Are Responsive Websites a Trend?

Solutions by Design

Having a website is essential for any business, but simply having a website is not enough. Your company’s website must be responsive to stay competitive and provide a seamless user experience.

The primary reason your website should be responsive is to enhance the user experience. A responsive website adjusts its layout and content based on the device being used. Whether your customers access your site from a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, they will have a consistent and optimized experience. This adaptability reduces the need for zooming, scrolling, and adjusting, which can frustrate users. A positive user experience increases the likelihood of visitors staying on your site longer, exploring your offerings, and ultimately converting into customers.

Maintaining separate websites for desktop and mobile users can be costly and time-consuming. A responsive website eliminates the need for multiple versions, reducing development and maintenance expenses. With a single responsive site, you streamline your operations, saving time and resources. Additionally, updates and changes only need to be made once, ensuring consistency across all devices.

With the increasing prevalence of smartphones and tablets, more people are accessing the internet via mobile devices than ever before. At the end of 2021, mobile devices generated 54.4% of global website traffic. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you risk losing a significant portion of potential customers. A responsive design ensures that mobile users have a seamless experience, helping you capture and retain this crucial audience segment.

Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its search results. In fact, Google has implemented mobile-first indexing, meaning it predominantly uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking. A responsive website improves your chances of ranking higher in search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you. Higher rankings lead to increased visibility, traffic, and opportunities for conversion.

Technology is constantly evolving, with new devices and screen sizes being introduced regularly. A responsive website is built with flexibility in mind, ensuring it can adapt to future technologies. By investing in a responsive design now, you future-proof your website, avoiding the need for frequent overhauls as new devices emerge.

Understanding how users interact with your website is crucial for making informed business decisions. Responsive websites provide a unified view of your analytics, simplifying the process of monitoring and analyzing user behavior. With a single website, you can track metrics more efficiently, gaining insights into how different devices impact user engagement and conversions.

In today’s competitive market, having a responsive website can give you an edge over competitors who haven’t yet adopted this approach. Customers are more likely to choose a business that offers a seamless, user-friendly online experience. A responsive website demonstrates that your company is modern, customer-centric, and committed to providing the best possible experience.

A responsive website is not just a trend…it’s a necessity. It enhances user experience, boosts SEO rankings, increases mobile traffic, and provides cost-effective, future-proof solutions. By investing in a responsive design, you ensure your website remains relevant, competitive, and accessible to all users, regardless of the device they use. Don’t wait until your website falls behind, make the switch to a responsive website with Solutions by Design today.

 

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Solutions by Design

A well-structured Search Engine Optimization program serves as the compass guiding businesses through the vastness of the internet, ensuring visibility, credibility, and sustained digital success.

At the core of a compelling SEO program is the ability to boost visibility. When potential customers search for products or services relevant to your business, a robust SEO strategy ensures that your website appears prominently in search engine results. The coveted top positions on search engine results pages become the gateway to attracting organic traffic. A well-optimized website is more likely to capture the attention of users actively seeking information, products, or services related to your industry.

A strong SEO program empowers businesses to outshine competitors in search rankings, ensuring that your brand is front and center when users initiate relevant searches. Being visible establishes your brand as an industry authority and contributes to building a credible online presence.

While attracting a large volume of traffic is a goal, a good SEO program emphasizes the importance of driving targeted traffic. The strategy is designed to connect with users actively searching for the products or services you offer. By optimizing for relevant keywords and understanding user intent, your website becomes a destination for those genuinely interested in what your business provides. Quality traffic increases the likelihood of conversion, turning website visitors into customers or clients.

However, SEO isn't solely about pleasing search engines; it's about creating an optimal experience for users. A website that is well-optimized for search engines tends to be more user-friendly. Faster load times, clear navigation, and relevant content contribute to an enhanced user experience. User satisfaction is not only a ranking factor for search engines but also a critical component in building trust and encouraging repeat visits.

Higher search rankings signal credibility. Users often trust websites that appear at the top of search results, considering them more reliable and authoritative. A good SEO program contributes to the establishment of trust and credibility among your audience.

From boosting visibility and staying ahead of the competition to driving targeted traffic and enhancing user experience, each aspect of SEO contributes to the holistic growth of a business in the online realm. A robust SEO program is an indispensable tool for thriving in the competitive world of online visibility.

If your website is in need of a well-structured Search Engine Optimization Program, give Solutions by Design a call today. Our services are focused on best establishing your website structure and content so that you can meet your customers online at the right time, the right place, and in the right context. With several packages to choose from, we can ensure you’ll find a package that meets your specific needs within your specific budget.

 

Increase Your Website Traffic with Backlinks

Solutions by Design

According to the Solutions by Design SEO Manager… “All websites will see an increase in traffic by having links to their website on other reputable websites. These links not only increase traffic, but they show Google that your website is more relevant than your competitors website.”

Google views external links as votes of popularity for a website and there is a strong correlation between websites with a lot of quality backlinks and that website’s higher rankings. But keep in mind…having a lot of backlinks from spammy, low-quality websites is not as impactful as having a few backlinks from authoritative websites that are relevant to your business.

OK…so what are backlinks? Backlinks are links on one website that point to another website. They are also known as inbound or external links. Visually, the link could be placed in a line of text, on an image, or as a button. As long as the source is a different website, all of these connections count as backlinks. In SEO, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for every major search engine out there.

Backlinks can:

• Improve rankings
• Boost your credibility
• Send referral traffic to your website

Backlinks also help Google find your content more easily. When Google follows a backlink to a new page, it crawls the page to discover all the links on it. This means Google can follow a backlink to your website and continue to follow internal links to new pages within your website. Google crawls your site, then indexes those pages. Which makes your website pages more likely to appear in search results.

Not all backlinks are created equal. Quality matters just as much as quantity when it comes to backlinks. You'll want backlinks that come from websites that are:

1. Authoritative - The website has an authoritative backlink profile, generates a lot of traffic, and ranks high on major search engines.  
2. Relevant - The website shares a similar topic or niche.
3. Unique – The website refers to your website and not your competitors.

Solutions by Design offers various SEO and Social Media packages to help your website rank high and attract new customers. We monitor backlinks through a backlink audit to ensure Google and other search engines are ranking your website correctly and efficiently. Learn more about our SEO services and contact us with questions.

 

Facebook Testing Improved Local Search Feature To Offer Users Business Suggestions

Our favorite social media network is at it again. Facebook is currently testing a new and improved local search feature that may take away from Foursquare, Yelp, and Google Maps. According to TechCrunch, Facebook has confirmed that users are able to catch recommendations of nearby places. This works by entering something like “nearby vet” or “orthodontist nearby” in the mobile or web search of Facebook. By doing this, users will receive a list of relevant businesses near their location, as well as their Facebook ratings, map, and friends who have liked or visited the place in query.

At the moment Facebook is declining to share any further details on this addition, or how long this testing has been in progress. It is possible that some users are able to utilize this function, while others are slowly gaining access or don’t have it at all.

In regards to how Facebook determines which results to provide to the user, that answer is currently uncertain. It has been noted that the order of which locations are shown first is not determined by the number of reviews, rating, or proximity to your current location.

We will continue to keep you informed on this new Facebook feature as it unfolds. In the meantime, connect with Solutions by Design on social media to stay updated on social media news and more.

Google’s New Mobile Index Split | How It Will Effect Your SEO

Due to the fact that the majority of searches are now conducted on mobile devices, Google has decided to split their index into mobile-specific and desktop-specific versions.

What is the Google index? Every day, Google’s search engine “bots” crawl through websites and index the contents so that results can be presented to searchers. Until now there has been one unified index for both desktop and mobile searches, so no matter what device you were searching from, the results would be basically the same.

Google’s plan is to provide results optimized for mobile users, and they will be updating and focusing on the mobile index to a greater degree than the desktop index. When a search is conducted from a desktop computer, Google will present results from the desktop index. Alternately, when a search is conducted on a mobile device, Google will present results from the mobile index.

Effect on Websites
If a website is responsive, very little will change. The main criteria will be the speed of the website. If the website is slow to load then it will suffer in the rankings compared to faster sites.

• This will be especially important going forward with new websites we build, and the designers and developers will need to be aware of these issues:
• All sites will need to be run through Google’s website speed tester prior to launch. If the site scores lower than 90 out of 100, adjustments will need to be made following Google’s suggestions.
• Images and other design elements will need to be optimized to enhance the speed of the site. These design considerations will need to be made during the initial concept phase to avoid any potential speed issues.
• Scripts and other files necessary to the site will need to be “minified” and placed in the optimal load order. Google has good documentation on this and it should be followed by the developers. In addition, no supporting files should be loaded from external sites wherever possible. This includes jQuery base files and jQuery app files. Wherever possible, font files should be loaded locally.

For SEO clients who already have responsive sites, the same issues above will apply and some modifications will need to be made.

For those clients with separate mobile sites there will be more issues to consider. The main issue will be content. Since most mobile sites contain only an abbreviated portion of the content of the main website, the reduction in content (because Google is now keeping a separate mobile index) will definitely affect the site’s rankings.

To correct this, the same content that exists on the desktop version of the site will need to be present in the mobile version. This ensures that Google will have enough content to index in order to rank the site effectively. Obviously, this presents challenges when it comes to showing interactive content (Choose Your Look, Terms, etc), and a solid development plan will need to be in place to address these challenges.

Also, Google’s focus is moving increasingly toward their AMP (accelerated mobile pages) technology and soon will play a major role in rankings. It is highly recommended that we begin exploring this technology in order to stay in the game.

Effect on SEO Efforts
For existing responsive sites, the main thing to consider is optimizing the site for speed. This will involve a combination of work from the designers and the developers. The designers will need to develop routines for optimizing the images and graphical elements, and the developers will need to concentrate on optimizing the code and supporting files.

For new responsive sites, it will be important to follow the guidelines above during the entire development process.

In terms of additional time needed for SEO purposes, there should be no additional efforts other than a possible change to the monthly reporting. I’m still waiting to see if the SEO reporting software will change to accommodate the index split. But once the site is optimized for speed, monthly on-site SEO efforts should remain the same. For sites with separate mobile versions, a little additional time will be required in order to make sure the desktop and mobile versions are in sync, with attention being paid to the differences needed in order to affect rankings. The additional time needed will have little impact overall.

Conclusion
Unless more changes are revealed by Google, this announced change to Google’s index will have little impact in terms of monthly SEO work required. The primary consideration will be developing responsive sites for optimal speed, developing new techniques and requirements to achieve this, and exploring new technologies such as AMP. The burden will rest on the designers and developers to produce sites that meet Google’s optimization guidelines.

What Can Social Media Do For Your SEO?

There is a misunderstanding for many business owners about how to grow your organic rankings on search engines like Google. Having an experienced and skilled SEO director is a key to achieving higher rankings, but it’s important to remember that without social media, particularly a social media strategist, your organic rankings will not advance to the optimum level of achievement. These days, simply having your business profile on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram isn’t enough to boost your search rankings. There is more to it.  You need to ask yourself one simple question, do you have a consistent social media strategy in place for your business? If you don't, you need one in order to see an increase in organic search rankings. Remember, if you're not in the number one spot, your competitor is.

What’s a social media strategy?
Simply having a social media presence is not enough these days; you must be active, engaging, and monitoring your social media profiles regularly. It’s important to recognize what social media channels will fit the needs of your business industry, set realistic goals for these channels, and implement them on a consistent basis. One important realization to keep in mind is social media is overwhelming, and with so many social networks out there comes constant new features to track and stay educated on in order to integrate them into your social media strategy.

What can social media do for your SEO?
Social media and SEO are in a tactical relationship with each other. How so? They are both strategies that focus on creating an appealing identity that will increase visitors.  Having a strong plan for each of these will benefit the other. Having a solid social media strategy and presence can influence your Google rankings and improve your SEO. This includes updating, monitoring, and implementing everything on your social media pages from the quality of your followers to the content you post and engagement on your page. If you don’t have a skilled social media manager with the expertise of utilizing social media for increasing your SEO, then you need to think about how serious you are about achieving the highest organic ranking you can.

If you don’t have a full-time social media manager at your business, no need to panic. Solutions by Design has social media services with experts who will develop and implement social media strategies for you. We specialize in working with businesses on social media and SEO and can help you reach your goals and increase your search engine optimization. Visit our website or give us a call for more information. 800-888-4084.

Google’s War Against Pop-Ups

Last month Google announced that they would begin penalizing websites that display content-blocking pop-ups. These are called “interstitial ads,” you can find these all over the Internet as you try to browse certain websites. This is how they work: you navigate to an article that you want to read and as you are just starting with the first paragraph, a pop-up appears that blocks the content. These pop-ups usually want you to sign up for their newsletter, purchase a subscription, or will display an advertisement for a product or service.

Sometimes it is hard to find the button to close the pop-up, and some even prevent you from closing the pop-up unless you click through the advertisement. These pop-ups are irritating and Google is making sure that websites with these types of ads don’t make it into their search results. Google’s focus is on the user's website experience, especially when it relates to mobile browsing, and this type of advertising interferes with that experience.

What does this mean for our clients? We have always advised against adding pop-up advertising for our clients and will continue to do so. There are much better and less annoying ways to get your message to your visitors. Now that Google will start penalizing websites that utilize pop-up advertising, you can’t afford to choose this option in the future.  

If you have a website with interstitial ads, contact Solutions by Design to discuss updating your site. We have a full in-house staff of graphic designers, web developers, programmers, and more, as well as specialize in custom websites.  Also, we don't use templates and have over 30 years of experience assisting clients all over the world with maintaining branding, web presence, and our clients have top rankings on Google. Call us today 800-888-4084.  

Rank Before Your Competitors! Tips For Effective Local SEO

The majority of businesses provide goods or services locally, meaning their customer base is confined to a certain geographical area. For example, an orthodontist or a veterinarian provide their services to a city, county, or region where their client base is within easy driving distance.

So for these businesses, all of their SEO efforts should be tuned to providing local results. But what are some of the ways in which a business can effectively target the local market and get the highest possible rankings?

Optimize your “Google My Business” page

Some of our SEO clients prefer that we handle the setup and maintenance of their Google My Business page. This is Google’s portal for local businesses to provide important information such as location, hours, business category, etc. Having an optimized Google My Business page is essential for your local SEO efforts.

But by far, most of our SEO clients control their own Google My Business page. For those of you that do, here are some tips for properly maintaining your page:

• Add a business address that is consistent with local directories as well as your website 
• Select the correct category for your business 
• Add a local business phone number to your listing 
• Add a unique business description, and include links to your other social media pages 
• Add your business hours 
• Upload a high-resolution cover photo and profile image 
• Upload as many photos (and videos) as possible 

Ask your customers for reviews

Having positive reviews builds trust in your business and gives your customers confidence. It also helps a great deal in how your business is ranked locally with your competitors. There’s no such thing as too many positive reviews.

Some SEO clients offer incentives for customers to leave reviews, which can certainly be effective, but there are other ways in which you can encourage your customers. Remember, it is best to capture reviews as soon as possible from your customers because they are more likely to respond favorably to your request rather than six months down the road.

• A simple hand-out or email that lists various review sites, and asks them to choose one or more 
• A place on your website that captures their attention and provides links to the various review sites 
• An occasional posting on social media that asks customers to leave a review, along with links to top review sites 
• Train your staff to routinely ask your customers for reviews 

There are many more tips for local SEO. The important thing to remember is that you put in the time and effort for the best results. If you are interested in improving your local SEO rankings, now is the time to do it. Your competitors are. The longer you wait the harder it will be to catch up to them. Contact Solutions By Design today to get started, call 800-888-4084.

The Ultimate Facebook Secret to Success for Orthodontic Practices

Lately, we’ve been getting a ton of questions from clients confused about social media and how to create effective social media strategies on social networks. This is a huge topic, seriously, we could write pages and pages on it! To make your lives easier, and save our hands from carpal tunnel, we decided to share with you the ultimate Facebook secret to success for orthodontic practices.

Here it is…USE YOUR CURRENT PATIENTS AS BRAND AMBASSADORS ON FACEBOOK FOR YOUR PRACTICE!

How do you do this, you ask? Simple. Engage with your patients when they’re at your practice and encourage them to connect with you online, specifically on Facebook. One way to do this is something a lot of our social media clients currently do; use strategic Facebook contests.

Let’s explore this a little more.

So many practices do contests, but the real question is, are contests being done right? This Summer, Solutions by Design’s social media clients have tons of custom created contests that are efficient for the practices social media marketing strategies. Several of our custom created contests promote patients to post selfies and tag the practice on Facebook, in order to be entered to win a prize from their doctor.

By doing this, we have the patients utilizing the power of social media for the practices brand awareness.  Yes, posting photos of the patients to the Facebook business page is great, but having patients post their own photos and tagging the practice is even better, and the ultimate secret to social media success. By doing something like this, your patients become brand ambassadors for your practice on Facebook.  Ultimately, this connects their closest friends and followers with your practice because they tag your practice on Facebook, and this shows the world of Facebook they do business with you. All while they think they're just entering a contest.This eliminates extra costs of paying to boost Facebook posts, purchase Facebook advertisements, or worrying about HIPAA consent forms.

Also, when your patients tag you in a post, Facebook will notify your practice, and provide you with the option to share the post on your practice's page.

Custom designed contests are just one of the several ways our social media clients use patients as brand ambassadors. Are you interested in learning more about our social media services? Contact our trusted social media department and ask for more details or client reviews.  Remember, there are several companies out there claiming to provide similar services, but they’re based on limited experience and misguided advice; especially when it comes to the area of orthodontic marketing. 

The Secret To Higher Invisalign Rankings

Before Invisalign made a concerted effort to advertise nationally through television and online advertising, orthodontic practice websites usually maintained high rankings in Invisalign searches by simply having one or two pages of Invisalign content. But that’s not the case anymore.

Now that more people are aware of what Invisalign is and how it works, and because more people than ever are searching for information and providers, those websites with minimal Invisalign information are seeing drastic decreases in rankings in the search results. So what’s the solution?

If you conduct a search for “Invisalign in (your city)” you will begin to notice one key difference between those at the top of the rankings and those at the bottom. Clicking on the top websites will present you with far more Invisalign information, including pages with videos, testimonials, and other information. This is a great example of Google’s focus on relevance.

Google has decided, and rightly so, that someone looking for information on Invisalign will want as much information as possible in one location. Given the choice between one page of general information or multiple pages with videos and other resources, which one would you choose?

If you are serious about increasing your Invisalign rankings, now is the time to add more Invisalign content to your website. Your competitors are. The longer you wait the harder it will be to catch up to them. Contact Solutions By Design today to get started, call 800-888-4084.

New Websites Launch

We’ve had an exciting start to the New Year for our SBD website clients. From January through February we have had 6 of our website clients finalize their websites and are now live! Solutions by Design would like to congratulate the following clients on their recent live websites.

These beautifully custom crafted websites created by our SBD team show detailed skill, knowledge, and professionalism of each practice. Check them out now!

http://www.carolinaorthopedo.com – Dr. Jesse Arbon (New Responsive Website)

http://www.coolsmilesorthodontics.com - Dr. Simjee (Upgrade from HTML to Responsive)

http://www.southbaybraces.org – Dr. Peter Sinclair (Upgrade from Flash to Responsive)

http://www.texasorthodonticspecialists.com – Dr. Chen (New Mobile Website)

http://www.appletreeortho.com - Dr. Timmeny & Dr. Polgrean (New Responsive Website)

http://www.webbbraces.com – Dr. Brian Webb (New Responsive Website)

Our team is proud to call you all clients. It was a pleasure working closely with you during this process to provide you with a truly amazing website. Solutions by Design features custom website development. No templates and no canned content. Each site is developed based upon the attributes of the individual practice and its markets.

Our clients choose Solutions by Design for the creation of their website after evaluating their other options and realize that we are the only company that truly offers a unique combination of design, marketing, programming, SEO, social media and clinical knowledge necessary to create effective and functional websites. We are the total solution and offer several levels of website development based upon your needs and budget. Give us a call to now at 800-888-4084 and ask us about our newest promotions.

SBD Office Closed For The Holidays

 

Our office will be closed for a holiday break. We apologize for any inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding.

Our holiday office hours are:

December 24 - January 1

Closed

We will resume regular office hours on January 4, 2016. Happy Holidays from all of us at Solutions By Design.

What Yahoo Directory Retirement Means For Your Reviewer

Long before Google was a notable source, several internet users browsed the web by the Yahoo Directory. Yahoo Directory wasn’t a search engine but more of an online database of websites selected by Yahoo and presented to the browsers as an organized list.  These lists were sorted by multiple topics from shopping, to education, and resources. You could navigate through the topics by clicking one which would then display the websites on the individual lists under the particular topic.

As the years have passed, and the internet and Yahoo have evolved, several users have found the system to be confusing and overpopulated by spam-like link sellers. This growing reputation made the decision to put the Yahoo Directory to rest a little bit easier. Yahoo stated the decision by explaining, “While we are still committed to connecting users with the information they’re passionate about, our business has evolved…we will retire the Yahoo Directory.”

Following Yahoo’s statement began the transition of Yahoo Directory to Aabaco Small Business, which is a service company that moves to get small business on their service plan instead of helping consumers find their business online.

For our clients with Reviewer, we will be updating the product to reflect changes within the Yahoo system. Since Yahoo now shows Yelp reviews instead of its own user-submitted reviews, we will no longer be encouraging your clients to leave reviews on Yahoo.

Additionally, Yahoo has entered into a partnership with Microsoft and now gets its search results from Bing. This is important for our SEO clients as now there are essentially only two major search engines that we optimize for.

For more information regarding our Search Engine Optimization services please contact us today at 1-800-888-4084 .