Web designer & Online marketing Specialist - Milano

The right hosting provider is essential, especially for websites with a content management system, such as WordPress. Therefore, opt for quality instead of skimping on perhaps your most important marketing tool: Your website!

WEBSITE SPEED

Speed and security are increasingly important ranking factors for search engines. The cheapest hosting providers host relatively more websites per server, which comes at the expense of speed.

Support

Furthermore, it is essential that your hosting provider is always (24×7) and immediately accessible via chat or telephone, for example. It is inconvenient for building and maintenance if the answering machine is switched on after 5 p.m. or at the weekend. A helpdesk that only works with a ticket system is also difficult to work with.

If I should be unreachable due to unforeseen circumstances (let’s not assume that, but it could happen one day), the website owner should be able to contact the hosting provider’s helpdesk directly, via telephone or chat. For example, they can restore a backup for you in case of emergency if your website is down or help you if your email no longer works.

BACKUPS

Many hosting providers only keep backups for a few days. If you only find out after a few weeks that something is wrong with your website, then you cannot have the backup restored for free. I therefore recommend a hosting provider that makes a daily backup and keeps it for at least 2 weeks. If you can also download those backups, that is an extra advantage.

STANDARD = FASTER = CHEAPER

Each hosting provider has its own control panel, server settings and other details. It would cost an unnecessary amount of time if I always had to find my way with different Hosting providers that also change their control panel every now and then. That’s why it’s better to keep it “standard”.

Security

For security reasons it is better that I do not log in to the hosting provider accounts of my clients with their login name and password. It is better that as a web designer I get my own login details, with which I can log in with double verification (two factor login). In addition, for privacy reasons I do not have access to the email boxes, etc. Unfortunately, this is not yet possible with all hosting providers.

ORDER YOUR HOSTING PACKAGE DIRECTLY?

Please use my affiliate links to order a hosting package, then the hosting provider will see that you are coming through me and that will earn me a small fee.

SITEGROUND

The StartUp Package is sufficient for a simple website. The GrowBig or GoGeek package for larger websites and webshops, websites with relatively many visitors, if you have multiple URLs, etc. Siteground as a hosting provider sometimes comes out as “best” in tests, but not always as “the fastest”. “The best” also looks at helpdesk support, downtime, email, backups, security, price, etc. With Wordpress with Elementor, Siteground, which often comes out as the best “overall” in independent tests, is not the fastest. Some hosting providers, such as Siteground, opt for a golden mean with their server settings, including Joomla, Drupal, Magento, etc. and opt for minimal downtime. Affiliate link: www.siteground.com

Kinsta

Kinsta is specialized in Wordpress and therefore very fast and uses a Google data center in the Netherlands. Kinsta just doesn’t offer domain registration. So you have to arrange that via, for example, namecheap.com or your current budget hosting provider. Also, Kinsta does not provide web mailboxes or email addresses. So you also have to arrange that in a different way, such as workspace.google.com or office.com. This solution is therefore slightly more complicated and more expensive, but ultimately offers a very fast and secure Wordpress website and email via, for example, Microsoft Office 365 or Gmail. Affiliate link: kinsta.com

PLEASE SEND ME THE FOLLOWING

If you want me to build your website, order one of the above packages. It is better not to use an email address that ends in ….@yourdomain.com as your login name. It is better to use a general email address such as …@outlook.com or …@gmail.com, because then there is less chance that spam filters will block the email. To get started for you, it is necessary to give me as a web designer rights to your hosting account. Of course I would be happy to help you with that.

MOVING A WEBSITE

If your website is hosted by another hosting provider and you have chosen to move the domain, DNS, website and/or email to another hosting provider, the following applies to you. When moving, it is useful if you know the following definitions:

Website: The website consists of html or php files, images and SQL database.
Domain Name System (DNS): This system works like a phone book that lists which web server IP address belongs to your domain name. Almost all hosting providers also arrange the DNS.
Email: Most email providers also offer email addresses and web mailboxes, but it may also be the case that the DNS is set so that Microsoft or Google, for example, handles your email.
The domain: Your domain or URL is registered with a “domain registrar”. Most hosting providers automatically register your domain for you with their regular domain registrar.
Hosting provider: The website files and database are hosted on your hosting provider’s server.

CHANGE DNS

If your website, domain or email is moved to another server or provider with a different IP address, then we have to change the DNS. If we do, your website and email may become unstable for several days as it takes up to 72 hours for changes to be implemented anywhere in the world. Any change of DNS data is accompanied by downtime periods for several days. We usually don’t notice it much, but I’d rather warn that it’s possible for up to 3 days of disruption and inconvenience.

MOVING EMAIL

If your email is handled by, for example, Gmail or office.com, your email boxes will not move, but the DNS settings (such as the MX and SPF) must remain intact. If your old hosting provider does arrange the email and/or if you have web mailboxes there, you should do the following:
Back up the email boxes / email addresses associated with the domain name.
Tell me which email addresses (which belong to your domain) I need to create.
Test whether your employees have access to those new web mailboxes at your new hosting provider.
Keep in mind that email settings will likely need to be re-configured across all devices of all your employees. The right time to configure the e-mail settings is when your e-mail is no longer being sent/received with the old settings. Only then should you reconfigure your email program or App. E-mail in your old web mailbox must be transferred if you wish, because it will not automatically move to the new web mailbox.

MOVING DOMAIN NAME

Make sure you have direct access to the mailbox of the domain name administrator in the (old) domain registry to confirm that you agree with the transfer. If you can’t confirm, you will have to expect a delay in transferring your domain.
You must request a transfer code from your old provider for the domain(s) you want to transfer and forward it to me.
You will sometimes receive a number of verification e-mails that you must confirm for approval. Keep an eye on your mailbox and spam folder. I can’t do this for you.
If all goes well, the transfer of a domain name will take a few days to 2 weeks, depending on the registrar.
Note that if you change the domain owner’s name, for example, you won’t be able to transfer the domain for a few weeks.

YOUR OLD HOSTING PROVIDER

Even if the domain name is transferred, you still have to cancel your hosting package and perhaps also a maintenance contract with your old provider, otherwise the costs may continue. It is possible that there are other domain names registered in your package and in that case you probably do not want to cancel the package. If you cancel your web hosting package with your hosting provider, everything (including website, mailboxes and email account settings) will be deleted, so make sure to backup your website and email on time.

Your input

Your input is needed before I can get started. What do you have in mind in terms of “look and feel” and layout? Send me examples of websites and images that we can use as inspiration to create the right “look and feel”. You can also get inspired by the demos of the templates and page builders I use, see Themeisle en elementor.com and stock photos, which you can download from websites such as:

pexels.com
unsplash.com
stock.adobe.com
deathtothestockphoto.com
elements.envato.com

Brand book

In order to work as effectively as possible and to achieve the best result, I recommend that you have a Brand book made by a graphic designer. This contains:

Corporate identity
Logo
Pay off
Corporate identity elements
Logos
Primary color palette
Corporate identity fonts digital
Description image style photography

To view an example of a Brand book click here.

PROTOTYPE

I will make a prototype that resembles the end result as much as possible. The prototype is therefore the wireframe with the layout of the homepage, blog pages, overview pages, product pages, etc. including the colors, images, texts, etc. in the the corporate identity. It also describes how the headings, text, links, bulleted lists, etc. should look like.

Finally, with Photoshop, the images must be made exactly at the right size. With that I can start building the template.

How do we backup Wordpress with Updraft Plus?

Login to the backend.
If the plugin is not yet installed or activated you can install and activate UpdraftPlus yourself by going to Plugins – new plugin and find UpdraftPlus.
Go to UpdraftPlus and click the “Back Up Now” button.
Make sure all boxes are checked:
Add your database to the backup (…)
Add your files to the backup (…)
and make sure plugins, themes, uploads and other are checked.

Click Backup Now and you will see the message: The backup appears to have been successful, and is now complete (date, time)
The Backup appears in the screen. 
To download click on the buttons: Database, Plugins, Themes, Uploads, WordPress, core, Other. (Sometimes there are several downloadable packages.)
The parts will then appear above and you can click on the buttons: Download to computer.
Download all the parts one by one to your PC or external hard drive or backup device.
Then delete the backup from the web server, because the space is often limited.

If you regularly publish a blog or video that is of real added value for your target group, it will make a very important contribution to achieving your online marketing goals. Social media posts, online advertisements and newsletters can then be linked to these blogs on your website. That’s what it’s all about: attracting customers to your website, because that’s where the conversions take place. This is how you create a funnel to your website. A website with many interesting articles on a certain subject will also become easier to find in search engines. “Content is king” when it comes to SEO.

CHANGE TEXT

If you want to post a blog, feel free to send me the texts and I’ll be happy to arrange that for you. If you prefer to do it yourself, read the following instructions.

All WordPress websites have a backend. Only administrators can log in to the backend with login name and password. That back can be reached by typing the following after your domain name in the URL bar of your internet browser behind your URL: wp-admin/ or /possibly-a-secret-code/?login/
Click on the post or page you want to change and you will be taken to the page below.
A text editor is installed, so you can edit the text in the editor’s text box without thinking about the HTML code. You can make text bold or italicized, enter links, or enter a “Read more…” button.
After making the changes, click Update / Update.
At the top left under the name of your website you can click on visit site. If you click on it, you will quickly see the front of your website, so that you can check whether the changes have been successful.
That’s all!

COPY AND PASTE?

If you copy and paste text from a document or from another internet page into your website, you may be pasting in a lot of formatting code. That is why I recommend that you first paste the text in a very simple word editor such as Notepad and from there into the website. This way your HTML code stays clean.

TEMPLATE

The general layout of all web pages and also the style such as color, size, alignment of all text, headings, links, lists on the website, are centrally controlled in the template. This allows a website to be provided with a standard layout and style that is applied to all pages and to all texts. So if you want to change something in it, I can change that in 1 go instead of you having to change all pages individually. The advantages of this are of course a huge time-saver, that the source code remains “clean” and that the style remains consistent.

INSERT IMAGES

To enter an image or video, click on Add media. If your image is already on your server, select it from the list and click the “insert” button.
If the image isn’t on the server yet, we need to upload it first. But before we do that, we need to make the image the right size and give it the right resolution. Feel free to ask me if you don’t know how to do that. Then you can upload the image via Add media – Upload files.

CUSTOMIZE MENU

Adjusting the menu in Wordpress is done via the Dashboard – Appearance – Menus.

Caching makes your website faster, but changes are sometimes not immediately visible and that can be quite confusing. Sometimes, the old version is still shown. Moreover, caching takes place not only in your browser, but also by your CDN, hosting provider and website.

CLEAR WEBSITE CACHE

If you have a WordPress website with WP Rocket, go to WP Rocket – Clear Cache.

CLEAR BROWSER CACHE

How you can clear browser history depends on the browser and device you are using. So do a Google search on how to do that for your browser. With Google Chrome (recommended browser) this is done on a laptop or PC with Windows as follows:

Click top right more
Click More Tools
Browse Clear data.
Select Unlimited.
Click the checkboxes next to “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files”.
Click Clear data.

For more information, use the links below.

Google Chrome
Firefox
Safari

INCOGNITO WINDOW OR OTHER BROWSER

If you open a clean browser or an “incognito window” or “private browsing” you will see the new version of your website.

CLEAR CACHE FROM THE HOSTING PROVIDER

If this is not enough, you must log into your hosting provider’s account and flush the cache.

CLEAR CACHE FROM YOUR CDN

If you use a CDN such as Cloudflare, you can log in to your CDN account or (via your hosting provider). Click on Purge or flush cache. In addition, you can activate Development mode, which disables this cache for a few hours.

PROXY WEBSITE

If you want to bypass all caches and thus see what your website looks like now to new visitors, you can test visit your website at www.proxysite.com by entering the URL there. If you still don’t see the changes on this site, take a screenshot and send it to me so I can investigate.

Every Content Management System, including WordPress, must be kept up-to-date to protect it against hackers and bugs. Updating is relatively easy, but sometimes things go wrong because new versions of plugins are not compatible with other plugins or the new version is not compatible with the PHP version of the server, etc. So always make backups, because updating / upgrading your website or template can “break” and the fastest solution is often restoring from a backup.

Outsource or do it yourself?

The necessary technical maintenance consists of making backups and updates of the CMS and the extensions and plugins. You may be able to take care of the version management yourself after training, but I recommend that you leave it to me, then I will send you an email every month that your website is up-to-date with the question of whether everything is still functions well.

Auto update

Auto-update automatically updates the core CMS or plugins as they become available. This means that security leaks and bugs are solved as soon as possible and the chance of hacking is as small as possible. That is why this feature is also recommended. Those updates always take place in the live site. The administrator or owner may receive an email from this and the website must be tested asap. It almost always goes well, but occasionally not. In that case, just pass it on to me. If something doesn’t work properly after that update, such as a form, shop or booking system, or if the template “breaks”, then that needs to be solved, maybe even the backup has to be restored.

Incidentally, auto-update of the CMS or of the PHP version is not possible with every hosting provider. Also, not all plugins and extensions can update automatically. For example, some paid plugins need to be updated manually. Manual periodic updating and checking therefore remains necessary.

Updating Wordpress core and plugins

You log in to the backend and go to Updates. There you can update core, plugins, themes and translations.

PHP version

Some hosting providers have the option to opt for managed PHP. If the PHP version is not automatically updated by the hosting provider, this must be done manually.

Update or Upgrade?

Updating takes place within the same version family, so for example: from 3.9.19 to 3.9.20. Migrate / Upgrade is to next version family. So for example: from 3.9.16 to 4.0. Important: Migrating / Upgrading is much more complicated and therefore something to always leave to an experienced expert. Upgrading should be done approximately every 5 years. The turnaround time for a migration is sometimes several weeks. A “small service” is therefore required every month and a “major service” every so many years.

Hackers can try to “steal” customer data from your website or place an image, text or a (hidden) link to their own website on your website. Hackers can also misuse your website for, for example, attacks on other websites or to send spam. That can be disastrous for the ranking of your website in Google. Updating is essential to limit these risks. In addition, Google gives well-secured websites a higher ranking. So make sure you get the following in order together with my help of course.

Security accounts

The following applies to your website, but also to all other accounts, such as your hosting provider, domain registry, Microsoft or Google account, CDN, etc.:

Never send me the login details of your account with all owner management rights. Instead, add me as a developer / technical contact / manager / collaborator. This way I only get the limited rights I need and I can’t access your e-mail box, invoices, domain names, etc. The advantage is that I can log in with my own login details with two-factor authentication (= double verification with smartphone).
I never keep your account passwords. Not even if you send them to me anyway. So make sure that you store the passwords securely. Also make sure you can reset the password yourself, in case you lose it, using your own account recovery email address and mobile phone number.
If it is necessary for me as a developer to log in with the owner’s login details (with all administrative rights), please give me the password by phone and change it as soon as the job is done.
Provide strong passwords that cannot be guessed. Long passwords, in other words, at least 10 characters, consisting of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and strange characters, without words or data in them.
Activate 2-Step Verification.
Never send login details by email, but by telephone or via a separate encrypted service and delete the messages permanently asap.
Change / reset all passwords regularly.
Never store passwords in your browser, but in an encrypted, well-secured Password manager.
Activate account login notifications, so you get an email when someone logs in. Notify the administrator if you do not recognize or suspect a login attempt and immediately change your passwords.

Security Website

Hide the URL of the backend of the website.
Choose an administrator login name that hackers can’t guess. (not your name or email address.)
Is Wordpress Auto-update active, so that security vulnerabilities are automatically closed as soon as a security patch becomes available?
Does the server have the latest PHP version and is it automatically updated to a secure version?
Is your SSL certificate active, so that data is sent securely via your website?
Has a plugin been activated that prevents spambots from putting email addresses on your website on mailing lists?
Is Google Recapcha activated to prevent spammers from misusing your contact form?
Is an Uptime Monitor plugin or application activated so that you receive a warning email if your website goes down?
In addition to Google Search Central, I recommend checking your website with: Google Safebrowsing.
Remove form entries in the backend of your website if they contain confidential information. If someone fills out a form on your website, you will receive an email and often these form entries are also stored in your website. If you don’t know how to remove it, please ask me.

Firewall for Wordpress

For example, you can purchase Cloudflare Pro. This gives you a CDN (content delivery network) so that your site becomes faster and a WAF (Firewall) so that your website is extra secure. Siteground also has an extra tool that I can recommend: Hackalert. This is a kind of virus scanner that scans your files and database for hacker code. If you have a WordPress website, I recommend installing or having installed one of the following plugins: sucuri.net or wordfence.com. The latter is more affordable and also has a free version.

For all (important) web pages, check the following. To do that, install Screaming Frog SEO Spider. This gives you quick insight into the elements of your website.

Does each page have a unique descriptive <Title> in the source code of about 70 characters with the most important keywords as many as possible in front?
Does each page have a unique <description> in the source code of about 155 characters with the most important keywords as much as possible in the beginning?
Are the <Meta Keywords> empty as recommended today?
Does each page have a visible page header that contains that page’s main keyword in <H1> format?
Have the most important keywords been incorporated into the content, especially at the top of the page, etc. and is that not exaggerated?
Are there sufficient descriptive text links to the page from other pages on the same website?
Have Anchor texts, such as “click here..” or “read more..” been replaced with descriptive texts, which contain important keywords?
Are large chunks of text divided into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs?
Do the paragraphs have headings containing the most important keywords?
Have HTML tables  been replaced by columns with CSS?
Did you check the text using a spelling checker?
Is Schema.org implemented as much as possible on your site for company data, data, people, etc?

Search engine friendly URLs

It is best if the website has a structure that is as flat as possible, because pages deeper in the structure are seen as less important. In contrast, for large sites it is important to provide a pyramid-shaped structure, with main and submenu items.

Keywords in the URLs

The URLs resulting from the structure should be short, but powerful. The URLs should also contain the most important keywords, because Google looks at the URL of pages. The URL is structured as follows: Domain name/category/possibly-subcategory/page name.

Prevent Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is created when two URLs point to 1 page. This results in halving the value Google assigns to the pages. That is why it is important that you indicate what the canonical URL is or that we refer the URLs to the most important URL by means of a 301 redirect.

Site map

It is better not to put all pages in the XML sitemap. Unimportant pages such as “privacy statement” and “terms and conditions” should not be included. Google has a limited “craw budget”. That means Google has limited time to index your website. That crawl budget should at least be spent on the most important pages. The sitemap indicates the important pages.

Sitemap extensions often create multiple sitemaps in content management systems. Select only the important ones and log it in Search Console.

Noindex,follow

It is better to set pages that should not really be found in Google, on “noindex,follow”. For example, pages that don’t need to be found in Google are:

/shopping cart/
/Terms and Conditions/
/disclaimer/
/thanks/
/cookie-and-privacy-statement/

404 page

The website must have a 404 page in the same style as the rest of the website. Check the website occasionally for broken links with this tool:
https://validator.w3.org/checklink

robots.txt

In this file you can indicate that certain URLs should not be indexed, such as the backend of a content management system.

301 redirects

If you are going to replace an existing website with a new site with a different structure, or if you change page URLs, the existing URLs will disappear. Links from external sites and URLs indexed by Google will throw a 404 error without any measures because the page no longer exists. That is of course not good for the user-friendliness of your website. That is why a transfer message must be placed on the server that points the old URLs to the new ones. For this, 301 redirects must be set to the new page. You can find the URL errors in Google Search Console and if you have fixed the broken links, you can report it there.

Preferred domain

It is best if you choose 1 preferred domain and have the others point to it automatically. For example, https://www. is your preferred domain, the following should automatically switch to it when someone types them into the URL bar:

https://
http://
http://www

Images are important for search engine optimization. Many people search Google for images on the subject in question. If your image comes up and people click on it, they will come to your website. It is therefore important to give the images the correct file name.

FILENAME

Regarding the file name of the image, the following is important:

Use only lowercase letters, no capital letters.
Do not use spaces, use the minus sign (-) between words.
Do not use other characters in the file name such as: _&@:#*/.
The file name must be a keyword associated with the page the image is on.
If 1 and the same image is used in several places, with different resolution, for example 1 time large in the banner, 1 time normal in the text, 1 time small as featured image, etc. then add a suffix to the file name to separate the images to keep each other. That can also be an abbreviation or the number of pixels. This prevents us from using, for example, a banner image that is too large, while that could be a smaller image in terms of pixels.

ALT TAGS

When uploading, the images must have a proper alt tag and title. That text is important for screen readers, for example. A screen reader converts web pages into speech for blind people. Google thinks it is very important that the web is accessible to everyone and so it is a ranking factor. The alt tag must be a key word of the page the image is on.

QUALITY FORMAT

In order to have the image indexed correctly, it is recommended to submit an image sitemap in Google Search Console. Images should not be too large, in terms of file size. Photoshop allows you to compress images. We then lower the quality, which reduces the loading speed. There are handy plugins available for Wordpress that automatically optimize images for you, such as the plugin Imagify. Make sure you keep a backup of the original, unedited photos with high resolution and quality. You may need it someday for printing, for example.

PIXELS FORMAT

The images must have the right size of pixels. It is not good to upload an image that is too large and then make it smaller with HTML code. The image that is too large will still have to be downloaded and that slows down your site speed. The average website width  is 1150px on desktops. Full screen photos, such as full screen headers and background photos, may be about 2500px wide, so that they still show sharp full screen on high-definition screens. If SEO and therefore speed is important, you can consider not showing full-screen images.

You can use the following online tools to analyze your website for possibilities for improvement:

Speed

developers.google.com/speed/
gtmetrix.com

Other factors

web.dev/measure/
googlechrome.github.io/lighthouse/viewer/
seositecheckup.com/
search.google.com/search-console
webpagetest.org/
seoreviewtools.com/seo-checker/
brokenlinkcheck.com/

Check meta tags? 

www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

Structured data testing tool

search.google.com/test/rich-results
search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/

Spelling checker

Try “Copy-pasting” the texts in Microsoft Word and remove the spelling errors from your website, if the text editor in the backend of your website does not have a clear spell checker.

Earning links to your website is called link building. This is a matter of creating interesting content. If websites and portals related to your field mention a link to your website, Google will see your website as important and your Pagerank will improve.

Portals

Advertising on portals can generate extra website visitors and therefore revenue, because portals are often easy to find. The disadvantage is that advertising in good portals is often expensive and your competitors are also listed on them. If you can earn a link on a portal, it is often a “no-follow” link and it will not positively affect your ranking. In the long run, it is therefore better to ensure that your own website is simply the most interesting, so that you do not need the expensive portals.

Backlink Checker

Online tools allow you to see which sites are already linking to your website. Also use this tool to see backlinks to your competition’s websites. You may also be able to earn a backlink on those same sites: Try semrush.com or ahrefs.com/backlink-checker

Disavow spammy links

Participation in link farms or paid links to improve page rank is penalized by Google. This also applies to excessive links in blogs, forums, etc. Never link back to other websites in exchange for a link to your website. But it is possible that, for example, the competition places spammy links on link farms to your website, which means that Google gives you penalty points. In that case you can report it.

Create an account

Firstly, we will create a Google account with which we will soon be able to log in to Google Search Console, Google My Business, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, your YouTube channel, etc. It is not the intention that you use an existing Gmail address or this account for personal e-mail, calendar, contacts, etc., but only for the website, because I may have to log in to it too.

Go to myaccount.google.com and create a Google account with an email address like: webstatsyourcompanyname@gmail.com. Website visitors etc. will never see that email address anywhere. The account is purely for the website administrators. Please send me your Gmail address and password.

Turn off Google Activity

For privacy reasons, it is recommended that you delete and disable everything in “My Google Activity” so that Web and App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History are not saved.

Account recovery

Then go to myaccount.google.com/security and check that under “Account Recovery Options” the “Secondary Email Address” and “Recovery Phone Number” are your own email and mobile number. If not, please amend it with your own details.

Alert emails

Important alerts about your website or Google Ads campaigns will be sent to this Gmail address. To make sure you get those alerts (without logging in), I recommend making sure email is forwarded to an email address that you read daily. So go to mail.google.com and click on the gear in Gmail and choose settings or settings. In the tab “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” you can set how your e-mail should be forwarded. If you receive a warning email in the future, please forward it to me if you would like me to resolve the issue.

Google Search Central

Google Search Central was created to help website owners be found better in Google. For example, you can find out how the website is indexed and if there are any problems. If pages are offline or hacked, you may also see this in Search Console and you may also receive a warning email. Search Console is also where you can submit the website’s sitemap to help Google index the site. If you’ve changed URLs and forgot to set up 301 redirects, you can fix it here. So it’s important to link your website to Search Central, submit your sitemap, and keep a close eye on Search Console and emails.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

In Google Analytics you can find an endless amount of website statistics. Information can be found about, for example:

Your website visitors: where they come from, their age, what kind of computer they use, what their interests are, etc.
How they found your website: via social media, your newsletter, google search, other websites, by directly typing the URL in the address bar, etc.
How they behave on your website: where they enter, how they navigate and exit your site, and how they search your website.
Whether your preset goals are achieved: You can track conversions, such as online purchases, registrations, etc.

Google Analytics can greatly help improve your online marketing. Based on the statistics you can determine your business goals, KPIs and annual planning. Periodically we can see whether we are on track or whether we need to make adjustments.

GOOGLE TAG MANAGER

With Google Tag Manager you can, among other things, link Google Analytics to your website, so that you can keep track of website statistics. At a later stage, we can also track Google Ads Conversions  with it. Once you have entered the tag in Google Tag Manager, you can then manage all tags from Google Tag Manager.

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

By properly setting up Google My Business, you can ensure that your company can be found more easily at: google.com/maps. Secondly, you control the display of additional company information in Google My Business, to the right of the results on the Google index page.

GOOGLE ADS

Simply put, advertising in Google can be done in two ways, namely through Search Ads and through Display Ads.

SEARCH ADS

Google Search Ads are paid advertisements in Google that are shown when someone searches for one of the keywords you set in Google. You only pay per click, so that click comes from someone looking for something you offer. As long as the ads yield more than they cost, it is recommended to invest in Google Ads. Whether that also applies to your company is simply a matter of trying, because the number of conversions it has delivered is easy to measure. You do need to allow a few months to achieve the maximum through optimization take out ale. You can start with a small budget and if you find that it is more profitable than it costs, increase the budget.

DISPLAY ADS

Google display Ads are shown on websites that are part of the Google display network. These are websites such as nu.nl or youtube.com. These advertisements consist of images, animations or videos. The ads are therefore not shown to those who actively search in the search engine, but to those who surf the Internet on various websites that are related to the topic you have set. A wider audience can therefore be addressed and is ideal for generating awareness. Clicks on display ads are also less expensive, because they often involve people who may not yet make a purchase.

You can target different topics or audiences. The latter can be a remarketing list of people who have visited your website. After they surf through, they will see your ads.

CRITICAL SUCCESFACTORS

It is important that you consider the following beforehand. Write this down for your company in general and per product group or service. This info is used to write good advertisements.

What makes your company unique?
What is decisive for the success of your company?
What are your core competencies?

TARGET GROUPSSEGMENTS

Describe in advance per campaign as accurately as possible who your ideal customers are on whom we can focus the campaigns.

B2B                 B2C
Age                  Industry
Gender           Number employees
Region            Location
Education      Turnover
Occupation   Type company
Function
Interests

FOCUS

It is not possible to optimize 1 page for several different keywords. You optimize each page for 1 group of keywords and alternatives. It is too much work to optimize all pages at once. It is better to first select a number of important URLs and determine the keywords for them. For example, start with the 5 most important products or services, choose the URLs that belong to them and start with that. Later come the less important pages.

KEYWORD TOOLS

For example, with Google Ads (see next article) we can find good alternatives to the existing ideas about keywords. Trends.google.nl also allows you to compare search terms to determine which alternatives generate more volume in visitors. We have to take into account the “language” that your target group speaks and what could be used by them as search terms. Together we make a list of keywords for each product or service. The best tool to help you with this is semrush.com/

LONG TAIL OR SHORT TAIL KEYWORDS?

We have to choose keywords that generate a lot of conversions. We also sometimes have to include search terms or keyword groups that may be used less often (lower search volume), but that are very relevant to your specialization and that can provide you with a lot of turnover. The advantage of more specific keyword groups (long tail, with less search volume) compared to more general keywords (short-tail, with higher search volume) is that long-tail ranks higher more easily and yields relevant clicks.

UX & Conversion Optimization is really about the questions:

How do you gain customer trust and how do you convince them?

How do you make the threshold for ordering something as low as possible?

There are endless things to see here. Nevertheless, I have tried to compile a checklist that is as complete as possible, from which you may be able to get inspiration to improve your website on this point.

REVIEWS

Reviews are of paramount importance these days. Therefore put them on your website including a photo of the customer or his or her company logo. You can use Google My Business to collect reviews. These 5-star ratings are also shown in the search results, which significantly increases the click-through rate.

Quality Marks

Do you have quality marks and logos of certification bodies etc. in the footer of your website?

GUARANTEE

Does your website offer clear warranty conditions and possibly “money back”?

PUBLICATIONS

Show that you are an authority and that you articles are written about you or that you contribute to publishing articles in leading trade journals or on portals.

REFERENCES

Does your website show references? If you already supply your products or services to large customers, put their logos on your website or even better, describe for each company what you do or have done for those companies.

FOUNDED IN…

Is the year of foundation on your site? That gives confidence, especially if your company has been around for a while.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Show that you are a socially responsible entrepreneur and have an eye for the planet with respect for people.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Do you regularly keep your social media pages up to date and are they neatly designed?

ETHICS AND COMPLIANCE

Does your website and email marketing system comply with the GDPR? Show that you take privacy seriously.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Is it clear at a glance what the website is about or what you have to offer?
Does the web design provide a positive brand experience?
Does the look match your identity?
Do you use stock photos or personal images? Make your website personal and authentic with your own photo and video material. It’s hard to get empathy with only stock photos.

Scarcity

Does your website give the idea of ​​scarcity? Examples of this are: “2 spots left!” and leave the sold-out products on the website, Offer valid until, etc.

RECIPROCITY

Are you giving something away for free? For example, a sample or trial period to get in touch with your target group? For example, a free valuation of your house (real estate agent), free website scan (web designer), free intake conversation, free App, discount when leaving a review, secret deals only via e-newsletter, etc.

CATCHING TEXTS

Does every product page, above the fold, contain your USPs for that particular product, service or category? Users want to be able to see in seconds why they should work with you and not the competitor instead of having to read the entire article.

Is the most important information above the fold?
Is the text easy to read through correct use of fonts, size and colors?
Do the pages invite the reader to read the text through attractive text layout and visual material?
Are paragraphs neatly divided with paragraph headings?
Are sentences and paragraphs not too long?
Is it clear what text links are?

CALLS TO ACTION

Do your Calls-to-actions really catch the eye through color design, without too much distraction from other things?
Is the most important Calls to action above the fold?
Does the website include the ability to easily share articles on the main social media channels?
Does your website use social media display instead of links to your social media pages?
Always try to keep visitors on your site, because that’s usually where the most important conversions happen.
Does your website have a Chat function, Skype or WhatsApp button?
Is your phone number on the desktop version and a click-to-call icon on the mobile version of your website?
Do you have a concise contact form, brochure request form or “Call me back” form in the sidebar or footer of every page?
Are you asking to subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, leave a review or fill in the contact form, in the sidebar or footer on every page, on your thank you page, in your email signature, in automatic confirmation emails, in the template of your newsletters, etc.

NAVIGATION

Does your website have breadcrumbs?
With breadcrumbs, users can see at a glance where they are in the website structure.
Is it possible to search your website using a search field?
This is a must, especially if you have a lot of articles or products.
Does your website use tags?
Tags connect articles or products that are related to each other. When the user clicks on a tag, he gets an overview of all products or articles with the same tag.
Does your website have an off-canvas hamburger menu on mobile?

USABILITY

Does your website or webshop use personalization where possible? Personalization means that you present visitors with personalized content, after they have logged in or e.g. viewed a particular product on your website or read a particular article. An example of this is the alternative products at the bottom of webshops or last read articles.
Does the layout of your website meet the web standard? As far as UX is concerned, it is better to deviate as little as possible from the “standard”. Otherwise, visitors will be confused. For example, visitors expect the main menu to be the same on every page and the logo at the top left to be a link back to the home page.
Are telephone numbers clickable on mobile phones?
Are the forms too long or complicated?
Have you had your grandfather or grandmother test the website?

There is a lot involved in sending a successful e-mail newsletter in times when people actually receive too many e-mails. This article provides several recommendations to ensure that:

As many people as possible actually open your email.
As many people as possible in your email click through to your website.
As few people as possible unsubscribe from your mailing list.

If you follow the rules, e-mail marketing is a very effective and affordable way of marketing, but it also comes with some unavoidable risks. Below you can read recommendations to keep them as small as possible. If you also want to send the newsletters yourself instead of outsourcing it to an expert, it is recommended to go through an email marketing training and also study all documentation of Acymailing.

Testing

It is an impossible task to make your newsletters look perfect on all different devices, operating systems, browsers, email clients, screen settings, etc., even if it is of course the challenge to achieve an optimal result. For maximum results, it is recommended to test each newsletter before sending with an “HTML e-Mail Testing service” such as litmus.com or emailonacid.com and an extensive “test mailing list”. If you create a trial account and send me the login details, I will in any case test the template extensively.

Domain reputation

Internet service providers, such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. determine your “IP or domain reputation” and filter all e-mails originating from your IP address on that basis. By sending newsletters, you have the risk that your “reputation” will deteriorate and your IP address will end up on various blacklists. Even if you follow all the recommendations below and you adhere to the rules, it is still not completely preventable that e.g. recipients (wrongly) submit a spam complaint and/or that recipients mark your e-mail address as spam or unwanted e-mail in their e-mail program. As a result, the e-mail address of your newsletter may automatically end up in spam folders or be blocked.

What to do if someone Unsubscribes?

Process the bounce messages in your newsletter mailboxes (automatically or manually). Subscribers can “unsubscribe” from the mailing list in 4 ways:
Subscribers click on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the newsletter. Subscribers are then automatically unsubscribed and remain in the list as “unsubscribed”. You will receive a system message from AcyMailing when people subscribe or unsubscribe. You don’t have to do anything with those messages.
Subscribers answer the newsletter by a reply with a manually written message if you want to remove them from your list. Those email addresses must also be manually set to “unsubscribed” in the list.
Subscribers change / terminate their own email address. In that case, you will receive an automated system message with the subject of something like “undelivered mail” or “email could not be delivered”. It is important that these e-mail addresses are also manually set to “unsubscribed” in the list. Sometimes people also set an “Out of office” message. You should also keep an eye on this one, because it often states that someone has a new e-mail address.
Subscribers click a “this is spam/ junk e-mail” button in their e-mail client or report the e-mail as spam. In that case, you will at most receive a message from the ISP or an “anti-spam organization”, often to postmaster@yourdomain or abuse@yourdomain. Should this ever occur, it is important that those e-mail addresses are manually set to “unsubscribed” in the list. You must also respond to (un)justified “spam complaints” to prevent your domain from sustaining further reputational damage.
If you’re using an external mail server, you can also export bounced email addresses, which will help you clean up your list. Note: Never remove subscribers who have unsubscribed from the list, but set them to “unsubscribed/unsubscribed” and leave them in the list that way. If a new file with e-mail addresses is imported in the future and those previously unsubscribed e-mail addresses are also in that new file, then it must be prevented that they are imported into your mailing list again. This can be done by leaving the unsubscribed addresses in the list as unsubscribed and choosing “Do not overwrite existing data” when importing. E-mail addresses can never end up in the mailing list twice.

IP or domain reputation

The following are recommended to mitigate the risk of your “IP or domain reputation” deteriorating:
Only include email addresses in the mailing list that have been authorized by the subscriber through the “double-opt-in” signup system on your website. 
Before sending each newsletter, check that all new subscriptions have been confirmed by the subscriber clicking the link in the verification e-mail.
If clients have registered for your newsletter in writing (e.g. with a paper registration form or card) and you pass those addresses on to the administrator of your mailing system for importation into the mailing list, always mention existing data of those addresses need to be updated/overwritten. This prevents those addresses from not being added if the address is already in the mailing list as “not confirmed” or “unsubscribed”. Normally, addresses that are already in the mailing list are not added or updated. This prevents e-mails from being sent to addresses of people who have previously unsubscribed from the mailing list. This can lead to great irritation, spam complaints, blacklisting, fines and claims for damages. Please do this in one go in an Excel file.
DO NOT update existing unsubscribed or disabled addresses in the mailing list.
Register a working email address where you can receive spam complaints at abuse.net and take action if a spam complaint comes in.
Make sure your domain’s WHOIS Contact Information is correct and complete, you can ask your hosting provider to check and fix it.
Do not use spammy language in your newsletter or subject line.
Ask subscribers to your newsletter to “whitelist” the email address of your newsletter in their email program.
Make it very easy and clear for subscribers to unsubscribe. It is much better for subscribers to unsubscribe via the link in your newsletter than for them to click a “This is spam button”. One (or two) clear unsubscribe buttons or links are therefore recommended.
Always send the newsletter to a “spam test service” such as mail-tester.com or the spam test function built into Acymailing and solve any problems before sending the mailing to your list.
Have an “external delivery service” linked to your e-mailing system for sending your newsletters, such as Elastic Email.

Elastic Email

Always ensure that you have sufficient credits on your Elastic Email account (the external mail server) for trouble-free sending of your newsletters.
Go to elasticemail.com
Click top right on ACCOUNT
Click on GET CREDIT . in the menu bar at the top
Select the amount (often 20 USD is already sufficient) and the desired payment method.
Choose to have your credits topped up automatically when it falls below a certain minimum for hassle-free shipping.
I also recommend enabling 2 factor authentication.

As for social media marketing there are very good tutorials on hubspot.com. You can create a free account to gain access.

Is it easy for visitors to share web pages with social media share buttons on every web page?
Do your web pages have the correct tags, which determine that the correct image and text are displayed when visitors share the relevant page?
Is it easy for visitors to like or follow your social media page with buttons on every web page?
Are your social media pages designed in your corporate identity?
Have you claimed the vanity URLs?
Do you ask, in as many places as possible, to like, share, tweet or link your social media channels?
Do you regularly post a message with a link to more information on your website, for example in your blog?
Do you advertise in social media to get extra attention from your target group?