Top 5 Web Tips & Digital Tricks: Jan 2021 Edition

In these monthly round ups, we’ll aim to deliver five handy nuggets of info that we believe will help inform, educate and ultimately improve your understanding of digital marketing.

Over time we’ll throw in a range of insights that will help you improve your website, social media presence and eCommerce strategy. We’ll also throw in some opinion pieces just to stir things up a little.

Some items will be simple two-minute reads. Others will take a little longer but will be well worth the time to read or watch.

So, without further ado, we present our Top 5 Web Tips & Digital Tricks: January 2021 Edition.

1 – Magento’s Consumer preferences in eCommerce 2020

We thought we would ease you into things with a nice infographic full of eCommerce facts and figures. Thanks to the fine folk at Magento.

It goes without saying that 2020 saw a huge shift towards online shopping due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw shoppers forced to abandon the high street and rely on the internet to get what they wanted.

So, with online shopping becoming a necessity and not a choice, what factors influenced consumers behaviour and loyalty in 2020?

View the report right here

2 – FAQ, HowTo, and Q&A schema tags improve visibility in SERPs

This one is great for informational websites, but everyone should look to include these new schema tags where possible.

If you have product information that is presented as an FAQ, set of ‘How To…’ instructions or perhaps a great Q&A dictation that accompanies an embedded YouTube video, then you need to get your web agency to add the correct Schema tags to that content.

Structured Data is a very powerful tool to help you get noticed in SERPs and position your website as an authority on a given subject.

Learn more about Schema Tags here at Moz.com

3 – Why you should vet your WordPress plugins and how to do it.

With almost 40% of ALL website being built with WordPress, we suspect that this tip will be of use to quite a few of our readers.

WordPress is a powerful website builder, with many free and paid-for themes available on the market. With just a small amount of knowledge, you can set-up a website and have it fully populated with content in a matter of days.

The trick is adding all the functionality that you require. Social feeds, integrations with mailing list providers, image compression tools, etc. The list is almost endless, but there’s likely a plug-in for anything you need to add to your website.

So how do you chose which is the best plugin? Do you just install the first one you come across or spend a good deal of time vetting the plugin before feeling confident enough to add it to your website?

The team at WordFence published this video on YouTube detailing why you should vet your WordPress plugins and how.

It’s lengthy, so use the handy markers to skip to the most relevant parts of the discussion at these points:

1. 28:47​ Why do we need to evaluate plugins?
2. 36:01​ Plugin horror stories
3. 52:40​ Tools for evaluating plugins

4 – Branded SEO. Is it time to think differently about your content strategy?

Most of you are quite familiar with SEO and probably have a pretty good content strategy in place for your website, targetting keywords in an effort to rise up the rankings. But should you be thinking differently about your SEO strategy?

This article from Search Engine Watch questions the status quo and asks us to consider a different way of looking at SEO. That it should be as much a part of your brand as your logo or tone-of-voice.

Mordy Oberstein argues that we should stop thinking of SEO purely in acquisition terms.

If we want to differentiate our brand from the competition, we should stop blindly copying what everyone else is doing and strive to create a strategy that is unique. Targetting an untapped group of readers in the process.

Right or wrong, the article is certainly worth a read and may spark some interesting conversation.

For further reading, check out our article on local SEO.

5 – Inspirational LinkedIn insight from entrepreneur Terry Rice

Finally, we have something ideal for all social media addicts. Specifically entrepreneurs and small business owners wanting to utilise LinkedIn to grow followers and their brand as a result.

Posting 90 times in 90 days on LinkedIn may seem like a tall order for anyone struggling to find the time to run their business, but if you can rise to this challenge, the rewards could be great.

The article is nicely written, honest and inspirational. Good luck!

Thanks for your time

We hope you found the above links of use and that you’ll come back end the end of February for the next round of tips & tricks.

In the meantime, if you are looking for help with your website or SEO, please feel free to get in touch. We’re always happy to discuss your requirements and hope to be of assistance.