In a world where it is estimated that over 1.7 billion websites exist on the internet and on average another 500,000+ websites added each day, only so many sites can stand out from the crowd. If you want your business to succeed online, search engine optimisation is essential. Let us explain how.
A beautiful website can help showcase your goods, products and services, but it won’t be particularly useful if nobody can find it. Wix is a great tool for building websites with ease, even if you don’t have any coding or design skills, but how does it measure up when it comes to SEO? The answer is quite simple. The good news is that Wix sites can be optimised to propel them to the top of search engines like Google, but it can take a little bit of work to get there.
Wait a second: What is SEO and how will it benefit my business?
Have you ever wondered why your website doesn’t appear on Google when you search for the products and services you sell? The reason for this is down to three little letters: SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation and is the term given to specific actions you can take in order for your site to be better ranked by search engines.
SEO helps your site rank organically, without having to resort to paid advertising. So, for example, if your business sells striped socks in Salisbury, you might want to consider having a page on your website dedicated to 'striped socks Salisbury'. Once the search engines begin to notice that you’re a trustworthy authority on a particular subject or keyword, you’ll begin to see your rankings increase.
However, modern SEO is much more complicated than just adding some keywords on a page and hoping for the best. For some, SEO is a full-time job, particularly if they operate in a crowded online marketplace with plenty of competitors to keep them on their toes. Regardless of what industry you’re in or how competitive it is, in 2021 you’re going to need to dip your toe into the murky world of SEO if you want to reap the rewards of those top organic search results. Thankfully, Wix has a host of inbuilt SEO tools to help you get started. It is important to note though that filling in all the boxes within the SEO settings on your Wix website is only the start. That alone does not generally get your website ranked high in the search engines unless you are targeting a hyper-local geographical area with no local online competition.
Do I have to be a premium Wix member to improve SEO?
Wix has its own free inbuilt search engine optimisation tool known as the Wix SEO Wiz. It can be useful in helping to identify areas in which you can improve SEO, but it won’t do the hard work for you. It will, however, ask you a series of questions that should help you to approach how you think people would search for the products and services you offer. From here, you should begin to develop a list of keywords that prospective customers will be likely to enter into Google.
While you won’t need to be a premium Wix member to tackle those nagging SEO issues, you’re going to have to be prepared to put plenty of time and effort in to achieve your goals. Many SEO tasks are quite straightforward, but ultimately time-consuming, which is where a lot of small business owners fall flat.
My personal advice would be. If you are serious about securing new customers through your website to help build up your revenue, you 100% need to invest into a Wix premium plan to take full advantage of all the advanced SEO functionality available. If you don't, it is going to be a lot harder for you to get to where you need to be.
Wix SEO checklist
The Wix SEO Wiz can help you to develop your own personalised site optimisation plan. However, not all of the items on this checklist are for beginners, and it can be useful to have a basic understanding of web design and how to structure a website before tackling some of the tasks.
In addition to ensuring the relevant keywords appear on your site in the right places and implemented in the right context, you’ll also want to optimise everything from page titles, meta titles, meta descriptions, image ALT texts and much more. The Wix SEO Wiz will provide you with a basic explanation of how each of these can impact your site’s ability to rank across the search engines, but like I previously said, it's not comprehensive.
How often do I need to work on Wix SEO?
Search engine optimisation is a never-ending game of who can stay relevant at the top of Google for the longest. For better or for worse, you’re in it for the long haul. This means regularly creating interesting and informative blog posts, following step-by-step walkthroughs to ensure your pages tick all the SEO boxes, keeping up to date with changes to search engine algorithms and continually tracking your success via analytics. That is just the start.
Do I need to worry about mobile optimisation?
Over half (68.1%) of all website visits globally came from mobile devices in 2020, and this number is on the increase, with nearly 55% of web traffic being generated by smartphones in the first quarter of 2021.
When you visit a site on a desktop computer, you’ll notice that it looks marginally different when loaded on a mobile device. Increased smartphone use was initially something of a headache for website designers because it meant having to redesign sites for mobile devices. Search engines recognise that smartphone users are on the increase, and therefore penalise sites that aren’t optimised for mobile with lower rankings.
Fortunately for you, Wix takes care of this for you and automatically optimises your site for mobile loading. This leaves you to take care of other SEO tasks instead. I would suggest though that you open your website within the Wix editor and click on the mobile icon at the top of the editor to see what your website looks like on a mobile device. It may be the case that you need to tweak things slightly so it showcases your website in the best light on a mobile device.
Wix SEO for small businesses
If you’re operating a small business, time is arguably your biggest asset. While SEO is crucial to the online success of your business, you may find that your time is largely spent generating sales offline, offering after-sales service to existing customers, problem-solving, dealing with suppliers, looking after the company finances and much more.
If this sounds familiar, you might feel frustrated about not having the time to perfect your onsite SEO to ensure greater search engine rankings. After all, with so much business being generated online, why should your competitors grab all the glory?
If your working day is full enough, or if you just don’t relish the idea of taking on technical SEO tasks, why not outsource your Wix search engine optimisation to someone with a proven track record for helping sites reach the top of search engine results pages?