Most digital marketing campaigns begin with on-page SEO (search engine optimization) methods, such as strategically optimizing every aspect of your official company website. However, some of the most important elements of effective search engine optimization take place far away from any web pages that you own and control.

This is where off-page SEO comes in. In the words of the digital product design company Unrvld, off-page SEO refers to all activity away from your website that nonetheless determines where that website ranks on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Even after identifying it and understanding its importance, business owners and marketing professionals alike continue to struggle with exactly how to improve off-page SEO. Read on for some basic tips to keep in mind when dealing with this highly tricky SEO approach.

Three Core Techniques to Improve Off-Page SEO

The scoring system that Google and other major search engines use to determine SERP rankings rely quite heavily on total off-page links, the quality of those links’ root domains, and other key metrics of off-page SEO. While off-page SEO is extremely important, the intricacies of off-page SEO operations can be daunting, to say the least. Most experts agree, however, that the following three areas of action are a great place to start.

Garnering High-Quality Backlinks

A “backlink” is any link to your website that appears on any other website. In general, other websites will want to link to yours if you provide entertaining content and/or can serve as a reliable source of information on a particular topic.

The founder and head of Neil Patel Digital, SEO marketing expert Neil Patel single out the creation of quality backlinks as the best way to dramatically improve off-page SEO. In fact, the top result on the average Google has nearly four times as many backlinks than the results that rank in positions two through ten.

In addition to the sheer number of backlinks to your website, search engines take a close look at the relative quality of each website that posted one of those backlinks. If your website has a high number of relevant backlinks to highly reputable sites, you are likely to outrank your closest competitors in the average SERP.

Those looking to improve their off-page SEO performance can concentrate on two types of backlinks. Natural backlinks occur when an individual or organization links to your website on their own initiative with little or no direct action on the part of your company or your digital marketing team. The best way to garner natural backlinks is by posting pertinent, authoritative, and compelling content of exceptional quality. It is also possible to create backlinks through self-promotion. Ask clients to link to your website, persuade influencers to share your content, and engage in other online promotion efforts to generate as many applicable and trustworthy backlinks as you can.

Engaging in Digital Marketing for Social Media

Although it is incredibly important, backlink building can be difficult to orchestrate due to the sheer lack of control it offers businesses and their marketing teams. Social media, however, puts marketers into the driver’s seat when it comes to extending content outreach and driving off-page SEO.

In addition to linking directly to its website from its various social media pages, a business can easily encourage other backlinks from other social media platform members. While the off-page SEO value of social media backlinks remains uncertain, the prominent place that social media pages hold in average SERPs is simply undeniable. All businesses know that their profiles on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn will always rank toward the top of all brand-related online searches.

Part of social media’s off-page SEO appeal comes from its immense public popularity. Considering just how many people visit the leading social media platforms on a daily basis, you must take great care to ensure that all content you post there reflects positively on your organization, what it does, and what it stands for.

Boosting Local Directory Listings

For most small to mid-sized businesses, the geographic location of your organization is extremely important when it comes to your unified marketing efforts, both online and elsewhere. When people search for goods and services on Google and other search engines, they tend to include their city of residence as part of their search. For this reason among others, it is a great idea to get a local listing in as many internet directories as possible.

Often doubling as rating sites, these internet directories are typically free to join, but their outreach can be tremendously effective in terms of marketing impact. From Foursquare to Yelp, the most popular directories are familiar to all of us.

In addition to serving as exceptional general marketing platforms for your organization, local listings are tremendously powerful engines of off-page SEO. Because most local directories are deemed both relevant and trustworthy by search engines, every listing in them presents a great opportunity to create a valuable backlink.

Although submitting for a local listing is relatively easy, it is essential that the information you provide is absolutely identical across all directories. Even simple discrepancies, such as trading a full name for an abbreviation, can cause confusion for search engines, leading to immense and immediate negative impacts on your overall off-page SEO efforts.

Reach Off-Page SEO Success with a Cleveland Digital Marketing Agency

If you want to learn more about how to improve off-page SEO, partnering with a high-quality digital marketing agency such as Marketing Done Right is absolutely essential. The experts at this Cleveland-based firm excel at all the off-page SEO techniques listed above among others. When combined with Marketing Done Right’s comprehensive suite of on-page SEO services, these techniques have a proven ability to improve search engine rankings.

So you want to have a website built or perhaps you want your current website updated and are wondering just how important website design and user experience are…right? Well, we are here to tell you that website design and user experience are extremely important. And if not done properly, it could mean the difference between success and failure not only for your website but quite possible for your business as well.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about why website design is so important and the other facets of web page design you need to know.

Reasons Why Website Design Is Important

There are many reasons why website design is so important. Most people want to see a professional, well-designed website over one that is plain and not visually appealing. But there are other reasons as well.

• Your website is what gives your first impression.
• It will help (or hinder) your search engine optimization (SEO).
• Your website is the digital face of your business.
• Your website is what helps build trust, brand recognition, and brand
•  authority.
• Your competitors have a website and so should you.
• A website is the best way to present information to your audience.
• Your website works for you for free 24/7/365—infinitely.

What Is Web Design?

Web design refers to the elements that make up a web page, as well as the different skills and disciplines in the building and maintenance of a website. This could include the content, graphics, navigation, user interface, coding, SEO, and any other front-end (what visitors see) or back-end (what visitors don’t see) elements you choose to include on your website.

Benefits of Having a Great Web Design

There are many web design benefits that come from having a great design. For example:

• A professional, well-designed website will provide your business with a good first impression.
• A properly designed website will help you rank on search engines like Google.
• Professional-looking website will make your business appear credible and approachable.
• A website will help you get leads, drive traffic to your business, and convert that traffic and those leads into sales.
• A well-crafted website will help you convince your visitors to opt for your business over your competitors.
• A website is what gives your business a personality which, in turn, will help build your brand and your brand’s reputation.
• A well-designed website will help lower your site’s bounce rate, which is extremely important to your search engine rankings.
• A professional website will give you an avenue to deliver information to your visitors 24/7/365.

Important Website Design Principles

If you want an effective web page design, there are some important website design principles that need to be followed.

1. UI/UX and Website Layout Design

UI and UX are two different things when it comes to website layout design.

• UI Design – stands for user interface and it is the architecture of a website.
• UX Design – stands for user experience and it is how easy and intuitive your website is for people to use.

Generally, website developers deal with the architecture, performance, and functionality of your website (back-end). And website designers deal with the visual aspects of your website (front-end).

2. Responsive Mobile Website Design

Responsive mobile website design is critical. A mobile responsive website is one that adjusts to both large and small screens so it can be easily viewed and used regardless of what kind of device is accessing it. This will help increase the amount of time a visitor spends on your site. This means that your visitors won’t click off of your website because it’s too hard to see and use. It will also improve your search engine rankings. Google and the other search engines put a lot of emphasis on the mobile responsive aspects of your website and will reward your site with higher rankings if it’s mobile responsive.  

3. Quality Content: Copy, Imagery, and Videos

The entire internet is basically content in some form or fashion. And the search engines are capable of recognizing quality content from poor or spammy content. Therefore, your website will be rewarded for posting high-quality content that your visitors find useful. Additionally, having a variety of content is also important. Text, imagery, and videos are all important. And all forms of content can and should be optimized using alt tags, meta descriptions, and the proper keywords and phrases to help increase your search engine rankings.

4. Call to Action (CTA)

Call to action (CTA) is a term used to describe a specific website design element that includes a message or action phrase that prompts your visitor to perform a specific action. For example, your website might have a “Click Here to Subscribe” button. That is considered a call to action because it calls for the reader to click the button to perform the intended action. CTAs are used to gain email list subscribers, make sales, or do anything else you want to achieve.

5. SEO Traffic

SEO traffic is a key performance indicator that measures the number of people who visit your website as the result of organic or paid search traffic. This is called SEO traffic.

6. Credibility Via Social Proof

Any type of social proof will give your website, your business, and your brand some credibility (or not). Social proof is a psychological action that is based on social influence. This is when people copy the actions of others based on each individual’s reported experience with your brand. For example, when someone retweets something, makes a purchase based on others’ positive reviews (or doesn’t if the reviews are negative), or takes any other action or non-action based on someone else’s reported opinion of any given business or issue.

Social proof is one of the most powerful (good and bad) marketing influences used today.

7. Brand Identity and Consistency

Brand identity is all about brand consistency. Brand identity and consistency are the ways in which your business delivers its message. How do those messages align with your core values, brand mission, customer experience, and brand identity elements? That means all communications your brand puts out should be easily recognizable as your brand across all marketing channels. Meaning the same logo, formats, color scheme, fonts, content tone, and brand personality.

How Bad Can a Website Design Affect My Business?

A bad website design can affect your business in so many critical ways. For example, people will abandon a website that isn’t visually appealing or one that isn’t mobile-friendly, meaning it can be easily viewed and used by someone using a mobile device.

Additionally, most people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less or they will click out and find one that does. A bad web design could give your brand a negative connotation, and less credibility, and can even impact your search engine rankings. And that’s just to name a few.

So, yes, a good website design is that important!

Customize Your Website Design

As you can probably see by now, having a professionally developed and designed website is of the utmost importance. Additionally, having a website designed by someone who knows how to craft it so it is user-friendly, mobile responsive, SEO sufficient, coded correctly, and that the elements are properly titled, tagged, and optimized could mean the difference between helping your brand and brand reputation versus one that does the opposite.

What’s Next?

If you want a website design that will significantly improve your SEO, user experience, and performance, please Contact Marketing Done Right today.

We are a digital marketing agency in Cleveland, OH. Our mission is to always focus on quality over quantity, never take shortcuts, and treat every client as if they were our first client. Then we will use our proprietary method for designing custom websites to craft the perfect website for you—one that will exceed all your goals and expectations now and going forward! And the best part is…we don’t require a contract—EVER!

Why should your business care about logo design? The answer is quite simple. In the words of the logo experts at Tailor Brands, “If you don’t have a logo (and one that stands out), then you are missing an opportunity to make your business stick in the minds of your audience.”

If nothing else, your target consumer audience simply expects any business of substance to have a logo and display it prominently on marketing materials that range from print and video advertisements to company letterhead and business cards. Read on for more information about the key characteristics of a high-quality logo and the reasons that you should make the design of your logo a top priority.

What Makes a Good Logo?

In short, a good logo must be both relevant and distinctive. Although different businesses certainly require different logos, designers should generally stress simplicity and create logos that contain no flourishes that aren’t absolutely necessary.

As observed by Emily Krause of a leading graphic design firm, the average consumer (who isn’t employed as a graphic designer or graced with a particular eye for design details) isn’t likely to put a great deal of stock in a company logo. However, this consumer will subconsciously expect your logo to look and feel appropriate to the industry in which you work as well as the specific products and services that you offer. “Good design not only looks professional on the surface,” writes Krause, “but it also signifies something deeper.”

7 Reasons Why a Logo is Important

Grabs Attention

With consumer attention spans at an all-time low, your company must make a considerable impact within seconds if you want your target audience to learn more about your products and/or services. As a succinct and highly visual representation of your company and its core worth, your logo is a powerful way to capture interest while communicating key traits such as professionalism, trustworthiness, contentiousness, and quality. For maximum effect, your logo should instantly demonstrate how your company’s core values are different and preferable to your closest competitors.

Makes a Strong First Impression

While it isn’t always wise to judge a book by its cover, most consumers do just that when it comes to learning more about a company before making a purchase decision. Exceptional logo design branding provides a great way to put your best foot forward and make an outstanding initial impression. The marketing specialists at Webdew point out that even a less than perfect logo is likely preferable to having no logo at all, warning that “the absence of a logo creates a drab outlook that can alienate prospective customers.”

Lays the Foundation of Your Brand Identity

Just as people have personalities, businesses have brands. Even if you’ve taken great care to cultivate an emotionally compelling brand image that tells a distinctive story, you are missing a tremendous opportunity if your logo fails to reflect that image or summarize that story. For most successful companies, their logo lays the foundation for all that their brand represents. By leveraging the power of color, typeface, and other key logo elements, you can create a shorthand for your brand identity that can serve as a unifying factor for all of your subsequent branding efforts.

Stays with the Consumer over the Long Term

In addition to capturing consumer attention immediately, a high-quality logo must embed itself in consumer memory. As a central brand symbol, logos are a key element of company identification. Ideally, you want a memorable logo that will instantly trigger a firm understanding of what your business does and, perhaps more vitally, how your business makes them feel. A logo that is visually pleasing will have a far better chance of connecting with consumers emotionally. In some cases, a consumer may forget the name of your company but still remember your logo.

Separates You from Competitors

One of the primary reasons that you want your logo to be distinctive and unique is to set yourself apart from other companies in your business sector. Ask yourself how your brand image differs from your competitors and make sure that your logo reflects this difference. A great custom logo design can identify your business as more professional, innovative, fun, efficient, or sustainable than other businesses. Whatever your company does best, your logo should demonstrate it.

Fosters Brand Loyalty

A memorable logo can serve as a consistent guidepost in the minds of consumers. Companies with logos that are instantly familiar are also generally regarded as immediately accessible and highly trustworthy. When loyal customers look for your product on a cluttered and overstocked store shelf, your logo will likely be the first thing that they spot. Iconic logos such as the Nike swoosh and McDonald’s golden arches serve as perfect examples of this fact.

Reinforces Professionalism

Of course, your business won’t go very far if it doesn’t provide quality products and satisfying customer service, but there are ways to demonstrate this high level of professionalism to consumers before they even make a purchase. As the central symbol of your business, your logo speaks volumes about your professionalism. Exceptional business logo design with keen attention to detail suggests similar attention to detail in all that you do. In the words of the marketing leaders at Webdew, a professional logo “fulfills the customers’ requirements and expectations, as any client would expect a credible business to be represented by a suitable logo.”

Your Logo Is the Visual Foundation of Your Brand Identity

Just as your company name represents your business verbally, so does your company logo represent your company visually. So it should demonstrate exactly who you are, what you do, and how your customers feel about you. If you’re looking to learn more about what a well-designed logo can do for you, contact the industry leaders at Marketing Done Right in Cleveland, Ohio. True to the essence of what a good logo does best, our logo design work speaks for itself.