Web Development

How Google Gathers Info About Your Website Users to Determine Your Ranking

December 8, 2020

It should not come as much of shock to know that Google and many other online organisations can track your activity online in multiple ways. Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of that, some of the information they gather can indirectly help you to positively impact your website’s ranking in SEO.

SEO Company advise that the specific information that is relevant to this is that relating to the way in which visitors to your website behave and react. This can be accessed via tools such as Google Analytics and used to assess what improvements you can make to your website to improve your users’ experiences.

All of this is important because Google is increasingly taking account of the experience of users as measured by its algorithms when determining the ranking of websites. If two sites appear equal in all SEO factors, then it will be the one whose users are deemed to have a better experience that will outrank the other.

Here are the main ways that Google gathers information about how good or bad an experience your users appear to have when they visit your website.

Session Duration
It is a straightforward assumption to make that if a visitor to our website spends a long time on it, then they have found something they like or that interests them. If they have arrived at your website following a search, then Google will recognise that the keyword they searched for must be highly relevant to your website and that the content there is good.

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Web Development

How Can I Learn To Use WordPress?

October 22, 2019

WordPress is the world’s largest content management system (CMS). It’s estimated that over a third of the internet (34% of all sites) runs on WordPress, which makes it a logical thing to learn about if you want to become a web developer.

However, learning how to use WordPress can be confusing for those without any previous experience. I know I found it quite hard to navigate the first time I tried to use it, and I’ve only come to know it inside out through years of experience and hard work.

With this in mind, I’ve put together this short article outlining some of the best ways to learn WordPress.

Why Should I Learn WordPress?

Before we get into the best ways to learn how to use WordPress, I just want to touch on a few of the reasons why you should at least consider learning it. These include:

For personal fulfillment. If you enjoy learning new things, then learning how to use WordPress is probably a no brainer for you.
To become more employable. The digital world is rapidly growing, and it doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon. It therefore makes sense to assume that WordPress developers are going to remain in high demand for some time to come.
So you can build your own website. Finally, you might think about learning how to use WordPress so that you have the skills and experience to build your own website without having to pay a developer.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to at least consider learning WordPress. Now that we’ve covered them, let’s have a look at a few of the ways to do it.

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Web Design, Web Development

What is WordPress?

March 2, 2018

Put basically, WordPress is arguably the world’s premier platform for website creation. In a nutshell, WordPress allows even the most inexperienced website designers to put together their own site. It is simple to use, has a whole lot of different options for people of different computer skills, and it is absolutely and completely free.

It is thought that over 25% of the websites on the whole world wide web are powered by WordPress, with this number growing daily. This equates to almost 20 million individual websites. Sure, a lot of them may be defunct or poorly maintained, but this many people wouldn’t use the platform if it wasn’t simple to use, useful, and engaging.

What makes WordPress stand out above other website creation platforms?

Although WordPress is the most popular, there are actually plenty of different website creation platforms out there. Some, such as Weebly, are actually similar to WordPress. Others, such as Shopify, are designed with a specific purpose in mind. The thing which makes WordPress stand out above most other platforms is its simple customizability.

Depending on what you want to do, WordPress is by far the simplest platform for new website builders. For example, if you want to set up an online shop, all you need to do is install a shop friendly theme, find a few plugins to help you receive payments and store customer details, and there you have it – the makings of an online business in just a few clicks of your mouse button!

How do I get started on WordPress?

Well, this depends on what you want to do. WordPress is completely free, so there is no harm in setting up an account and just having a go!

There are actually two different versions of WordPress (more on that later), which both offer different perks. All you need to do is decide which version you want to use, create an account, and follow the prompts to get started. If you are new to website building then you can find plenty of different tutorials and how to videos through Google, and these should help you get going on your website building adventure.

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Web Development

Tech Support Calls Every Web Developer Dreads

October 18, 2016

Now, don’t get us wrong. When there’s a problem with the website, there’s a problem and it needs to be fixed. Whatever we’re on contract to do, we do. But what perhaps is particularly frustrating is the people problems, since web developers specialize in computers, not people. Sure, you need people skills to get by, but even the fuzziest, warmest, friendliest person would shut their phone off after getting a couple of these…

The micro-manager. – It’s that feeling of constant dis-satisfaction you can sense. They’re somehow convinced that if they just analyze your site long enough, they’ll find something to pick apart. The icons are too small, the gradients could stand to be fuzzier – or why not move the submit button over to the left side of the form? It would be less grating if it were in the specification at the start.

The persecution-complex paranoiac. – 90% of the site owners out there are not conscious enough about the security risks of the Internet, and then you have the 1% who are convinced they are getting hacked all the time. “My website’s been hacked!” No, actually, congratulations! You made the front page of Digg! Unfortunately, the traffic brought your server down.

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