The subject of today is quick wins. What can we do? Where are the quick wins? If you're trying to improve how your website's performing and how it's generating enquiries.
Just things that you can do straight away and they should make a difference.
And I will say that they're all things that we found. We haven't kind of sort of scoured the internet to look for things. These are things that we've come across that have given us quick wins.
Yeah. Things that we've found when we've mainly when we've taken on a new client and we've had a look, had a dig about in their website and their data and thought, oh, hang on a minute, that doesn't look right and, you know, managed to sort it and get things moving when they haven't been before.
So we're back with the Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast with me, Dave and Julie is joining me today. with the guys at Red Evolution who run the From the Coalface podcast and the subject of today is quick wins. What can we do? Where are the quick wins? If you're trying to improve how your website's performing and how it's generating enquiries? Okay, Julie, happy with that?
Yeah, absolutely. That just things that you can do straight away and they should make a difference.
Yeah. And things that you could check. Uh, I suppose, I mean, some of these things, uh, that we're going to suggest are things that you can just check. And I will say that they're all things that we've found. It's, we haven't kind of sort of scoured the internet to look for things. These are things that we've come across that have given us quick wins.
Yeah. Things that we've found when we've mainly when we've taken on a new client and we've had a look, had a dig about in their website and their data and thought, oh, hang on a minute, that doesn't look right and, you know, managed to sort it and get things moving when they haven't been before.
Yeah, that's fair enough. Okay. Um, Let's start with something that sounds really techy. Um, but it isn't really. And we've, we've come across this a few times and it's, it's, um, it's one of those strange ones how these things slip through the net. But when you're building a website or at any point, um, with your website, you can tell Google to ignore it and you use what's called a, I think it's broadly speaking, called a robots directive because Google's robots come and look at your website in order to index it. So, um, the robots directive basically can say to Google, um, do not index this web page and do not follow any of the links on this web page. In other words, ignore this website.
Yeah. People do it while they're building their sites so that Google doesn't sort of show people a half finished site.
Yeah, but even that's a bad practice, really, isn't it? The world shouldn't be able to see your website while you're building it. You should be behind a password or something, People. But people.
Do.
Do it. So it's one of the reasons that people put this in there.
I think that's what the recent example I'm thinking of when we found it, I think that's what had been done. It had been sort of built like that so that people could collaborate on it. And then they basically forgot to tell Google it was now ready to find. And it really isn't techie because the example I'm thinking of, I found it and fixed it in about a minute.
Even you found.
Even I found it. So it really isn't techie. It just sounds it.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. It's surprising how often we've come across that and it's never an easy conversation. Um, hello Mr. New client. We love having you as a new client. Are you aware that you're telling Google to ignore your website? And then there's usually a silence.
They're like, oh.
The nice thing is it's quick and easy to fix. I mean, any credible web developer can change the site so that you're not telling Google to ignore it. And sometimes you can start to see results from that really quickly. Hence it's in our quick wins.
Yeah, it can happen in in days really? Because Google goes, oh, wait a minute. Hello? What's this?
Mhm. That's right. Okay. So look for and the way you do that is if you look at the, um, source code of your website and just do you know, an on page search, so right click view source and then just do a find no index, all one word, the word no index. And if no index is found then it might be that you've got a problem and it's worth getting the web developer to look after it, look after it, look into it and fix it. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay. So robots, let's leave the robots where they are just now. And another one, which is it's not really related, but it's kind of similar. As in we often find this on sites that we, you know, sites that we take on when we take on new customers is really poor on page optimisation. So let's not go into each ones and all the techie stuff, but web pages are optimised so that search engines can, in inverted commas, understand them and index them.
Yeah, I know what a page is about. Your page title is there to tell Google this page is about this thing.
Yeah.
And it's pretty much the first thing we look at when we sort of take on a new site, or even when we're looking at someone's site to sort of analyse what we might do to help them. Yeah, it's, it's one of the first things we'd look at, see if the page titles sort of make any sense and use language that people looking for them use.
Yeah. And this goes back to something we've spoken about in some previous episodes of the show where we've said with every web page on your website, like, who is it for? You know, how are they going to find it? And what do you want them to do when they find it? The web page each for each web page and the, and the how are they going to find it bit. The on page optimisation is a key element of that. It's a key part of that. Yeah.
If you. If what's written in the page title, it doesn't explain what the page is about, then Google is never going to figure it out.
Okay. So is the on page optimisation, right? There are tools. I mean, we interviewed, uh, Jeff Kennedy from Site bulb and their tool, their site crawler tool. That certainly is one way of checking to see if your website is at least to an automated tool. Looks like it's well optimised. Looks like the on pages.
Will tell you if all your page title, if you've got duplicate page titles. So if you've got lots of pages that are basically optimised for the same sort of exactly the same words, because that's not very helpful. So that's one thing would sort of flag up that there might be a problem.
Yeah. Okay. Um, on page optimisation, really important. Um, it's not something that, that just anybody is going to be able to check, but if you get it checked by somebody who you trust and it's not good, then correcting it, doing some work on it is another really good quick win.
Definitely. Yeah. Again, it can have really speedy results.
Yeah. All right. Back to another slightly geeky one. But we'll explain it in a way that's not geeky. Um some people's websites will show up. They will they will appear on the screen. If you type in three W's the company dot com. Right. The website will appear, but they'll also appear if you type the company dot com without the three W's. So there's two different versions of the website. Sometimes they'll appear if you type http colon two forward slashes the company dot com, and sometimes they'll appear. Also, if you type h t t p s now, call on two forward slashes the company dot com. So basically the HTTP and HTTPs are the difference between a secure and a non secure website. I'm not going to get into what the word secure means in this context, but suffice to say that most websites today use HTTPs and quite often they also resolve. if you don't use HTTPs, which means that there are multiple versions of your website and Google's kind of going, well, I'm not sure which is the best version. And so it'll sometimes show one and sometimes show another and a link to from somebody else's website to the HTTP version of your website won't necessarily help the HTTP. It's getting horribly complicated. This is one for the.
Devs.
To look at for you.
But it does mess up your Google rankings. Or it can it can Google rankings.
You're kind of competing with yourself. Potentially.
You could have one, basically two versions ranking. So neither of them are going to do very well because you're you're not making the most of either.
Yeah. And it's a really easy thing to fix. You know, any geek, any credible geek out there can make sure that there is only one version of your website that is being indexed and shown, indexed by Google and shown to the world. Yeah. Easy to do. Okay. Um, slightly more. It's another quick win. Definitely a really easy quick win to sort that out. And you need to make sure which is the strongest version and make sure that you, you know, create the redirect so that the strongest version is the one that is the only version that's left, but it's definitely a quick win. This next one is kind of might be a quick win, but it's, it doesn't speak to me and jump out at me as an absolutely a quick win. But something we've come across very recently with a new customer is poor site structure. Yeah. So you've been you you kind of spent you know, I know you were working till God knows when one of the nights this week because you were looking at one and you were determined to try and understand exactly what this, how this website has been structured.
I couldn't I couldn't stop until I actually got my head around it. I don't think I actually succeeded, but I kind of got somewhere. But yeah, I mean, part of it, I mean, Google likes things to be easy for people to use. So if a website is difficult for people to find their way around, then inevitably it's not going to help. It's not, you know, it's not a game changer necessarily, but, you know, the easier it is for people to use, the better Google is going to gonna find it as well. But also if you've got random pages that you've kind of created and they're not accessed from other bits of the site, then you know, Google's not going to find them. Your users aren't going to find them. So, you know, do something to actually bring them into the body of the website and make them easy to find.
I mean, it's possible that Google can find them because like most websites they have, they'll feed a sitemap into the Google Search Console. I know that might sound a bit tech to some people, and we can explain it if anyone wants that explaining in more detail, then the coalface dot com and and contact and we'll do a podcast all about it. But, um, it's possible that we, um, that the site structure is okay for people using the website, but not so good for the search engines because it might, for example, in the, in the one we're talking about, every single page on the website looks like a top level. Yeah. So there's, there's no kind of natural Siloing of information. There's no natural structure. It's not like the services are all in a forward slash services slash service description type. They're all just.
On the main sort of domain name and then slash page names so that there's no groupings, there's no logical way of finding, you know, finding what belongs where. That's right. Because it's just one great long list of pages.
And it's bound to impact on index ability and the way that the sites the site performs, isn't it?
Yeah. Because it just doesn't make much sense. And it, you know, it blew my mind because I couldn't figure it out. So you've got to say that if a human being kind of actually applying some sort of insight into it, can't find their way around a robot probably is going to find it really difficult.
Mhm. Okay. Uh, it's a quick ish win. Maybe not. Not so much a quick win, that one because, you know, restructuring the site and doing it properly so that you redirect and tell Google, we've moved this page from here to here and all that stuff is a little bit more involved. Quick ish win.
Yeah. And it's not a long, long term job, but it's it's not immediate. It's not like press a button and it's done, but with a bit of thought. And you could make it make more sense without vast amounts of work.
Okay. Another quick win might be to look for duplicate content. Um, we might have different takes on this. What's your take on that?
Um, well, there's kind of I'm thinking two things here. I mean, there's obviously the whole question around duplicate content and clients ask us all the time duplicate content. I'll get penalised by Google. You won't but you won't. It won't help you either. Google only will pick one page. And so if you've got the same content on more than one page, Google will only pick one. So it's a waste of time.
Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, I think that's right. I agree with what you're saying. Um, I pretty sure that there's no penalty as such, but it appears like a penalty because if a page is found that looks like it's the same as a page Google already knows about. Even if it's a page on somebody else's website, it'll ignore it. Yeah, because I've already got this information. I don't need another version of it.
What's the point in showing two? If somebody asks a question, you give them two different answers, but they're both exactly the same. It's pointless.
A practical example of where some businesses might do this is they might write a page of content about providing a specific service in Aberdeen, and then put it into word. Do a find and replace. Replace the word Aberdeen with Glasgow, and then put exactly the same page up with like the fact that they provide that service in Glasgow as well. Yeah.
Um it happens more than you would think. Yeah.
Okay. And do we think that's a problem.
It's not a good thing.
Yeah. That's right. I mean certainly when we've gone after search traffic for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, etc., for specific search terms, we've written unique content for each of those pages. And those pages perform reasonably well.
And it's difficult to do because the service you provide is the same in every city, but you've got to make it sound different?
Yeah. So what's the quick win? I mean, the quick win in the case I mentioned would be if you are providing a service in lots of geographical different geographical locations, then then make those pages all unique.
Make them all different.
Yeah.
The other thing we.
Found, and just, just to caveat that, pretty sure I've seen that kind of find and replace technique work, which is even more frustrating.
It is annoying because it's not supposed to. And Google tells you not to do it. But yet sometimes things fall through the gaps and somehow things manage to work. Yeah. But there's also the thing where people have more than one website, so they, they think they have lots of websites designed so that one website links to the other, so that Google thinks there's lots of inbound links to a website, but they've actually all got the same content in them. And we've seen that more than once as well. And that that's a terrible model to sort out as well.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes people create multiple versions of their website in a, in an attempt to improve their search rankings or in some sort of. Yeah, I mean, it's it's making a right pig's ear of your brand, if nothing else doing that.
Yeah. Because what happens? Maybe you update one website and then you don't update the other one and they all look slightly different or yeah, it it's people find one and it's not quite the same.
I mean, one thing you can do in that sense is you can use the thing that's called the canonical tag, which again sounds a bit like geeky or whatever, but effectively behind what the user sees on a page. There can be a little snippet of information that says to Google, look, this page exists, and it's really just there for whatever reason. But the, the, the master version of this page is at this address. So kind of ignore this page and concentrate on this other page.
It says, if you're going to pick one, pick that one.
Yeah. That's right. So that's something that's certainly an approach. If you really want to have a page that's talking to different audiences, but saying more or less the same thing, then you could use that canonicalisation technique.
Yeah. Or if if there is a sort of logical reason for having more than one website because they're for different audiences or something, but the services that you provide are similar, but for different groups of people. But again, just try and write something different on the the different sites and don't make them the same.
Okay, slight change of subject if you like. Still around quick wins, but we've spoken in the past about the Google Search Console, which in our book is, is one of the most fantastic tools to understand where your websites both winning and losing. Um, so the Google Search console gives an opportunity for some quick wins, because what it will tell you is that you rank for a specific search term that lots of people use, but you average, uh, average position of, of your result is on page two. So that is a potentially quick win. If you can move the dial on that, on that page, that's ranking on page two and get it onto page one. Yeah.
Particularly if you're sort of maybe position eleven or twelve. So you're so close to being on to page one that you, you know, a little bit of work on that you should be able to move it.
The caveat is that if it's a very, uh, tough search term to rank for, there's a lot of competition for it. Then you're maybe on page two for a reason, because page one, from position one to position ten are household names, and you're just never going to push up onto page one and get any momentum.
Page one is like Wikipedia and other sort of like educational or like non-commercial things then, and you're just never going to be able to compete with them. So yeah, you've got to look and see, you know, the context, but often those are a reasonably quick wins.
There's lots of things on the search in the search console that are potentially quick wins. There's some technical stuff in there, but that particular one where you can clearly see that you've got a page two ranking for a search term that lots of people are using, and you know, you're averaging position eleven or position twelve and you think, wow, you know, what do we need to do to get that up on the page one? And we might start to see some traffic.
Yeah. Particularly if you don't, you know, you've picked a, a keyword or a phrase that that's at position eleven or twelve and you don't have much on your website about it at the moment. You know, if you've absolutely been working away at it for years, that's different. But if you look at your website and go, actually we don't talk about that very much, then, you know, there's an opportunity.
Okay. Um, another quick win is if you're selling earth moving implements, should you say that on your website or should you say they're called shovels?
Call a spade a spade.
So talk to me about that one about not talking to your audience.
Yeah. Well, again, you know, looking at the data helps. Also just understanding your audience helps. But if you write in maybe in technical terms about what you sell, like you say, we sell these stainless steel garden implements and they're great quality. But yeah, your audience are looking for metal spades. So just see, See what people are looking for. Make sure that you describe what you do in the way that the audience speaks. That's not even English, but you know what I mean.
I understand what you're saying. Yeah. It's using the using the the common vernacular. It's using the, the language that the people who buy what you're selling use as opposed to what you think it might be called.
And again, we've seen that quite a lot. People have a sort of certain way that they've, they've decided they want to describe their service, but nobody actually ever types that into Google. So you know that on some occasions, we've actually kind of helped them to rethink how they describe their services because it's not what people are looking for.
Yeah.
Agreed. So you've got, you know, you've got to put your customer first.
That's right. And the, the quick win, there would probably be if you're in a situation where people are finding your website and they're looking at your web pages, but they're not actually buying anything off you, they're not getting in touch with you. And that might be one of the situations where the language that you're using isn't right. And the previous podcast that Alex and I did, we talked about a thing called conversion rate optimisation, which is in a nutshell, you know, playing around with your web pages until they start to do what you want them to do. And you know, this one that we're talking about now would maybe fall into that camp, you know, especially if you're not quite sure, you know.
But sometimes it's also that, you know, you're, you're ranking in Google for things that aren't what your audience call it. So actually the wrong people are finding your site and the right people aren't finding your site just because you're not using the right words.
You were supposed to keep talking there because I was going to take a photograph of you. But anyway, I stopped.
What was I saying? No, I think I think I've said said all I need to say there.
Okay, that's fair enough. All right. One last one. And this is a bit of an odd one. We've talked in the past about three or one exercises, which, um, you know, in simple terms means an exercise where you're moving web pages around or even moving a website from one domain name. So you're moving it from Yourcompany dot co dot UK to yourcompany dot com because you managed to get the dot com domain and you're going international and you want to move everything. So there's an exercise that's known as a three oh one exercise. Wikipedia. Do a pretty good page that explains what it is.
It's a redirect.
It's a redirect.
Basically one page that it now lives somewhere else.
That's right. And one of the things that we've seen in the past, and we've, we've got a quick win, is from recognising that this hasn't been done properly. So we've taken on a new client because they've maybe fallen out with their agency because things have gone bad, or they did it, we did our website and, and suddenly we don't get any traffic. And that's nearly always because the three hundred one wasn't done properly. Yeah. You can if you act quickly, rescue that situation.
Yeah. Because it takes a while for Google to sort of say, right, that page used to be called blue Widgets, and now it's called blue widgets. So I need to send.
Do you not listen to the podcast that Alex and I did? We do not talk about blue widgets anymore. The blue widgets flew off the shelf. We haven't got any left.
Okay. No blue. What are we selling now?
Uh, next question.
Anyway. But yeah, you've changed the name of something or you've. Yeah. So you want all the traffic that used to go to the blue widget site to page to go to the Blue widgets page.
We do not sell blue widgets.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. So but it takes a while for Google to stop showing people the Blue Widgets page. Don't say it. Um. And for a while, the Blue Widgets page will still show up in Google until Google figures out that it doesn't exist anymore. So if you get in quickly before Google forgets about the original page, you can redirect it.
If people could write in and decipher that and tell me exactly what Julie was saying, I'd really appreciate it.
Halfway through that and I'm like, I, I actually have no idea what I'm talking about.
Okay.
Um, but yeah, if you're quick enough, you can sort the mess.
Yeah. That's absolutely okay. I mean, I think we've, we've given uh, people some, some ideas on quick wins. As always, if there's something you want us to cover in the podcast, then just send us a message and we'll, uh, you can either come on the show and talk about the subject, or you can send us a question and we'll talk about it.
Um, anything else? LinkedIn or Twitter? I mean, you can just, you can find us on there and send a message that way if you can't be bothered doing it the other way.
Yeah, I suppose that's, that's a good point. Uh, anything else on quick wins?
No, we'll probably think of half a dozen as soon as we stop this.
Yeah, but yeah, I think this might be a recurring theme.
Yeah. If we think of any others, we could do another podcast on them. But there's just they're the ones that we find quite often. Yeah. And, and are fixable.
Totally fixable and genuinely can bring a significant benefit.
Yep.
Good stuff. Okay, that's all for this show. And, uh, we'll speak to you next time.