms where you can share videos about your brand. Savvy marketers can learn about what their audience likes by monitoring Tik Tok and its viral trends.

Short-form video is popular and effective because the average viewer has a short attention span. If done right, the video will be watched till the end and then shared. How-to videos, product demonstrations and explainer videos are the most popular formats.

4. Website SEO & Mobile Optimisation

Website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is essential for your search ranking long term and short term, but now more than ever, websites should be mobile optimised to perform at their best on a Smartphone device. In a study, approximately 75% of users prefer to use mobiles to access websites. 52% of the users say that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with the company.

5. Social Media Posts 

Although social media may not provide the best tools for marketing, it is worth leveraging in order to maintain a presence that reflects your brand. Through a combination of permanent and temporary posts, you are more likely to engage potential customers who may not have heard of your brand before.

That’s all for now but stay tuned – we’ll be releasing more blog posts in the near future about upcoming marketing trends. In the meantime, if you want to learn more or need help implementing any of these strategies, don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love to hear from you!

Need some inspiration? Find more digital marketing articles here.

Got any questions? Reach out to us.

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Improve your local SEO with a .AU domain 

Improve your local SEO with a .AU domain 

In the competitive world of business, it is essential to have a website and online presence. Due to the many competing websites online, it is important to have an SEO strategy. The best place to start is with local SEO on your website and domain. This post explains how your domain can optimise your local SEO. 

What is Local SEO? How does it work? 

Every time a search is performed on the internet, the browser uses many patterns and algorithms to generate the search results and rank them in order of relevancy. Many factors determine if a website is relevant to a search, one factor is proximity, which factors in location. This happens even when the search doesn’t include “near me” in the search phrase. 

Local SEO is very important for businesses with a physical location or those who are serving a geographic area. 

Using a .AU domain will make your website among the top pick for local searches about your business, product or service. 

What is special about the .AU domain? 

.AU is the internet country code top-level domain for Australia. .AU domains are a digital asset to an Australian business, as they help people find your business online and signal to your website visitors (and those who you email) that you have a connection to Australia. 

Who can get a .AU Domain? 

Direct .AU domains were released on the 24th of March 2022. The domains are exclusive to people and organisations who have a verified connection with Australia. A full list of the strict requirements are on the auDA website: About .au direct domain names | auDA 

A Priority Allocation Process is in place until September to enable anyone with existing namespace domains (com.au, net.au, id.au, org.au, asn.au, edu.au and gov.au) the opportunity to exactly match their domain names with the new .AU. 

What are the benefits of having a .AU domain?

Show you are a “dinky-di” Aussie. 

By having a .AU domain, internet users will recognise your .AU domain as local and trusted. You will be improving your local SEO! Australians who support local businesses will shop and support and shop with you.  

.AU is trusted, reliable, secure & validated 

People and organisations can register a .AU domain provided they meet the criteria in the .AU licensing rules. 

.AU is short and simple 

Removing the .COM or .NET to make your domain shorter and more direct. A direct .AU domain will rank higher than other (.NET.AU or .COM.AU) domains in search results. 

Where can I get a .AU domain? 

We are a domain name reseller! Contact us to get your direct .AU domain today. 

Where can I get help with Local SEO? 

A good Local SEO strategy will help your business be more visible in local search results. Subscribe for free marketing & SEO tips. 

Is Your Website Accessible? (and what you can do if it isn’t)

Is Your Website Accessible? (and what you can do if it isn’t)

It’s often something that gets overlooked by small businesses launching their website on a budget. However it’s a box that needs checking. In the US, businesses whose sites are not accessible are liable for discrimination. This isn’t the case in Australia yet, but we’d recommend that if your services could possibly be used by someone with an impairment, make sure that you cater for them on your site.

To be honest, this is an ongoing effort, as maintaining accessibility requires thinking in ways we don’t usually have to. This can be technical, such as tab order, but also related to simple design choices.

We think accessibility is important because providing usability for people with a range of impairments is good for your business, as well as supporting those customers. It’s the right thing to do, and shouldn’t be treated as a nice-to-have, or an afterthought.

But what can you do about it? Here are things you need to be thinking about with regard to accessibility. We’ll start with the design-related things, which you can think of as low-hanging fruit in terms of achievability.

Content & design accessibility fixes

These are the things you can do something about without tearing your site to pieces, and without spending money (or not spending a lot, depending on your web publishing skillset).

Content structure

This is a big one as it also relates to your SEO. Both search engines and the visually impaired are observing your site without whatever visual aids you’ve implemented in your design. So using HTML to properly to structure your content is a must.

You need clearly and logically laid our headers and paragraphs in your content. For example, there should only be one Heading 1 (H1) on a page, and this would usually be the post/page title (or the site name/title on the homepage). H2 and H3s etc should be nested logically so your content can be divided into sections and subsections, according to the topic. If you look at this article, we’ve split it into two H2 sections (design and technical fixes) with several H3 subsections in each.

Accessible content structure is an ongoing effort – every time you publish you need to think about how your information is laid out.

Text contrast ratio

This is the contrast between the text and the background. If it’s too low, while people with good eyesight might be OK, people with even a slight visual impairment might have difficulty reading your words. And this isn’t a small number of people!

Text size

Likewise, you need to ensure that your text is big enough to read. We use Divi, which is great, but one of its accessibility problems is that by default, the text is far too small (and low contrast). This is easily fixed of course, but it goes to show that defaults often need tweaking to get better results.

Alt text on images

When you upload an image, most CMSs ask you to enter ‘alt text.’ This is text that will be used as an alternative to the image when the image won’t load or can’t be seen. When you’re in a hurry (the default state of a small business owner), it’s easy to overlook this, but including it is mandatory for accessibility.

Try entering a simple descriptive sentence at the very least, so those who can’t see the image will know what it’s about, and won’t feel they are missing out.

Technical accessibility fixes

The above are some low-hanging fruit for you to improve your website accessibility. The next things we’ll mention are more technical.

Skip to Content

Your website probably starts with a header that includes a navigation menu, which might have a lot of items in it. As visually impaired people often rely on screen readers to get to your content, the header is something they probably don’t want or need. Having a website header that supports skipping the header is essential. Many frameworks and the themes do, but many don’t. Divi, which we use, doesn’t have this by default, and we need to add it manually.

Tab order

Some folks are unable to use a mouse. Usually, these are people with visual or motor impairment. Tabbing between items is an essential method for navigating for them. You can see how this works by loading any web page and pressing tab repeatedly to see what happens. Ideally, a focus box will move from item to item, left to right, top to bottom, highlighting links.

There are two main potential issues that could interrupt this important usability:

The first relates to design. On many websites, it’s difficult to follow focus as elements aren’t properly outlined or differentiated when focussed on. Having clearly defined ‘active’ and ‘hover’ states on links and buttons can help with this.

The other possible problem is caused by the structure of the site. Tabbing follows the order of things in HTML, or the actual structure of your content before your site applies the design rules for displaying the content. These design rules could potentially change the visual order of the information on your site, making tabbing through the site difficult. This type of problem relates to the structure of the site itself, so is more difficult to solve.

What are we doing about accessibility?

We’ve picked up our accessibility game, and will be taking extra steps to ensure new client sites are up to scratch. For our website maintenance clients, revising them to include more accessibility best practices.

If you’re not sure whether your site is as accessible as it should be (it could be costing you business!), and you’d like us to have a look, we’d happily take a glance and make any recommendations. Use our contact form to hit us up.

Further resources

9 Small Business Marketing Trends to Follow in 2022

9 Small Business Marketing Trends to Follow in 2022

At KeyTech we believe small businesses need real-world Marketing plans that push them towards their ultimate objectives. So we had a look at growing trends, checked some expert opinions, and came up with some best practices for a business with perhaps a limited marketing budget.

1. Virtual events

2020 changed our lives. The unusual online meetings stopped being unusual, becoming an everyday thing. In 2021, finding opportunities in the restrictions, marketers have taken those changes and created new ways for businesses to reach the world. In 2022 marketing will only continue to evolve to match the needs of restricted real-world business, and the opportunities of online business.

This year we have seen big brands such as Channel and Apple present their new collections and products with online-only events. These kinds of virtual events have exploded in the last year. Although many of us are feeling virtual exhaustion right now, there will still be a place for these types of events, even after we resume the events in person because they are hugely more accessible – for example, they are inclusive to people regardless of location or ability.

You’ve probably come across at least a few in the last year: a virtual event can be as simple as a live stream, a webinar, or as complex as a thousand user conference. The reason for the new umbrella term ‘virtual event’ is most likely the fact that these technologies are replacing real-world events. Whatever you call them, they’re here to stay and will undoubtedly grow in our collective consciousness.

Virtual Event

Are virtual events right for you?

For many businesses, especially those that relied on physical-events pre-covid, virtual events are a no-brainer. But there’s also a rising opportunity for other businesses to get into the event space, seeing as virtual events represent the knocking down of the huge barriers to entry. So It is a good time to ask yourself if your customers might appreciate or enjoy seeing more of you, and of each other. What could you teach them as a group, and what could they learn from each other, or help each other with? Getting into the middle of this exchange might help position you more as an essential business partner to your customers.

Let’s say you want to try. How might you go about it? Fortunately, it’s not too hard.

Teams live events

If you want to try a virtual event for your business, here we can help with Microsoft Teams Live.

The first thing to think about is what type of experience you want to provide. Microsoft Teams’ Live Events is a solid platform to hold any type of event. However, if what you are looking for are participation and interaction, then unfortunately Teams isn’t your best shot.

Events that run through Microsoft Teams tend to be very formal. Attendees cannot verbally communicate with other attendees or even presenters. The good thing is that this platform does offer a question-and-answer panel so that attendees can submit comments and/or questions during the live event.

If you expect a maximum of 10,000 attendees for your event, and if it does not last more than four hours, Live Events is the platform for you! It’s also worth noting that up to 15 concurrent events can run on a single Microsoft 365 tenancy.

2. Personalized artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence has advanced over the years. Today it’s considered a great opportunity for businesses, companies, industries, and even nations.

AI ​ for marketing seeks to understand consumer behaviour: search patterns and interactions. Examples of marketing AI are chatbots.

Mastercard created a Facebook Message bot that uses natural language processing software to decipher what the customer wants and respond as if it were a real person, automating the handling of even some complex queries.

Is a chatbot right for you?

If your business receives a lot of customer inquiries, you could start by expanding a simple FAQ page and. The next step would be integrating those questions into your messaging service, such as your Facebook page. A full-blown, AI-powered chatbot is understandably out of reach for many small businesses, but if you are constantly interacting with customers in predictable ways, it might be worth a look. These Australian companies can help create a fluid chatbot experience for your website.

3. Programmatic advertising

Do you spend a lot on advertising? The same kind of AI advances is helping people manage their ad spending.

One of the new things this year is using AI to automate ad buying so you can target more specific audiences. Real-time bidding, for example, is a type of programmatic ad buying. Automating through bots or specific programs will help you to be much more efficient and faster, which means higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.

4. Personalization

Although artificial intelligence and programming are a new Marketing trend going into 2022, the truth is that the personalization of a brand will always remain the key.

If you want to stand out in 2022, you need to personalize your marketing. This means personalized content, products, emails, and the rest.

Statistics show that 63% of consumers are very upset with generic advertising blasts. Customizing your content and offering a real experience will increase your sales.

An example of this super customization is EasyJet which launched a data-driven email campaign that uses customers’ travel history with the airline to create personalized stories, which then suggest where they would like to travel next. Approximately 12.5 million unique emails have been sent, which had a 25% higher click-through rate than non-personalized emails.

Another successful example is Starbucks, which uses a gamified mobile app that relies on data like purchase history and location to be as personal as possible. The app allows customers to personalize their drinks and encourages further use with its rewards system, which skyrocketed its revenue to $ 2.56 billion.

Starbucks

Starbucks, which uses a gamified mobile app

5. Video Marketing

Video marketing is still exponentially increasing going into 2022. Forecasts say it will be even more important in 5 or 10 years. Businesses report higher conversion rates with video marketing.

Video is a key factor in decision-making. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos gives them more confidence in making buying decisions online. Video is the simplest and clearest way for customers to obtain information about a product or service.

If your site includes video, it is 50 times more likely (50 times!) To generate organic search results compared to text. Not only do people find video content super attractive, but Google also supercharges the SEO of pages that include videos.

The great thing about video content is that it makes it easy for your content to be reformatted for other platforms. For example, information from a video can be transcribed and used as content for a blog. Adapt and share that video on other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram TV or even cut out small bites for Instagram Reels or TikTok. Another idea is to use the audio from that video to have an episode of a podcast.

Lsd statistics show that the opening rates of an email campaign are higher if you include the word video in the subject, so consumers are drawn to it.

Live video is particularly popular with many companies who use it for interviews, product/service demos, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the brand, such as office life, how products are made, company events, etc.

But Should you bother with video in your own small business?

You might feel that it’s something only larger businesses would invest in. And you’re right, in a sense. But there are many ways to do video, and having a smaller marketing budget does not mean you have to miss out completely.

Have a look at your competitors, the ones you know are a similar size to you. If you see any video in their marketing, this is a big warning that you’ll need to start with video just to remain competitive. If they don’t have a video, great, this could be an opportunity for you.

Your first videos could be a topical discussion with an expert on your team, embedded in your blogs. You can do it with a phone – as long as you and your business look professional, consumers can forgive underproduced video as it’s becoming very normalized. In short, underproduced is better than no video.

They could be as simple as a walk-through of your premises, introducing yourselves and what you do. Especially for small businesses, whether b2b or b2c, customers appreciate realness and integrity.

This is unless part of what makes your business work is shine and polish, in which case you probably should invest in professional video production.

6. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is not a trend. A Mediakix study predicts that the ad spends for influencer marketing could reach $ 10 billion by next year:

The reason for the success of influencer marketing is due to trust, naturalness, and personalization. Consumers trust the opinion of an influencer on a brand or product much more than they trust brands themselves. The trend is clear and 58% of people have bought a new product in the last six months due to the recommendation of an influencer.

Influencer marketing will also be affected by artificial intelligence. Every year AI makes it easier to find the right influencers to partner with by identifying those with better engagement, fewer fake followers, and a higher likelihood of generating a positive return on investment (ROI).

You might consider working with an influencer if your market is an active consumer of influencer content on social media. You’ll still need to propose a campaign, with a defined period of collaboration, and whether you want to bet on micro or macro-influencers.

7. Messages through apps

Social messaging apps are not just for sending emojis to your friends: look at these numbers:

Companies are increasingly using social networks to interact with their customers. On Facebook Messenger alone, an average of 10 billion messages is recorded between people and companies per month.

These statistics show the popularity of social messaging applications. It makes sense to market your company’s products and services where your potential customers are.

Social apps allow you to send messages to your clients directly and in a personalized way. It will also allow your clients to have direct and natural contact with you in a medium they are already comfortable with.

63% of customers return to the website of a company that has live chat. The idea of this type of strategy is to cultivate contacts, deliver information efficiently, increase sales, find your potential customers, and provide real and immediate support and assistance.

8. Smart Speakers & voice search

In 2020, 50% of all searches carried out were by voice and this trend is growing. 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that their devices are used as part of their daily routines.

Smart speaker purchases almost tripled between the first quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2019, from 9.36 million units to 26.1 million units.

Voice search plays a growing role in providing all the relevant information that people need. Many brands are already including voice search in their digital marketing strategies. This especially focuses on content strategies and actions applied to SEO. It is therefore about thinking about the passages that people will speak instead of writing. Remember to write in a conversational tone, focus on getting featured snippets on Google, and think of keywords people will be talking about instead of typing.

9. Sale on Social Networks

The integration of e-Commerce into social platforms is another Digital Marketing trend for 2022. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest are working to make it possible to buy from the publishers via tags, so the transaction can happen without having to leave the app.

It’s definitely a new twist on Social Networking, making them not only a place to find leads but to convert them as well.

Does this mean anything to your business? If you know your market is active on social media, and you offer products that can be sold online, you should probably start looking at your options here, so you can potentially cut out the middle man (advertising).