In today’s saturated marketplace, a well-crafted website is crucial to build your brand and make you stand out. Doing so will increase traffic, attract new customers, and help maintain current clients. Whether your goal is to establish or update your online presence, Pathways Web Design will work with you to create a clean, modern, user-friendly web design that sets you apart from the crowd.
Here at Pathways Web Design, we understand the importance of creating a strong online presence for the success of your business. We’ll not only get you online with a sleek design and a well functioning website (or format of your choice), we’ll also provide you with the services needed to draw in traffic and give you an edge on your competitors. We do this by incorporating SEO (search engine optimization) into all the websites, blogs and social media projects we create, at no extra charge to you.
SEO is crucial to your online success.
In case you’re not sure what “SEO” is all about, it simply refers to the actions you can apply to your online pages to rank well in Google (or other) search engines. In other words, SEO is what you need in order to rank further up (or first) on the search results page when people search for material that’s in your area of expertise.
SEO is absolutely necessary if you want your online endeavors to draw in traffic and bring in a good return for your investment. It’s not enough to have a nice looking site that describes who you are and what you’re about; you need to present your information in a way that search engines will recognize and favor. In other words, you need to “optimize” your content. When you achieve that, you’ll rank well and come up often in the searches that people do. If you’re wondering how to make that happen, here’s where we can help.
Our Team At Pathways Web Design provides you with the complete package for your website and online needs!
We are your one stop web design shop! Unlike a lot of website companies out there, we have a team of skilled writers who will do the writing for you and incorporate SEO into the content. As well, our development team will build you a unique website with an appealing layout. We know how important it is for a site to function well and be visually appealing, alongside having quality content, so that your visitors will be more apt to hang around and explore it further. Here are some of the SEO tools we employ to achieve these things for you:
Read about these in more detail below.
The term “Keywords” refers to the words that most precisely describe your product or service. Most commonly they are derived from the words found in your title. However, while your title may factor into you coming up in a Google search, it’s not going to be sufficient in and of itself to draw in much traffic. That’s because SEO is all about how you utilize those keywords throughout your text. In order to do that effectively, you need to know what Google and other search engines are looking for when they rank your page and then apply your keywords accordingly.
Good writing = Good Ranking
Keywords are only valuable to you if you use them naturally in your text and in a way that adds to the quality of your content. You can’t just stuff a bunch of them wherever you want or you risk Google downgrading your ranking. At the same time, you do need to use them often enough and in a particular way for Google to rank your page well. At Pathways, our writers are skilled at using keywords so they’ll add value to your content and communicate to Google’s search engine what is needed for your pages to rank favorably. This is one way we can help with your SEO.
Keyword Combos
Keywords come in different sizes.
When it comes to incorporating the above styles of words into your writing, one is not better than the others, but there are some differences in what they will yield. Short-tails will be more commonly entered into the search engines by people and will allow your page to come up more often than medium and long-tails will. That means a lot of people will see your page in relation to your target keywords. But being they are not necessarily as specific as some of the searches being done, you may not always get the follow up you’d like. That’s where medium and long-tail words come in handy. By incorporating these into your written material, we’ll help you draw in those doing more specific searches and more effectively reach your target audience – the folks out there that are most likely to follow up with you after finding your page.
Our team at Pathways is acquainted with how to incorporate all three types of these keywords into your written material in order to maximize your returns for each. Along with drawing out of experience and creativity, we also utilize tools such as KWFinder to make this happen. If you’re curious about that, you can check it out here.
LSI Keywords
LSI keywords are just as important and we’ll be sure to include these into your text as well.
LSI stands for “Latent semantic indexing.” These words relate back to your target keyword(s) and theme by touching on subtopics and associated ideas. Using these well will communicate to Google that you’re covering your topic more in depth, which in turn will help your page receive an even more favorable ranking in their search results.
Google has several algorithms in place in order to rank your page, including those that relate back to keywords, as just discussed. However, it also considers your content in other ways as well. Let’s talk about a few more of these and how our team can help you achieve them.
When deciding which pages will show on top of a search query, it’s not only about whether your pages cover your topics well, but “how” you cover them. That’s because Google isn’t just looking at the information you’ve shared in and of itself. It also looks at “user intent.” That is to say, it considers how relevant your page will be in relation to the searches done on that topic.
You can think of it like this:
Answering the Search Query
You can have a page full of facts, but if Google doesn’t deem that information as pertinent to a user’s search query it’s not going to help you much. You need written material that will strategically target your primary audience’s questions and needs.
Keeping Your Content Original
Meeting user intent and getting your content to meet Google’s standard for value is key to effectively managing your SEO. You don’t want to just throw something together that’s duplicated from other sites and lacking in uniqueness. That kind of content is not going to get you ranking high on Google.
Here at Pathways, any material we write for you will be original and geared towards ranking well with Google to give you and edge over your competitors. We understand the necessity of well written, unique material and how to execute it for SEO.
Here are a few more details on how we can help you rank well for your website, blog or social media package:
Content Volume and Presentation
Studies have shown that readers prefer longer posts over shorter ones. (So does Google). That’s because more length allows for more in-depth information to be contained in the post. It also means it's far more likely to meet the needs of the search queries being performed than a shorter less informative post would. However, the longer the post, the more you’ll need to present the information in a way that will hold your reader’s interest. Not sure how to accomplish that? That’s where Pathways can help you out.
Our writers are skilled at writing engaging posts that highlight the uniqueness of your content to make you stand out. We’re also well versed in the sort of layout that’s going to make your pages user friendly and aesthetically pleasing. That’s important because presentation factors into whether people will stay on your page once they open it or find something they think looks better and reads easier. That ties into another aspect of SEO called “bounce rate…”
Bounce Rate - Keeping It Fresh and Pretty
“Bounce rate” is a term that describes the number of people that go to your page but don’t click on anything. In other words, they don’t hang around to look further once they land on your site’. If Google detects people are just opening your page and then leaving instead of exploring the information, this will contribute to your bounce rate being high, and you don’t want that.
There are a few things that can contribute to a high bounce rate and hurt your SEO. As mentioned, how aesthetically pleasing your site is, as well as how well it’s presented or laid out. People want straightforward and uncluttered. You want to keep it pretty!
Another way to maintain a low bounce rate has to do with maintaining your content – removing any that isn’t up to date and being consistent with adding new material. This will make your page appealing to new readers as well as maintaining those who are already interested in what you have to offer. At Pathways, we’ll help you keep your bounce rate low and your search ranking high!
Backlinks and Domain Authority
While your own unique content counts for a lot in managing your SEO, linking to other pages can help show Google you’ve done your research and covered your topic well. However, having other pages link back to your material is even more important. That’s where “backlinks” come into the picture.
Backlinks, also known as ‘inbound links’ are links on external websites that point the reader back to your site. Think of it like a ‘digital quote.’ Having said that, the goal is not to get a large number of backlinks from just wherever and whomever.
NOTE: Google pays attention to who is hanging with who.
Backlinks only work in your favor if they are from reputable sites. The more varied your sources, the better. But as long as your site is being referenced by legitimate sites, and in particular well established high ranking sites, you’ll be increasing your ranking with Google. You’ll also be building domain authority.
You will want to make sure the links to your pages are up to date and none are broken or expired. If this occurs, our team at Pathways can help you clean it all up so it won’t bring down your rank with Google or your domain authority.
One thing you should note is that Domain authority refers to a metric developed by MOZ that predicts how high your site will rank, but is not used by Google as a ranking factor. Nonetheless, it’s helpful for you to know your DA (and work at it) because it will be a sign that can help you measure how well you’re hitting your target for SEO with Google.
Loading Speed and Ease of Use
As you can see by now, strategically written content, as well as the content itself is key to scoring high in SEO and keeping your visitors happy. It’s also something that makes Pathways a unique and excellent choice for building your website or other online presence.
When it comes to the design aspect and SEO, we understand that making your pages user friendly and beautiful to the eye are also highly important. Here’s what we offer in that department:
Our coders know how to employ the right tools to make sure your pages load fast on all browsers and devices. The platform we choose to use and build on is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). We like it because it is optimized for speed and fast loading times, and surpasses others out there. That means your pages will perform well on large and smaller devices, both in speed and function. That’s particularly important because if your page loads too slowly it will bring down your ranking in the SERP.
We also use HTML and CSS code to make sure your content will look beautiful and fit well on any screen.
Allow our team to get you on track with a design that will be clean and easy to navigate so visitors will enjoy your page and be more apt to stick around and follow up with you.
The first and most important step is to define your competition and your target audience. The needs and values of your online industry - as well as your personal brand and style - will dictate the design of your website.
This is where we determine your scheme, website layout, and theme. The overall style of your website will typically be dictated by your business' branding. Our goal is to visually convey the manner in which the programming and development team will bring your website to life.
Our team of programmers will take the design plan and turn it into an actual website. This process includes inputting your content, videos, images and contact forms etc. During this process, your website is placed on a "development server" where you can watch the whole process.
This is where your website goes live and will be presented to the world. Of course, you will not be alone in this process. Our Design, Marketing, and Maintenance teams will be at your side, ensuring satisfaction every step of the way.
There's nothing worse than a slow website. All our website designs are completely mobile responsive and have been put through a vigorous speed testing procedure. We compress and reduce the size of all images and optimize the way files load, so that your website has the fastest possible page load time.
We strive to create websites that are consistently fast, smooth, visually stunning, more engaging, and high-performing across all devices and browsers. We commonly design our websites in AMP, though our team is proficient in HTML5 and WordPress designs as well.
We’re always proud when we see our client’s websites thrive, please take a look at our portfolio to see what we have been working on.
Building a site in AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) allows for websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across all devices and browsers.
WordPress is commonly used and allows many non-tech-savvy users to easily customize their own content. WordPress adeptly facilitates the use of forms and tools, and it has a huge archive of tutorials that are widely available across the internet.
Responsive HTML5 makes use of HTML and CSS code to resize, hide, shrink, enlarge, or move the content inorder to make it look good on any screen.
As a company that cares about your success, we are happy to be able to offer you these SEO services at no extra cost to maximize your online investment.
We would love to put our expertise to work for you and help bring your online dreams to life. Please feel free to contact us.