Ask Me Anything About Website Optimization (Ongoing)

[WowVisible]

Hi, I'm Armil. I'm a Certified SEO expert. I have been doing SEO for more than 10 years now. I have wide experience in optimizing websites from different industries all over the world. Lately, I established a digital marketing company specializing in SEO or website optimization.

I created this thread not primarily to sell but to give value by helping fellow entrepreneurs in optimizing websites. You may ask anything about SEO. I'll reply the best I can, based on my knowledge and actual experience.

 

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[George Appiah]

Hi, I'm Armil. I'm a Certified SEO expert. I have been doing SEO for more than 10 years now. I have wide experience in optimizing websites from different industries all over the world. Lately, I established a digital marketing company specializing in SEO or website optimization.

I created this thread not primarily to sell but to give value by helping fellow entrepreneurs in optimizing websites. You may ask anything about SEO. I'll reply the best I can, based on my knowledge and actual experience.

That's very kind of you.

But kindly clarify this to help people here know what sort of questions they may ask you:

What exactly do you mean when you say "website optimization"? What specific area(s) do you focus on?

I'm asking because it seems website performance (and I'm specifically referring to speed & end-user experience, not conversion of any kind) does not seem to be your area of expertise or something you even pay any attention to at all when doing your kind of "website optimization"... judging from the abysmally poor performance grading of the "certified expert's" own website.

What am I missing?

 

[WowVisible]

That's very kind of you.

But kindly clarify this to help people here know what sort of questions they may ask you:

What exactly do you mean when you say "website optimization"? What specific area(s) do you focus on?

I'm asking because it seems website performance (and I'm specifically referring to speed & end-user experience, not conversion of any kind) does not seem to be your area of expertise or something you even pay any attention to at all when doing your kind of "website optimization"... judging from the abysmally poor performance grading of the "certified expert's" own website.

What am I missing?

View attachment 36175

Hi @George Appiah , I'm referring to overall website optimization including website performance with the main drive of improving the website's conversion.

Unfortunately, you're checking the new website I created of which I haven't started optimizing yet. As you can see the menu links and footer links are not yet working.

Anyway, this is a good thing you bring it up to this thread. I'll start optimizing the site once the necessary pages are added. I may give updates here on the progress especially the website performance.

But regarding the website performance, I noticed you are using the Google Page Insights tool. I'm still using this tool but won't follow all its recommendations when I noticed the overall conversion rate will be affected just like removing the image slider or making the image size smaller or of low quality just to improve the score.

I had quite a number of experiences of this where I improved their score to all green but the clients were disappointed because they didn't like anymore the look and feel of their site. The worst thing some of the functionalities not working anymore.

So, that's why I decided to focus on what's more important to drive more conversions as well as rank higher on search engines.


In website performance, what matters most to me is the loading speed which is essential in SEO and lowering bounce rate as well. In this aspect, I used an additional tool called GTMetrix.

You may check one of our clients we continually optimize. You're free to contact him if you like to verify.

 

[George Appiah]

But regarding the website performance, I noticed you are using the Google Page Insights tool. I'm still using this tool but won't follow all its recommendations when I noticed the overall conversion rate will be affected just like removing the image slider or making the image size smaller or of low quality just to improve the score.

Well, this was exactly the point of my question, even though I reckon it may have sounded a bit tongue-in-cheek. I'm an active WordPress.org Support volunteer, and far too often I see so many site owners chasing these scores without a thought to the impact on their conversion goals.

In website performance, what matters most to me is the loading speed which is essential in SEO and lowering bounce rate as well. In this aspect, I used an additional tool called GTMetrix.

I agree with you for the most part, except for this:

If lowering bounce rate is a key goal of yours, then improving the site speed, while essential, is definitely not enough: you really ought to also pay as much attention to what happens after the visitor lands on the page. You may have a super-fast page, but if the user lands on the page and the experience is poor (eg non-functional hamburger menu, broken CSS, scrollbars galore, etc), of course they're going to bounce away immediately and your bounce rate is going to suck. And so will conversion.

That's why Google's web performance measuring tools have traditionally focused more on the overall end-user experience, not just whether you have or don't have specific technologies.

But once again, I agree that every tool should be used and every recommendation should be taken -- with the overall conversion goal in mind.

And if you've been active in the world of website optimization recently, you know it's not the wild-west jungle it used to be anymore: these tools are now essentially reporting the same things, with the only major difference being their presentation.

And that's because the industry has settled on (among many more metrics being standardized) the so-called web vitals: LCP, FID, & CLS -- as objective indicators of user experience. And browsers now have native APIs that these web performance measuring tools are using to (somewhat) accurately measure and report these metrics. That's why you see them front and centre on both GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights, as you can see below:

I had quite a number of experiences of this where I improved their score to all green but the clients were disappointed because they didn't like anymore the look and feel of their site. The worst thing some of the functionalities not working anymore.

Could it have been something you didn't do right... why some of the functionalities were not working anymore? Just a thought

 

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[George Appiah]

Now let's get back on track, shall we?

I can see your own website is built with WordPress, while your client's site is a WebFlow site.

So I'm wondering:

What role (if any) are these two platforms inherently play in the performance of these two specific websites?

And specifically for WordPress, what have you found to be the core principles you follow and/or the key tools you use to ensure a highly performant WordPress site?

 

[WowVisible]

Well, this was exactly the point of my question, even though I reckon it may have sounded a bit tongue-in-cheek. I'm an active WordPress.org Support volunteer, and far too often I see so many site owners chasing these scores without a thought to the impact on their conversion goals.



I agree with you for the most part, except for this:

If lowering bounce rate is a key goal of yours, then improving the site speed, while essential, is definitely not enough: you really ought to also pay as much attention to what happens after the visitor lands on the page. You may have a super-fast page, but if the user lands on the page and the experience is poor (eg non-functional hamburger menu, broken CSS, scrollbars galore, etc), of course they're going to bounce away immediately and your bounce rate is going to suck. And so will conversion.

That's why Google's web performance measuring tools have traditionally focused more on the overall end-user experience, not just whether you have or don't have specific technologies.

But once again, I agree that every tool should be used and every recommendation should be taken -- with the overall conversion goal in mind.

And if you've been active in the world of website optimization recently, you know it's not the wild-west jungle it used to be anymore: these tools are now essentially reporting the same things, with the only major difference being their presentation.

And that's because the industry has settled on (among many more metrics being standardized) the so-called web vitals: LCP, FID, & CLS -- as objective indicators of user experience. And browsers now have native APIs that these web performance measuring tools are using to (somewhat) accurately measure and report these metrics. That's why you see them front and centre on both GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights, as you can see below:

View attachment 36227



Could it have been something you didn't do right... why some of the functionalities were not working anymore? Just a thought

I'm very pleased to know someone here who's also an expert. It's a good avenue for us to share thoughts for improvement.

I just want to clarify that lowering bounce rate is not only the metric I'm looking for in improving conversion rate. There are many metrics or factors I'm considering like call-to-action, social proof, and others regarding conversion optimization.

I just want to remind you that I haven't yet started optimizing my site. It's still under development.

 

[WowVisible]

Now let's get back on track, shall we?

I can see your own website is built with WordPress, while your client's site is a WebFlow site.

So I'm wondering:

What role (if any) are these two platforms inherently play in the performance of these two specific websites?

And specifically for WordPress, what have you found to be the core principles you follow and/or the key tools you use to ensure a highly performant WordPress site?

My strategy is platform-independent. I avoid costly migration from one platform to another except the client wanted to. Even a plain HTML site will work for us. I let the client decide on their platform preference.

 

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[JohnD Realestate]

Hi @George Appiah , I'm referring to overall website optimization including website performance with the main drive of improving the website's conversion.

Unfortunately, you're checking the new website I created of which I haven't started optimizing yet. As you can see the menu links and footer links are not yet working.

Anyway, this is a good thing you bring it up to this thread. I'll start optimizing the site once the necessary pages are added. I may give updates here on the progress especially the website performance.

But regarding the website performance, I noticed you are using the Google Page Insights tool. I'm still using this tool but won't follow all its recommendations when I noticed the overall conversion rate will be affected just like removing the image slider or making the image size smaller or of low quality just to improve the score.

I had quite a number of experiences of this where I improved their score to all green but the clients were disappointed because they didn't like anymore the look and feel of their site. The worst thing some of the functionalities not working anymore.

So, that's why I decided to focus on what's more important to drive more conversions as well as rank higher on search engines.


In website performance, what matters most to me is the loading speed which is essential in SEO and lowering bounce rate as well. In this aspect, I used an additional tool called GTMetrix.

You may check one of our clients we continually optimize. You're free to contact him if you like to verify.

View attachment 36212

interesting post...I clicked your link and submitted a site...

Yesterday I ran that tool on our shopify store. I was looking into fixes. Prob better off outsourcing I'm sure.

Funny thing is we have another site that had an abysmal score, 20 overall but that site which is about 90 days old grossed 20k last month. when i was reading your reply above i was thinking we have this new site that al the metrics say sucks but its killing our 2 year old site...who new. Need to repeat that

anyway im in your funnel like to see what you think we are in the market for at least two sites.

 

[WowVisible]

interesting post...I clicked your link and submitted a site...

Yesterday I ran that tool on our shopify store. I was looking into fixes. Prob better off outsourcing I'm sure.

Funny thing is we have another site that had an abysmal score, 20 overall but that site which is about 90 days old grossed 20k last month. when i was reading your reply above i was thinking we have this new site that al the metrics say sucks but its killing our 2 year old site...who new. Need to repeat that

anyway im in your funnel like to see what you think we are in the market for at least two sites.

Hi John, I already sent you the website technical audit reports. Your sites have a lot of potentials especially your 90-Day old site.
If you'll further optimize it you can skyrocket your SEO traffic and conversion. You have 116 ranked keywords but most of them are not on the 1st page of search engine result. Check below for the site I optimized. It's now playing around 60K organic traffic.



I can share my detailed SEO plan and guide you along the way. Just let me know then.

 

[Ahmet1054]

Hi everyone,

Super interesting thread, thanks for sharing!

I have 2 specific questions :
- What is your keyword strategy: tools, search strategy...etc
- How do you setup a PBN: once you have the domains:
- How do you create the content?
- How do you link the PBNS to your money site?

Basically, my 2 focuses are keyword research and PBN

Thanks!

 

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[Adir Barak]

Hi, thanks for this AMA thread.
What are the basic, first level essentials one is to do for a new website? I'm not talking about fully optimizing every aspect but more about focusing on the essentials to get the site going.
thank you

 

[lludwig]

Not for anything but how do you become a "Certified SEO expert"? You may very well be an expert, but you certainly aren't certified.

 

[lludwig]

Hi everyone,

Super interesting thread, thanks for sharing!

I have 2 specific questions :
- What is your keyword strategy: tools, search strategy...etc
- How do you setup a PBN: once you have the domains:
- How do you create the content?
- How do you link the PBNS to your money site?

Basically, my 2 focuses are keyword research and PBN

Thanks!

IMHO if you are looking at increasing your rankings by using PBNs you are playing a short-term game and eventually going to get burned in the process.

 

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[Ahmet1054]

IMHO if you are looking at increasing your rankings by using PBNs you are playing a short-term game and eventually going to get burned in the process.

I get that a lot. The strategy would be :
PBN at the beginning to get some traction and then classic White Hat SEO (guest posting...etc). How about that?

It's hard to rank at the beginning when you just launched the website (< 6 months). Even with quality content, you still need a little push

 

[WowVisible]

Not for anything but how do you become a "Certified SEO expert"? You may very well be an expert, but you certainly aren't certified.

I passed the SEO certification exam here SEO Certification and Training (2020) | Free Premium Updates

 

[lludwig]

I get that a lot. The strategy would be :
PBN at the beginning to get some traction and then classic White Hat SEO (guest posting...etc). How about that?

It's hard to rank at the beginning when you just launched the website (< 6 months). Even with quality content, you still need a little push

IMHO I would spend that PBN money on ads. At least it's measurable and won't get your site banned or a major rank decrease in the future.

For a new site, I would follow this technique.

Keyword Golden Ratio: Start to Rank in 2 Days | Mangools

The Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) is a data-driven way to find keywords that are underserved on the internet. Find out how it works!

mangools.com

 

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[Ahmet1054]

For a new site, I would follow this technique.

Keyword Golden Ratio: Start to Rank in 2 Days | Mangools

The Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) is a data-driven way to find keywords that are underserved on the internet. Find out how it works!

mangools.com

Thanks for the link! Great content

 

[Carlitos]

So I recently had my website redesign, is about a month old and I haven't done any sort of SEO. On PageSpeed Mobile gave me a score of 7 and desktop 49. GTMetrix gave me a score of E

 

[JohnD Realestate]

Hi John, I already sent you the website technical audit reports. Your sites have a lot of potentials especially your 90-Day old site.
View attachment 36275 If you'll further optimize it you can skyrocket your SEO traffic and conversion. You have 116 ranked keywords but most of them are not on the 1st page of search engine result. Check below for the site I optimized. It's now playing around 60K organic traffic.
View attachment 36278


I can share my detailed SEO plan and guide you along the way. Just let me know then.

Thanks for the report. Been working on my google merchant center and now that that’s up and running I’m taking a look at SEO.
Q. When you say share detailed SEO plan, and guide me...your saying I’ll do the work?

 

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[Jon L]

I have a website I'm supporting on WordPress. It worked fine for me, but not for my client. For both users over there (separate locations, working from home), the images on the front slider didn't load. For me, it worked just fine: In three browsers, in incognito / private browsing mode too. It turned out to be an optimization plugin I was using. One of the features, Lazy Load, was causing the problem.

Here's my question: how can I test for this kind of thing? If bringing it up on my own computer, even in Incognito mode, doesn't show the problem, what can I do? I ended up spinning up an Amazon server I have, and saw the problem there. Is there a tool I could use to check things like this?

 

[Adir Barak]

Hi, thanks for this AMA thread.
What are the basic, first level essentials one is to do for a new website? I'm not talking about fully optimizing every aspect but more about focusing on the essentials to get the site going.
thank you

@WowVisible
a reminder. thanks

 

[BizyDad]

IMHO I would spend that PBN money on ads. At least it's measurable and won't get your site banned or a major rank decrease in the future.

For a new site, I would follow this technique.

Keyword Golden Ratio: Start to Rank in 2 Days | Mangools

The Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) is a data-driven way to find keywords that are underserved on the internet. Find out how it works!

mangools.com

At first I wanted to hate on this.

But then I read where he said "I cap the search volume at 250 for a couple of reasons." and I realized this almost exactly how I've been ranking new sites for almost a decade.

SEO is like fishing. You've got to be patient. You've got to have several tools and techniques and lures at your ready. And if you want to rank a new site, you got to start fishing in ponds other people aren't. This article helps you pick the right ponds.

 

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[BizyDad]

I have a website I'm supporting on WordPress. It worked fine for me, but not for my client. For both users over there (separate locations, working from home), the images on the front slider didn't load. For me, it worked just fine: In three browsers, in incognito / private browsing mode too. It turned out to be an optimization plugin I was using. One of the features, Lazy Load, was causing the problem.

Here's my question: how can I test for this kind of thing? If bringing it up on my own computer, even in Incognito mode, doesn't show the problem, what can I do? I ended up spinning up an Amazon server I have, and saw the problem there. Is there a tool I could use to check things like this?

Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange's website optimization tools like heatmaps and session recordings help you grow your business and keep customers happy.

www.luckyorange.com

 

[JohnD Realestate]

IMHO I would spend that PBN money on ads. At least it's measurable and won't get your site banned or a major rank decrease in the future.

For a new site, I would follow this technique.

Keyword Golden Ratio: Start to Rank in 2 Days | Mangools

The Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) is a data-driven way to find keywords that are underserved on the internet. Find out how it works!

mangools.com

Thanks that’s good reading.

 

[Kels]

Hi @George Appiah , I'm referring to overall website optimization including website performance with the main drive of improving the website's conversion.

Unfortunately, you're checking the new website I created of which I haven't started optimizing yet. As you can see the menu links and footer links are not yet working.

Anyway, this is a good thing you bring it up to this thread. I'll start optimizing the site once the necessary pages are added. I may give updates here on the progress especially the website performance.

But regarding the website performance, I noticed you are using the Google Page Insights tool. I'm still using this tool but won't follow all its recommendations when I noticed the overall conversion rate will be affected just like removing the image slider or making the image size smaller or of low quality just to improve the score.

I had quite a number of experiences of this where I improved their score to all green but the clients were disappointed because they didn't like anymore the look and feel of their site. The worst thing some of the functionalities not working anymore.

So, that's why I decided to focus on what's more important to drive more conversions as well as rank higher on search engines.


In website performance, what matters most to me is the loading speed which is essential in SEO and lowering bounce rate as well. In this aspect, I used an additional tool called GTMetrix.

You may check one of our clients we continually optimize. You're free to contact him if you like to verify.

View attachment 36212

What is website optimization

 

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[WowVisible]

So I recently had my website redesign, is about a month old and I haven't done any sort of SEO. On PageSpeed Mobile gave me a score of 7 and desktop 49. GTMetrix gave me a score of E

As you've said the speed score is low. You need to fix the speed issues to improve. The normal site speed should not more than 5s.

By the way, I recommend conducting a full website audit to find out other problems with your site. You may PM me your site and I can assist you, or else you click my signature for the free full website audit.

 

[WowVisible]

Thanks for the report. Been working on my google merchant center and now that that’s up and running I’m taking a look at SEO.
Q. When you say share detailed SEO plan, and guide me...your saying I’ll do the work?

I can share you the how-to video guide to properly execute the detailed SEO strategy that I used to show good results with my clients.

Yes, you do the work by following my how-to guide. But if you're too busy, PM me I have a solution for you.

 

[WowVisible]

What is website optimization

For me, website optimization is optimizing your in all facets from technical, content, and most especially conversion aspect.

 

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[hhaider]

I would like to invest my time to learn more about Website optimization and much more. I just don't know were to start, because the internet is full with fake gurus, etc. What is a good place to start (think about useful YouTube channels, books, forums). How did you started and What is your advice ?

 

[JohnD Realestate]

Speaking of conversion rates...wondering what is the goal. We have stayed pretty close to 1.89 about 7 months old It’s a Shopify site.