You don’t need to be a master of website editing to carry out simple steps that keep your website up to date and running smoothly.
If you are in charge of editing your firm’s website, these handy top tips will help you to ensure you are adding pictures in the most effective way, keeping your website safe and secure and implementing tracking to see how your site is performing.
So, how can you get the best out of your website editing?
1.Install and use Google Analytics
Want to get a better idea of how well your website is performing and how people are using it? Google Analytics is a must-have tool for tracking and recording all sorts of digital marketing data.
If you’re not sure how to access or use your website’s Google Analytics tool, simply send us a quick email at sales@conscious.co.uk and we can help you get stuck into all that useful information.
Google Analytics 4 can measure many different aspects, such as how many visitors your website is getting, what pages are most popular, how long visitors stay, and much more.
2.Use meta data, image titles and alt text
Meta data and alt text all work hard behind the scenes and can help your website’s ranking in search engine results, such as Google.
Meta data can be edited in the Conscious text editor and in WordPress’ Yoast SEO plugin, to name a couple. Meta data is visible on search engines and when you share a link to your website on social media. Alt text also gets key information across – for example, it tells visitors what an image is displaying if they cannot see it if they are using a screen-reader. You can add an image title and alt text when uploading an image to your site through the editor.
Both meta data and alt text are also used by search engines to identify what information is on your website and its individual pages. All meta data, image titles and alt-text should be straightforward, short and have enough information to let readers and search engine robots alike understand what your content is about.
3.Limit plugins and external widgets
Whilst it may be tempting to have lots of flashy elements on a page, such as pop-ups, chat windows, advertisements, and external service widgets; this can be distracting, overwhelming or even off-putting for the regular website visitor. Having too many plugins can even slow down your website, and in some cases, risk its security.
We recommend only installing plugins and adding widgets that are essential and compliment the main purpose of your content. Adding lots of extras that are not necessary for a good visitor experience can result in codes that can build up, slowing site loading speeds.
Fast site speed is key! Having a speedy website with quick loading pages is beneficial not only for your visitors but also for search engines.
4.Compress your images
Another important part of speedy loading is to resize and compress your images. Images that are used online are typically much smaller, both in dimensions and in file size, than their original offline counterparts, such as a professional photograph or graphic design file.
So, what image type is best to use? Ultimately this depends on the type of image and how it is going to be used, but typically JPG image types are already web optimised. Other common image types used online are PNG and EPS files - these are typically used for graphics or logos.
What about file size? Well, we recommend that images that are uploaded to your website are no larger than 100KB. Most websites have a size limit that will prevent large images from being uploaded at all, but if you are struggling to get an image underneath that limit, you might want to look at reducing the actual dimensions – the width and height – of the image itself.
There are also plenty of free tools online that can help you resize and compress images. We recommend Pixlr and Tinypng as good resources to use.
5.Use Open Graph (OG) images
An Open Graph image is an image that is pulled through when a website link is shared. If a page doesn’t have an Open Graph image, it will display an unattractive grey or blank box when shared.
Having an Open Graph/OG Image is vital for making your posts on social media that link to your website attractive to readers and stand out amongst a sea of content. Even something as simple as a stock image or your firm’s logo can help your website link differentiate itself from the rest of a user’s social media feed.
In WordPress, you can set an OG image using the “Featured Image” tool, and in the Conscious platform, you can do this using the “Photos” module in the text editor.
Don’t forget to add a title and alt text for those images as mentioned in tip 2!
6.Stay safe and secure
Security should always be your number one priority when managing a website. Here are some actions you can take that can help keep your site safe, and keep horrid hackers out:
Have an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate
Also known as a HTTPS certificate, SSL certificates encrypt data that passes through your website. This includes things like contact and payment details. Users also are warned against using non-secure sites (URLs that are only HTTP and not HTTPS), and not having an SSL certificate can also negatively impact your search engine ranking.
We recommend all of our clients obtain an SSL certificate for their websites, but if you haven’t got one installed, get in touch and we can discuss your options at sales@conscious.co.uk
Use strong passwords and monitor who has administrator access to your site
We hear it all the time in regards to online security – and when it comes to website editing, it’s no different here,– make sure your passwords are secure! The recommendations for a secure password are:
- Eight characters minimum
- Has uppercase and lowercase letters
- Has numbers, letters and special characters
It’s also important that you know who has editor and administrator access on your website, as well as your social media profiles. Outdated logins can complicate security matters at least and be exploited by malicious users at worst. If someone who has had access to your website editor no longer works with you, you should remove their user login or their security permissions to prevent any misuse. If you don’t know how to do this, just ask us at sales@conscious.co.uk and we will remove the user for you, free of charge if you are a client.
Try this game of password bingo to see how your current passwords fare.
Keep your site content backed up
We back up our website servers daily. But as well as us keeping things nice and up to date behind the scenes, it might benefit you to keep copies of any content that might be removed or deleted yourself – whether intentionally or accidentally. It’s always best to not put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak! Whether it’s Microsoft Word documents of any wording used on your site or original copies of your staff members’ professional photographs, it’s always good to keep an up-to-date archive of key content.
So, our final list of tips…
- Install and use Google Analytics
- Use meta data, image titles and alt text
- Limit plugins and external widgets
- Compress your images
- Use Open Graph (OG) images
- Stay safe and secure
Ready to edit your website?
Of course, if you are ever unsure about how to put these tips to good use or are looking to take your editing skills to the next level, you can always book in an editing training session with us! Email sales@conscious.co.uk or call 0117 325 0210 to ask any questions and get yourself trained up!