Good WordPress hosting ensures a fast website. And a fast website is important for both your visitors and Google. First of all, visitors drop out if it takes too long to load your website. And Google rewards fast websites. They get higher in the search results. And website hosting is one of the most important factors of a fast website. It is the ground you start building from.

In addition, you can and must do everything yourself to make your website faster. But it all starts with a host that makes it possible to have a fast website. Otherwise, you can optimize all you like, but it will never harvest the desired result.

The other way around is also true. You can have a good WordPress website provider, but if you don’t do anything to optimize your WordPress website it won’t help you. But more about that another time. First, a number of criteria to choose a good WordPress website provider in Spain or any other European country for that matter.

What should you pay attention to when choosing good WordPress hosting?

In recent years I have moved my websites several times to other WordPress hosting in the Netherlands and abroad. This is because I was always dissatisfied with a certain aspect. One time it was slow websites, the other time it was bad support. As a result, I now know what to look out for when choosing good WordPress hosting in the Netherlands. This has led to the following criteria.

Speed

Speed is the most important criterion for me. But how do you find out if a WordPress hosting provider is fast?

To start with, you can read reviews. There are all kinds of comparison sites. And if you already have WordPress hosting in mind, you can specifically search for reviews or experiences for this WordPress hosting provider. You will then be able to read quickly enough whether it is a good choice.

Price can also say something about speed. In general, the cheaper a WordPress hosting provider, the more websites on the server, and the slower your website will be. So my advice is to stay away from discounters in the field of WordPress hosting in Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, etc.. Don’t choose the cheapest one, but pay a bit more.

It is also important where the server is located. If your target group is in the Netherlands, choose a server in the Netherlands. However, if you mainly have visitors from America, choose a server in America. This does not necessarily mean that you have to choose a Dutch WordPress hosting provider. There are also foreign WordPress hosting providers with servers in the Netherlands.

Some WordPress hosting providers have extra caching functionality. This can make your website considerably faster. Furthermore, your site will get considerably faster from SSD website hosting. So choose a hosting provider that supports this. For some time now, some hosting providers support HTTP/2. A successor to the HTTP protocol that makes your site considerably faster because files are loaded at the same time instead of one after the other… So choose a hosting provider that supports HTTP/2.

Also good: if the hosting provider has taken measures to ensure that other websites on the server cannot slow down your website.

Attention to security

WordPress sites are regularly attacked by hackers. That is why it is good to choose a website hosting provider that pays attention to the security of your website.

For example, by:

• offering the possibility to update your WordPress and plugins automatically.
• quickly close security holes on the server
• apply technology that prevents a hacked website from infecting other websites on the same server
• Here too, the following applies: Siteground has and does all of the above.

Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates

An SSL certificate is nowadays a must (see also my other blog about this). Browsers say your site is not safe if you don’t have one. And search engines like Google give priority to secure websites. This means websites using an SSL certificate. Well, until now that was sometimes complicated to arrange. And SSL certificates cost money. Nevertheless, now you have the open-source project Let’s Encrypt. This allows you to apply for a free SSL certificate. And you don’t need your own unique IP address anymore.

Support

I think good support is very important. I always look at how to get in touch first. Is that only by e-mail? Maybe there is a support forum where you can see how well they answer questions.

Also important: how fast is the response. Is it within 15 minutes or can it take a few days? And what about support in the evenings or on weekends?

An example of how you don’t want it: I recently had to transfer a website for a customer and wanted to create an extra database for that purpose. It already started with the fact that I couldn’t do it myself (silly!). That had to be done by support. Unfortunately, they hadn’t done that. We found out on Friday after 5 pm and then had to wait until Monday morning before we could continue.

I need support at the most impossible hours because I run into something. That’s why I always choose a large WordPress hosting provider with support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A large WordPress hosting provider can offer this because they have a support team all over the world. So there is always someone awake and working. I haven’t found a Dutch WordPress hosting provider that can offer this.

A special form of support is the transfer service. Some WordPress hosting providers offer to transfer your website for free if you switch to them. This can save you a lot of time and frustration.

The numbers

The numbers or features are also important. The megabytes and gigabytes:

• How much web space do you get to set up your website? I like to have at least one gigabyte. In my case, this space is not only for my website but also for my e-mail. I use the so-called IMAP protocol. This means that all e-mail stays on the server. And when you receive an e-mail with a large attachment, you are suddenly at your limit.
• How many e-mail addresses can you have? Useful if you want to link multiple e-mail addresses to your domain. For example, for freelancers or employees who help you. Or to separate support from regular mail.
• How many databases can you use? Additional databases are useful for test sites, for example.
• How much traffic is your website allowed to have? You may not be so quick to reach this limit, but it’s good to know.
• How many websites can you put on one package? If you only have one website, that’s not important, but if you have more, you might be able to save money. And who knows what the future holds.

Extra functionality

Also look at extra functionality such as:

• Does the website hosting provider have a WordPress installer? This will allow you to install WordPress with just a few clicks.
• Are automatic backups made? How often? How far back in time can I go? Can I access it myself or do I need support for this?
• Can I access the log files myself (raw access logs)? These are files in which you can see exactly what is happening on your website. Very useful if your website is slow or has been hacked.
• Can I set “Cron jobs” myself? Cron jobs are tasks that are performed automatically at a fixed interval. A normal user will not need them. But I am not a normal user …
• Can I test my website with “staging”? With staging, you can make a copy of your website with one click of a button. With this copy you can, for example, test new plugins or make other changes. If you are satisfied with the result, you

Price – Cheap WordPress Hosting Providers: A NO GO!

I advise you not to go for the cheapest for a business website. Cheap WordPress hosting providers:

• put a lot of websites on one server, which results in a slow website.
• are often difficult to reach for support questions
• often respond slowly to support questions

For a private website that’s not so bad. But for a business website, you don’t want all that. In any case, I would like to pay a few extra tens for quality and SERVICE!

Therefore, I can not stress enough to search for a very good price/quality ratio.

A fast website

At FML Marketing, we pay a lot of attention to the speed of your site, such as:

• Fast NGINX servers in Amsterdam, London and two other continents which is important if you mainly have visitors from Europe, and the rest of the world.
• All shared website hosting servers have SSD disks, which makes your website considerably faster (nowadays many providers have this, but Siteground already offered this in 2015, indicating that they are at the forefront with new technologies).
• HTTP/2 on all shared and cloud servers, which means that the different files of your website are loaded at the same time instead of one after the other, which also results in a faster website (they have had this since 2015 when it wasn’t standard yet).
• A self-developed SG Optimizer plug-in to accelerate WordPress websites. With its caching capabilities and front-end and image optimization features, it optimizes the performance of WordPress sites so much that, according to Siteground, you can see speed benefits between 20% and 500%.
• Free Cloudflare CDN integration allowing some files to be loaded from the fast Cloudflare servers and making your site faster.
• The latest PHP version for even faster websites.

FML Marketing – Hosting Experts Marbella

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Good content is half the battle

Knowing what is relevant starts with finding out which words your target group uses in search engines. With the right keywords, you can write specifically and answer the question your visitor has. Process the keywords in strategic places in your text. But don’t force it and stay relevant. You write a text to inform your visitors, not to please Google. Moreover, Google is becoming smarter and smarter and content is becoming more and more important.

Learn more: Content SEO Audit

Faster websites are better for SEO

Good websites don’t just look sleek and neat, it also meets a large number of standards that are used. These standards help search engines to better index your website, allowing potential visitors and customers to find their way to your website. A website that meets modern requirements for SEO, will not only make a good impression on visitors but will also be displayed much higher in the natural search results. The design of your website definitely plays an important role in this.

Well coded functionalities

Websites are often equipped with all kinds of functionalities that enable visitors to perform certain actions. A like-button, a contact form or a registration field for the newsletter are examples of small and simple functionalities. Larger functionalities that are used in websites are, for example, the integration of a webshop, a forum or a photo album. The more functionalities your website contains, the more coding is required to display all of them correctly. All these codes can cause your website to react less quickly or to malfunction. This is not only noticed by visitors, but search engines also judge your website on good use of programming code.

How to solve it?

It is therefore important to use good and clean programming codes when building and designing your website, so that not only does every functionality work well, but this also does not have any negative consequences for the speed and findability of the website in search engines.

Read more: Why free websites are often not a good idea

Conclusion: Good design is important for SEO!

The content on your website, interaction with visitors and search engines all play an important role in the success of your website. Yet, all these things are packaged in the design of your website. After all, the design of your website reflects what you stand for as a company or as a private individual. It says something about your company, yourself or about the products or services you offer. A well-chosen design also fits in with the target group you have in mind and meets the important requirements for a good website. It is important to ensure that the design looks good, not only for visitors but also for the search engines. A website with a good design will be better indexed, will be higher in the search results and will, therefore, attract more visitors.

FML Marketing – Web Design & SEO Experts Costa del Sol

Thank you for reading our blog Does Web Design affect SEO?

FML Marketing is a digital marketing agency, specialized in Search Engine Optimization, SEO-optimized web design, social medial, and online marketing solutions. We are based in Estepona, near Marbella on the Costa del Sol.

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The post Does Web Design affect SEO? appeared first on FML Marketing.

Compare it to decorating your house. Every once in a while you add new stuff to your house. A side table, or perhaps a new color paint for the wall. The same story repeats itself in the world of web design. You must take a long-term approach to the design and maintenance of your website. Let’s take a look at why this is really important

The clear and present danger of not ‘owning’ your website

• My uncle made my website and he is the only one with the access
• My web designer is the only one that has access to my website
• This web designer left me with a homegrown CMS (Content Management System)

This is just a short list of common errors. I hear them allllll the time. Very unlucky if you suffer from this problem too! Because if you have zero control over your website, you are in for bad times…

Web Design…why long-term is winning

So what are the dangers of not owning your website? Let’s take a look at several scenarios that we encountered the last couple of years.

• Emails are not reaching you. People that require your service or product are neglected. This costs money and hurts your reputation.
• People think your website is shit. Another variant to the point above. Your website looks so terrible that people refuse to contact you, or make purchases.
• Your website content is outdated. But your uncle, or BUSY web designer, never respond to you. Do you leave your money on the table too when you leave a restaurant?
• I have a new phone number. But your website is featuring your old one. Now you need to change it, but how!? Your uncle, or BUSY web designer, are both still BUSY!
• The website is not protected.
• Your website is not SEO optimized.

Why is this happening!?

• My Web Design Agency charges me a fortune!

We have a client that was once charged with €495 to update 12 plugins in WordPress. That is stealing in the finest form. Updating plugins in WordPress take about minutes and often, DOES NOT REQUIRE manual work! So be aware of dodgy web design agencies that are trying to bleed you dry!

• My website sucks! But eh…it is family

Ok, this is about the saddest thing I have ever heard. Let’s break this down. One of your family members is an expert in web design (made two lame websites ever) and now he is in charge of your new business website. So this inexperienced person is in charge of your digital brand. YOUR BRAND!

I mean, that is just outrageous. About the saddest thing, I have EVER heard. Your business is hurt. You are losing money. But YOUR FAMILY could not care any less. But I guess the fun and jokes on the regular birthday parties make up for all that…

• My website is built with a NONO CMS

Writing is code is probably not your core, or am I wrong? Allow me to spill the beans. YOU DON’T NEED CODING EXPERIENCE TO MAKE SMALL EDITS TO YOUR WEBSITE! But here is the catch. Provided that your website is built with WordPress, and features a modern WordPress theme! With a few hours of CMS training, you will be able to make minor updates to your own website. Such as changing your mobile number, email address, or some pictures perhaps of your latest project.

Get your act together, take the professional road

Don’t comprise on bad quality. Don’t be overcharged. Send your uncle on a holiday and hold possession of your website credentials. Your access details. Get back behind the driver seat. And you will retake control over one of the most vital parts of your business, your website! Your lead generator. The 24/7 salesman. Your online powerhouse that never gets tired of educating your audience (FUTURE CLIENTS!). Thank you for reading our blog. FML Marketing is a Dutch Web Design agency in the Marbella area.

For more Web Design Tips, please check our blog regularly!

Why Free Websites often don’t deliver any value

What is Web Hosting?

4 key features of your new website

Questions? Contact FML Marketing!

The post The clear and present danger of not ‘owning’ your website appeared first on FML Marketing.

What is a CDN?

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network, a worldwide network of servers that can be used to deliver content, such as images and videos, to the end user via the fastest route. For example, website owners can use a CDN to make web pages load faster.

Why use a CDN?

The purpose of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is to deliver web content quickly and efficiently to end users. The internet is a web of networks and failure or congestion in one of those networks, therefore, causes delays. When a site’s loading time is slow, many a web surfer quits and that is why content providers turn to a CDN to ensure that their traffic is always optimized.

CND under the hood

That is why a CDN consists of a lot of extra servers that are placed at data centers and ISPs. Each CDN uses a different approach to deliver content efficiently. Providers, such as Akamai, have a policy to be as close to a user as possible. In order to deliver the cast web content as directly as possible. CDNs are not paid for by the network operators, but by content parties who want to ensure that their web traffic is delivered quickly and efficiently to customers.

Images and other Content

First, a CDN ensures that files, such as images, videos, style sheets, and JavaScript, are copied from the source to servers on different continents. Once the website owner has implemented the CDN, by changing the Internet addresses (URLs) of page elements, the Content Delivery Network will start receiving requests for certain files. The CDN then finds the optimal route. Next, it redirects the end user to the server that can deliver this file the fastest. This is usually, but not always, the server closest to the end user.

Search Engine Optimization

Website speed is current day, while I write this article, a very hot potato. Not just in terms of user experience, but even more so for your SEO. Often referred to as Website Ranking.

Website Loading Speed

Preventing website delays is an important issue for all websites today. Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) make no secret of this: loading time is an important criterion. The CDN shortens the response time of your site and improves the loading speed.

View more: Web Hosting Costa del Sol
Blog by FML Marketing – The Creative Online Marketing Agency on The Costa del Sol.

The post What is a CDN? appeared first on FML Marketing.

Small Business Website

As of January 28, 2019, FML Marketing launches its complimentary Small Business Website Services. This is a web design solution created for companies with smaller budgets and often no direct need of a website, other than using it as an online business card.

Quality should not be expensive

Damn right! Quality does not have to be expensive. And we prove it! We offer business website templates from €395! All our templates are built in WordPress, include Yoast SEO plugin, Schema.org tools and a PREMIUM version of WP Rocket! In other words, with the addition of quality content, your website is ready to rock the search engines….for only €395!

Your Business Website ready in 48H

WordPress Installation

All the websites are built in WordPress. This means that there a no limitations, full possibilities to scale up or install your own plugins. Moreover, the website is yours! You are the owner and nobody else. This might sound strange, but try telling that to people that have monthly or annual contracts with Wix, Squarespace or other online website builders…

Premium Page builder

All the websites we deliver come with a page builder. This means that you don’t need any coding experience to alter or add new content to your own website. Embrace the flexibility and enjoy the ease and speed of building your website!

Yoast SEO for WordPress

With every website, we deliver a free version of the Yoast SEO plugin built in. To ensure your content is optimized for SEO!

Premium WP rocket

Pagespeed is becoming increasingly important! Google loves a fast website, so this is vital for your Search Engine Optimization! WP Rocket is recognized as the most powerful caching plugin by WordPress experts and included in all plans of Small Business Websites. WP Rocket is GDPR compliant and worth €45 stand-alone.

Small Business Website Features

Check our business website templates for more information and all functionalities. Moreover, we off integrated Online Marketing services to kickstart your business website!

More about affordable web design

Why choosing a free website builder is a bad idea
Website builder and 8 must have tools

The post New! Affordable Business Website Service by FML appeared first on FML Marketing.

Why is the speed of a site important for your Google Ranking?

All changes Google makes to the search algorithm have one goal: to increase user-friendliness or to improve the experience of the Google visitor. The vast majority of internet traffic now runs via mobile devices. Despite the fast connections of smartphones and tablets, pages on these devices load slower than on ‘regular’ computers. And everyone knows how annoying it is to stare at a white screen (User Experience!!).

If a user clicks on your search result at Google and returns to the same results page on Google shortly after, Google sees that as a negative user signal. The interpretation of Google is that this user did not find the best information, another result might have been better: a reason to adjust the ranking. Up to now, the speed of your pages was already an indirect ranking factor. From July 2018, Google will cut this loose and use the speed of your site as a separate ranking factor.

Time to get into action. And remember: even if you do not do it for SEO purposes, you always make your users happy with fast pages.

SEO Marketing: How do I measure the speed of my site?

Google is happy to help you on your way with the free Page Speed Insights tool. It works easily: you paste your URL into it and get a report, both for Mobile and for Desktop. Important to know is that the speed per page is calculated. Another free tool that you can use is Pingdom. At Pingdom, you get next to a performance grade also the time that is needed to fully load your website.

Check here our 6 SEO tips to improve your website speed with all kinds of tools to improve your website and SEO.

At Google and Pingdom you immediately get tips to increase your speed, for most you have to switch with web developers because they are technical adjustments, but especially Google makes it as easy as possible.

SEO Marketing: Optimize your website for speed

Of course, you can immediately get started with optimizing your website, often you come a long way with, for example, adjusting/reducing images. Certainly, if you have a site with multiple authors, too large images will soon be present. A handy and quick tool to reduce your images is TinyPng. You drag an image and this free online tool will compress it automatically, sometimes it saves you 70-80 percent, overwrites the image on your page with the smaller version and gets the page through Google’s page speed tool again.

The other optimizations are more technical in nature, but solutions can also be used without direct developers. Especially when your site is running on WordPress, you can use Plugins to work with the 100/100 score of Pagespeed Insights fairly quickly. A lot of articles can be found about that.

Finally, another important consideration

The speed of your website is also a relative ranking factor. This means that your speed is compared with other websites, that try to rank on the same keyword. Google (especially with your smartphone) on your main keywords and compare the speeds of the competitors that are both better and worse than yours. Scoring better than your direct competitors for specific terms should be your primary goal!

FML Marketing – SEO consultancy on the Costa del Sol

Thank you for reading our blog and good luck improving your search engine ranking! If you require professional support, or more information about our Search Engine Optimization services, please feel free to contact us. We are here to help you and improve your Google Ranking!

The post SEO Marketing: Speed mobile website now important Google ranking factor appeared first on FML Marketing.

First of all, let’s start with the definition. We use in this case the version of SEO support firm Moz. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

SEO San Pedro: Why it is important

There is still a world to win in local search traffic. In Spain, the local search results are not as heavily competed as in other countries. That is why you can now build up a head start if you can set up a good local SEO strategy.

Let’s break down and describe the parts:

• Quality of traffic. There is no point in attracting the whole digital world to your (local) business and its website. If you run a fine Italian restaurant in San Pedro, it makes no sense that people looking for car tires land on your website. That is not qualified as quality traffic. Instead, you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in product or service you offer.
• Quantity of traffic. When e right audience clicking through the search engine results pages (SERPs), the aim is to increase the amount of these visitors.
• Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic traffic is any traffic that you don’t have to pay for.

Local SEO versus Organic SEO

The most important difference between organic and local SEO is that local search has a geographical component. If someone is searching for a type of service, plus a location (e.g. Restaurant San Pedro), search engines like Google knows that the search has local intent. Search engines will also assume local intent in some searches. And all search engines want is to give the user exactly what they’re searching for.

Local SEO San Pedro: Define your Strategy

Below we will create a basis for a local SEO strategy for your company through a number of steps. We will first look at your goal, current situation, and possibilities. We then step by step to determine which local SEO areas you can still profit from, what the impact is and why you should or should not opt for that step.

STEP 1: Start roll-out Local SEO strategy

You must first define a starting point to see where you stand in terms of local search results. How do you currently rank for the keywords? Do you know who the competitors are, what they do and how strong they are? Is it not better to first focus on other keywords?

STEP 2: Time to prep

Do you have full control over your website? Can you adjust all important local SEO points on your site? Are all your branches verified? Do you have access (login and password) to all Google My Business locations? I know from experience that this is often not the case in practice. If you have these points in order, you can start looking at more advanced forms of local SEO. For example, can you produce high-quality content that meets SEO copywriting requirements and is this useful for your target audience? Do you have good channels (Social Media!) to put that content away?

STEP 3: On-page optimization

Impact: big
Effort: average
Obstacles: internal

For on-page optimization, consider adding a store locator, but also basic SEO criteria such as improving title, images and heading structure of your website.

STEP 4: Improve  Google My Business

Impact: low
Effort: small (hopefully)
Obstacles: internal / external

It helps to mention the keywords in the company name and to add opening hours and photos. If you really want to take steps, you have to get (positive) reviews on a regular basis, but this is just another discipline. Improving your Google My Business listings has no impact on your position in organic search results, but on your position in the local block that is often shown at the top of organic search results. This is often easy to adjust and the result is immediately visible. It is nice if your strategy not only shows long-term results, but also shows progress in the short term. This is possible with this quick win!

STEP 5: Increase (local) listings

Impact: average
Effort: great
Obstacles: external

Entries of company details are used to represent your company name and address information, for example in company guides. It is, therefore, the specific contact and addresses data of the various locations and not a link. It is important to have the correct data listed and that these are consistently the same.

Mobile SEO and Desktop SEO

You will have noticed that mobile has an increasingly strong position in the (online) world. The number of people searching via a mobile device on the internet is rapidly increasing. Therefore, not only SEO factors on the desktop play an important role in determining the rankings in the search results. Mobile SEO factors are becoming increasingly important when it comes to rankings within organic search results. That’s why it’s time to take a look at what exactly are the differences between mobile and desktop SEO.

• Responsive design

The responsive design of a website is a design that adapts to the screen format with which the visitor views the website. Having a responsive website can be seen as the most important SEO component for mobile.

• Pagespeed

The average loading time of the webpage is an important part of the Google algorithm. For mobile, even the page speed is a more important ranking factor than for desktop. To improve this, there are many good plugins to increase the loading speed of your website.

• Scheme.org

The layout of Schema.org structured data is even more important on mobile than on desktop. There is limited space available for mobile. As a result, rich snippets with important information (opening hours, product information, contact and address details) are shown earlier than on desktop. So make sure you have the schema.org in order.

• Local presence

The local visibility of your website is much more important on mobile than for desktop. This is also because mobile searches are ‘hyperlocal’. It is not only related to your IP address, Wi-Fi and search history but also to the location where a search is performed. As a result, the first three search results on mobile are usually part of the ‘mobile 3-pack’: a Google Maps widget with 3 search results in your area including website link, ‘call’ button, opening times, etc. It is, therefore, is essential that you have Google My Business and your local listings in order when you have a local branch. Also, make sure that you regularly use local keywords.

FML Marketing SEO San Pedro Services

With our team within FML Marketing, we provide SEO services for local and international businesses in Estepona, Manilva, San Pedro and Marbella.

The post SEO San Pedro: Search Engine Optimization explained appeared first on FML Marketing.

In order to have a website or webshop in 2018 that is well-liked and well-found, it is important to optimally serve visitors and Google. We list the most important points and SEO trends for you in 2018.

SEO Trend 1: Natural search terms and slang

In recent years, the use of voice when searching in search engines has increased. In 2016 we noticed this trend already, Google then indicated that one in five people with the voice gives searches. ComScore expects this share to be even higher in 2020, at 50 percent. In addition to the smartphones and tablets, the smart devices are in-house, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, which are increasingly being operated by voice. With speech, the searches will not only become longer but also different. Previously, users entered keywords in a search query via the keyboard. When users indicate a search query, it often consists of a question or a sentence. The number of words in a search via voice search is, therefore, longer on average than in a regular way. Since we search differently by voice than with the keyboard, it is important to use natural keywords and phrases. When we type in a keyword, we often keep it as short as possible. For example, we type in: “Hotel Marbella”. If we let the smartphone look something up, we say: “I am looking for a hotel in Marbella”. So full sentences are made instead of just a keyword typed. This also requires a different approach to SEO. Where you previously optimized for keywords, you need to optimize (still) more on longtail keyword combinations. The optimization should focus more on questions and problems that arise from spoken language. Complete questions with the answers. Google is also responding to this with the featured snippets, which I’ll go deeper into later in this piece. So carefully check which questions and problems the searchers have and tailor your content accordingly.

SEO Trend 2: Visual search in Google

Visual search is developing better and faster. Previously, Google could only understand images by looking at the textual information that was added by, for example, the webmaster. Consider, for example, the filename, alt-tag and the title attribute. With the internet becoming more and more visual, for search engines like Google and Bing and social media networks such as Pinterest and Instagram, it is becoming increasingly important to ‘read’ and understand visual content. Pinterest came early this year with the Pinterest lens and Aliexpress also uses visual search in their app. These tech companies, therefore, invest a lot in creating and improving their visual search engines.

SEO Trend 3: Mobile increasingly important

Due to the growth of the use of smartphones and tablets, Google requires the websites to be user-friendly when viewed on mobile devices. A recent survey by BightEdge shows that currently, 79 percent of all keywords and 47 percent of the keywords in the top-20 are different on a desktop than on a mobile device. And 57 percent of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Many people search ‘on the road’ and in this way find shops and businesses in the area. Because a large part of the mobile search is local, local SEO is a must. The challenge in 2018 will be to coordinate the search query and the answers at a local level. In addition to local searches, mobile devices are also used to quickly find the answers to questions or the (pre-) selection for a purchase. The attention span on mobile devices is generally considerably shorter than on desktop. In 2018, the mobile user experience should, therefore, be simple and super-fast. In addition to the regular optimization techniques for the speed you can execute yourself, Google also has its own project called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). In fact, these are lightweight lightweight pages without unnecessary formatting.

SEO Trend 4: Linkbuilding 

Linkbuilding has been important from the very beginning of SEO. This will not be different in 2018. But what will be a big difference is that it is mainly the qualitative backlinks that have a positive influence. Seo specialists always talk about natural backlink profiles. A backlink profile should look as natural as possible and therefore contain both relevant and irrelevant backlinks. In practice, not all backlinks need to be relevant to the topic of your website. In a natural situation, where no work is done on seo, a backlink profile is created in a natural way, where the types of backlinks are diverse; think of backlinks of news websites, press releases, company guides, links of sponsor websites, charities and initiatives, profiles on websites or links from business networks. These do not always directly relate to the subject of your website. The type of backlinks can therefore vary; think of text links, image links and branding links. Linkbuilding is something that you have to pay a lot of attention to. Do this well and in a natural way, this will give a big boost. Do not just focus on getting new backlinks, but also take a closer look at your existing backlinks. Various tools are available for this, such as Majestic and Ahrefs. In addition, the focus in 2018 should be on setting up sustainable relationships within and outside your network. For example, if you offer broker training, you can approach graduate brokers with the request to state on their websites that they have completed their broker training at your educational institute. In addition, you could also approach other less relevant parties (with whom you work together) for an online collaboration. Think of a caterer, cleaning company or printing company. This way you arrive at a natural and balanced backlink profile.

SEO Trend 5: User-friendliness remains critical 

Search Engines such as Google find it important that the websites shown in the results are user-friendly. After all, a website must be shown that not only offers the requested information, but that is also easy to navigate and use. To determine user-friendliness, there are a number of factors that Google takes into account.

SEO 2018 – 3 important user-friendly facts

The speed of the website. Make sure there are no long loading times. This can be prevented by not using large images. The server (and thus the hosting) is also important for the website speed.

Valuable content. The information provided on the website must be interesting and relevant to visitors. There are several statistics available in Google Analytics that you can use to determine whether content is valuable or not. Consider, for example, the time on the pages, bounce rate, etcetera. Therefore, tempt the visitors to surf to other pages. You can achieve this by including internal links in the articles.

Visitors behaviour. Visitor behaviour is an important indicator for Google to assess whether a website is valuable or not. Consider, for example, a metric such as bounce rate, that is the percentage of visitors who left your website without taking any action and returning to the search results. What you actually want is that visitors spend more time on your website that has a positive influence on your positions in Google.

In 2018, the usability of your website or webshop must be better than ever. The user experience on all devices must be error-free. Google is a master in interpreting the visitor behaviour on a website and this will be even more important in the ranking of the search results. Dive into Google Analytics and identify bottlenecks by seeing where visitors get stuck or drop out. For example, view the behaviour on the landing pages. If this is too difficult, you can also use usability tools such as Crazy Egg or Lucky Orange. Not only on a statistical level can usability be improved, also at content level. The better pages on your website are tailored to the search query, the better this is for visitors and the position in Google. There is a strong connection between UX and SEO.

Extra SEO trends 2018

Featured Snippets en Quick Answers

Google has indicated that it no longer wants to be a search engine, but a personal assistant. If you ask a question, Google wants to show the answer as soon as possible. You see this when you ask for a translation or want to know the value of a certain currency in euros. The answer then comes directly to the top of the website without having to click through to another website.

If you optimize your content so that Google can see that this is the answer to a question, your content is also eligible to be in the featured snippet. To realize this, it is important to use natural keywords and phrases. The ideal page would answer all the questions that the viewfinder had to answer within the same topic. Think of it as a FAQ, but for the content, you offer on the website. Featured snippets give the opportunity to acquire a top position in Google relatively quickly. What is increasingly being shown by Google is the ‘Google Answer Box’. This is a section at the top of the page where the question is entered with the answer immediately below. A featured snippet is a listed answer that matches the search that appears near the Google search results. This snippet consists of the answer to the question, the page title and the URL to the relevant page.

SEO trends 2018: The verdict

The SEO trends that started in 2017 seem to become more and more the basis. The SEO trends for 2018 may therefore not be brand new, but no less important. The trends that have now started, will have a huge influence on the way of searching on the internet. This logically also provides a different approach to website and webshop optimization.

For more information on search engine optimization, please visit our FML blog page. Or subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.

SEO trends 2018 The Infographic

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According to research firm Aberdeen, a fast website increases visitor engagement, retention, and boosts sales. Instantaneous websites lead to higher conversion rates, and every 1 second delay in page load decreases customer satisfaction by 16%, page views by 11% and conversion rates by 7%.

10 Best WordPress plugins to improve loading speed

First, do a pre-test via Google Pagespeed, but I think Pingdom tools (choose Stockholm test) give a better picture.

1. WP smush (this plugin compresses photos so your photos have less kb and load faster).
2. WP Super Cache (for fast loading times of your website) and Cloudflare (free plan).
3. WP fastest cache plugin is also a great alternative to WP Super Cache. Meanwhile (in January 2018) the plugin W3 Total Cache is also up-to-date and good to choose.
4. Autoptimize (combines CSS and puts Javascript under the pagefold for faster loading times).
5. BJ lazy load (this plugin ensures that you load images a bit later than the text of your website, this saves a lot of loading time and prevents (mobile) users from dropping out).
6. Far future Expiry header (Check first if your headers already have an end date via Pingdom tools for loading time / Stockholm).
7. Widget options (so you can determine where widgets are coming, and to keep your home space fee, limit loading time).
8. JCH Optimize (Good plugin to merge background images).
9. TinyPng (This is another great plugin to drastically reduce the size of your images).
10. Perfmatters. This plugin is a great addition to already installed Cache plugins. WordPress enables certain options by default, that aren’t needed for most websites and have a negative impact on the performance. available from $19,95 per year.

Improve loading speed with FML Marketing

To improve your SEO, the loading speed of your website is crucial. Moreover, this has a rather large impact on the behaviour of your website visitors. We help our clients with a full website analysis, improving speed, conversion, interaction and the overall website behaviour of your clients. Contact us without any obligations for more info or a quote! Thank you for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe and share.

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Read which free WP plugins are Evergreens! With this top list, you know at least which WordPress plugins you need to install in 2018. Try to install between 5 and 15 plugins, so your loading time does not increase too much. Although…for better performance are also plugins available!

10 best standard WordPress plugins 2017/2018

How to install plugins, automatically changes within WordPress. But you can find additional explanations, read the plug-in installation explanation from the developer. Anyway, what are the standard WordPress plugins that you almost always need? This is our favorite list:

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast This is a must install-plugin. Available free and premium. (makes content findable, SEO advice within WordPress)
2. Akismet (standard in WordPress, is against spam)
3. Jetpack by WordPress.com (optimization)
4. Wordfence Security (security)
5. Contact form 7, in combination with the Google service: recaptcha (sign up). Also read about alternative forms plug-ins such as Ninja forms and Fast Secure Contact Form.
6. Really Simple CAPTCHA (with contact form, against spam responses)
7. WP Super Cache (for fast loading times of your website) and Cloudflare (free plan).
8. Google XML Sitemaps (evict if SEO by Yoast plugin already does this for you)
9. Social Warfare for floating social media buttons that are not disruptive, so your website visitors can easily share your WordPress messages on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter etc. So social media part buttons plugin. Tip: turn off the Facebook share button if you do not need it, because it saves WordPress load time if contact request with Facebook is not necessary).
10. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (internal linking between posts goes automatically, gives more site visit), do you also want thumbnails for the titles? Then use the Yuzo related post plugin.

Thank you for reading The Best WordPress plugins of 2017-2018 | Part I. Tomorrow we will be back with:

Top 10 WordPress plugins to improve your website’s loading speed

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