When creating a mobile-friendly site you have three options:

• Responsive Design - Google recommends Responsive Web Design because it's the easiest to set up and maintain.
• Dynamic serving - Uses the same URL regardless of device.
• Separate URLs - Serves different HTML to each device, and on separate URLs.

Because most of the indexing on your site comes from the mobile site it’s important you ensure that both versions of your website contain the same content! You also need to remember to put the same metadata (title and meta description) on your mobile version and desktop version of your site.

The use of video content on the internet is becoming more and more popular and Google indexes videos from millions of sites. Videos can appear in several different places on Google, including the main search results page, Video mode, Google Images, and Discover.

Best Practices for Images on your Website

To help Google find and index your images:

• Use HTML image elements to embed images
• Use an image sitemap
• Responsive images
• Use supported image formats
• Optimise for speed and quality

To optimise the image landing pages:

• Check your page title and description - avoid vague descriptives such as ‘home’ for homepage, don’t make titles unnecessarily long and avoid using too many keywords.
• Add structured data
• Use descriptive filenames, titles, and alt text
• Opt out of Google Images inline linking
• Optimise for SafeSearch

Best Practices for Videos on your Website:

• Ensure your video can be found by Google by making sure they are available on public web pages. Include an HTML tag and create a video sitemap.
• Make sure your videos can be indexed.
• Include a high quality thumbnail - BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG and minimum 60 x 30 pixels (larger is preferred).
• Describe your video using structured data.
• Use stable URLs.

Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design ensures your site is optimised to work across all devices. It automatically adjusts to fit on the device and browser, ensuring all the content is displayed properly. For most businesses, a responsive website is the perfect solution to ensure your site can be accessed on all devices. It’s a cost effective solution and easy to maintain.

• Save your business money long term
• Positive user experience
• Increased visibility in search results
• Faster site loading

It makes most sense to opt for a responsive web site from the outset - Google favours responsive websites in search rankings as they provide a better user experience than sites that are not mobile friendly. More importantly, you will be less likely to miss out on potential leads - visitors to your optimised site will be able to view all the content regardless of the device they are using.

Need help developing your business website that is responsive and mobile friendly? Contact Creative Remedy for a free consultation.

1. Social Media
Pick a new social platform that you have never tried and make it your new year goal to become a digital guru for that network and add another string to your bow.

2. Video
If a picture paints 1000 words what does a moving image do? Create one piece of moving digital media to promote your business. It could be a slideshow, animation, interview, or panoramic video. This can be delivered on your website or shared on social media. Don’t forget to measure the response.

3. Landing Pages
We are all knowledgeable about your products or services, give away some FREE information via a landing page which asks for a potential customers details in exchange for this FREE helpful information.

4. Email Marketing
Be brave and try something you have never done before. Add that video you created, start a referral program, run a competition or celebrate a milestone. Contacting potential customers even once a month may just be enough put you in the forefront of their mind.

5. Existing Customers
We all know it’s easier to get more business from an existing customer rather than finding a new customer. Go through your contact list and find one reason to contact each customer, nothing sales based… ask them how your existing service is working for them, or maybe just to see how their Christmas and new year went and see where the conversation leads.