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How Technology Is Transforming Retail

November 29, 2021 by David Henderson

Experts are predicting that retailers who boldly invest in cutting-edge technology are the ones who will lead in the future. The rise of web-connected devices has completely reconfigured the retail landscape, and those who do not react will be left behind. Because of this, more companies than ever before are reaching out to Unwired Web Solutions for eCommerce solutions and search engine optimization services.

The Rise of Technology

Chances are, in the past 18 months, you’ve probably bought something online, paid for something with your smartphone, or used a retail app. Each of these examples is easy to see how crucial technology is becoming in the retail and consumer sector. It had previously been advised that consumer companies and retailers need to evolve into technology companies, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought technology front and center, faster than anyone could imagine. For retailers that have had no choice but to close their stores during the pandemic-related lockdowns, eCommerce and online customer service have been their lifelines.

To say that technology is changing the retail sector would be an understatement. It has completely revolutionized the way we shop, forcing the industry to rethink its business model. People have found an increased convenience, time saver, and equality experience through shopping online.

M-Commerce

The rise of technology has seen a blurring of the boundaries between retail and supplier. Brands once relied on physical stores to get their products to consumers, but now many can sell effectively through their digital channels. Some of the most popular digital media that people use for online shopping are on their mobile devices. With the release of dedicated apps by retailers, consumers don’t even need to go to a website to order anymore. Now known as M-commerce, customers can use an app on their mobile device, find what they are looking for, and purchase.

Automation

Automation is another way technology is changing the retail sector. Automated assistance can create a customer experience that bridges the gap between customer service and customer questions. Many are simply pop-up chat boxes that appear to have a live person on the other end but in reality, only contain automated messages.

Omnichannel

Omnichannel retailers can offer a unified experience through their social media channels, their website, mobile apps, and physical stores. Each channel can present its own sales opportunities and options for customers to talk to real-life customer service representatives in various ways. By promoting their brand across various platforms in a unified way, consumers can easily recognize and purchase products.

What Will the Future Look Like?

Whether retailers like it or not, digital transformation in the retail sector is happening. However, only the most forward-thinking ones will adapt successfully. There are many ways that retailers can change their marketing strategies to fit more into the technology their customers want. For example, mobile apps can help grow your brand and engage with your customers. Customer portal software is also a great way to enhance your relationship with your customers. By simply bringing the experience of a brick-and-mortar store into your website, social media outlets, or app, your customers can easily see your products, get information, and most importantly, place an order easily.

At Unwired Web Solutions, we have helped many businesses adapt to this rapidly changing technology. Contact our team of experts today to help transform your retail location with eCommerce solutions and search engine optimization services.

How To Assess Your Website With Google Lighthouse

October 11, 2021 by David Henderson

Google Lighthouse is an open-source automated tool that measures the quality of web pages. It can audit performance, search engine optimization, and accessibility, helping you get an accurate reading of your website design. With Google’s Lighthouse, you can essentially see your website through Google’s eyes which could be crucial to the success of your online business.

Keeping up with Algorithm Updates

Trying to keep up with the numerous algorithm updates from Google can be tough. Many people are unaware that their website has an unfavourable design or content flaws that may be costing them when it comes to ranking. But Google does offer a host of free tools designed to help improve websites, and one such tool is Google Lighthouse.

How Does Lighthouse Work?

Google Lighthouse provides powerful insights that can help improve your website. With Google recently increasing its emphasis on-page experience, it is more important than ever to ensure your website makes the grade. By generating a Lighthouse report, you can access any web page’s experience and get valuable tips to help improve its performance.

Since Lighthouse is a Google application, it is the perfect way to see how Google may see your website. It can offer valuable, detailed information which can help you improve performance.

With a clear grading system, Lighthouse allows you to audit pages and find areas for improvement. You can get in-depth insights and find places where you can quickly and easily improve your page so it meets more of Google’s standards.

Using Lighthouses metrics can give you an idea of how fast your page loads and how quickly the user can interact properly with it. Google has found that loading speeds make a big difference in how people interact with the website, which is why it considers it to be an important aspect of a website.

Easy to Use

Even though Google Lighthouse gives you a fairly technical analysis of your website, you do not need to be tech-savvy to run it. In fact, it simply takes two clicks of the mouse to get all the information you need. Lighthouse can be run through developer tools or a Chrome add-on.

Each Lighthouse report has five categories, including performance, best practices, accessibility, SEO, and progressive web app. As Google has recently confirmed the aspects such as load speed and mobile experience factor into its algorithm, these metrics may give your business the ability to see how it’s performing in these crucial areas.

Once you have the reports from Google’s Lighthouse and follow their helpful tips on improving performance, you’ve got exactly what you need to make technical improvements to your site and increase your ranking. Once you’ve implemented your changes, you can then check back with Lighthouse to determine if your score has been improved.

The Difference Between Page Speed Insights and Google Insights

Page speed insights is another common application that people use to get information about their website. There is one main difference between page speed insights and Google’s Lighthouse. Page speed insights only focus on page performance, whereas Google’s Lighthouse offers a complete picture of the user’s page experience by analyzing best practices, SEO, accessibility, and progressive web apps.

A Sneak Peek

Lighthouse can provide a sneak peek into how Google judges your web pages. With page experience becoming an increasingly important factor for Google, it needs to become equally important for website owners. If you would like more information about Google Lighthouse or are looking to upgrade your website design, contact Unwired Web Solutions today.

How To Retain Your SEO Ranking After A Website Redesign

October 5, 2021 by David Henderson

As the eCommerce market changes, it may be necessary to change your website to stay competitive in your industry. For most websites, it is best to overhaul your entire site every few years rather than make small changes here and there. However, there is often hesitation about opting for the redesign because it could cause problems with all the hard work you have done on your SEO. At Unwired Web Solutions, our experts offer search engine optimization services for websites that have been redesigned. Just because you have a new website doesn’t mean you should lose your placement within search rankings.

Maintain the Website URL Structure

When redesigning a website, all existing website URLs should be kept as is. This is especially true for pages that are ranking organically. Retaining this structure means that the web design team can upgrade the design and content of the page, but the website address will stay the same.

If you have spent time building up links and rankings for the page, changing the URL could run the risk of losing the SEO value of that page. To avoid losing any SEO ranking, audit your existing sitemap before starting a redesign. This can avoid any problems when linking new pages together, making adjustments to the navigation, or changing page names.

Be Careful with 301 Redirects

Many people find that at some point in the redesign process of their website, they will need to delete a page or change its URL address. If this is done, a 301 redirect must be set up correctly. If these redirects are not in place, visitors and search engines will receive a 404 error, stating that the page cannot be found. This will not only deter potential customers but can also negatively impact your SEO rankings.

Improve Your Web Content

A site redesign is a perfect opportunity to improve your website content. Most businesses don’t update their website content outside of a web project, so this is a perfect time to edit descriptions of your products and services while considering specific cues for the search engines, such as relevant headings and keywords. This is also the perfect opportunity to revisit blog posts that are not performing well and update the content.

However, if you have pages that rank very well for a specific keyword, avoid drastically changing or deleting many critical headlines. The H1 and H2 tags on a web page are vital for SEO.

Closely Monitor Site

It is crucial to monitor a website for the first couple of months after the redesign. Even with the best quality control process, some website issues are very difficult to detect before launch.

Using Google’s search console can help to detect indexing errors, mobile functionality errors automatically, and crawl errors for your website. With Google being the most popular search engine globally, fixing errors related to their indexing is paramount.

After your new website has launched, run several speed tests and watch for slow load times, especially on the home page. With Google’s latest rollout, this is one function of a website that plays a significant role in SEO rankings.

A Long-Term Strategy

SEO is a long-term marketing strategy that is constantly changing. Search engines are consistently running updates and finding ways to improve indexing and their understanding of web content. When doing a redesign, the best way to keep your site ranking is to draw on the SEO progress you have already have in place.

Our experts at Unwired Web Solutions are happy to help with any search engine optimization services when doing a redesign. Don’t lose out on all the hard work you have already put into a website. Contact our team today to learn how we can keep your site on the top rankings.

How Backlinks Affect SEO

August 6, 2021 by David Henderson

For those trying to build a website and get traction in SEO, backlinks may be an important part of your strategy. This may be why you have been doing link-building outreach, guest blogging, or producing data-driven content, hoping that other sources will cite. After all, getting more backlinks has been an SEO tactic since the early days. But are they still necessary?

SEO services have long provided backlink strategies for companies looking to gain higher site rankings. So, surely with the number of backlinks that websites have racked up over the years, they must have impacted the SEO, right? Google says, not necessarily. According to John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, the total number of backlinks on a website doesn’t matter at all. In fact, it isn’t even something that a search algorithm looks at.

Quality Vs. Quantity

In the link-building world, quantity is now out, and quality is where you should be putting your focus. Just one good link from a high-authority website can be more impactful than thousands of low-quality links. Google really only looks at how relevant each link is to the website that it is pointing to. Mueller suggests that even a page has only one high-quality link from a major news site, that signal would be enough for Google to categorize it as a quality page.

High-quality backlinks have always been the ultimate SEO trump card, so this should not come as a surprise to some people. It seems that many business owners get carried away in practices that only focused on getting more links. SEO experts agree that time and effort should be put into producing content that people will want to link to. Although it is not easy, it will prove to be much more valuable to Google and its user experience-focused future. Google’s page experience update is currently being rolled out, and user experience should now be your top priority as a business owner.

Internal Links

Internal links are also important for the SEO of your website. Unlike backlinks which go from an external website to your site, an internal link points to content within the same domain which can help the user navigate a website. These internal links can help Google index the website’s structure. They help to organize content and will tell search engine “crawlers” to discover and archive more relevant pages. This will help benefit the site’s SEO.

While there is no right or wrong in how many internal links you should have on your site, it should make sense where you are directing your customers. For example, many “FAQ” pages have direct links to a “contact page.” It makes sense for the customer to be directed to one page after the other.

SEO Services

If you require SEO services, our experts at Unwired Web Solutions can help with backlinks or any other concerns you may have about your site. As Google rolls out its new user experience-focused requirements, it is vital to have your site ready for the new changes. This includes ensuring your backlink and internal links are creating a user-friendly experience for your customer. Contact us today to learn how we can make sure you stay high in Google rankings. Click here to learn more about our services.

How Multiple Product Pages Can Impact SEO

July 14, 2021 by David Henderson

For eCommerce websites, it can be confusing to know how many pages should be used for multiple products in the same family. Our search engine optimization Waterloo experts dive into the subject and explain when and when not to use multiple pages.

This is actually more of a common question than you may think. Many sellers have single products offered in different sizes or colours and are unsure of how to categorize them. Today we will discuss the issue using t-shirts as an example of a product.

Single Product

Experts advise using a single product page when selling a single product. For example, shoppers do not need individual pages such as material, size, and colour. If your shop only carries one t-shirt and no others, it will only have one product page but will have canonical links to point back to it. These links will be applied to all parameters and variants and let search engine optimization know the “preferred” web page version.

Sizes do not generally have enough uniqueness to justify having individual product pages. However, colours may be separated out by having their own page. This can help shoppers, for example, who are only looking for red t-shirts or black crew-neck shirts.

Even if you only carry one product, by separating them out on dedicated pages for specific colours, you can benefit your consumers, and better describe the printing options and styling options. All size options would have a canonical back to the original colour option.

Another point to consider is if this is the only version of the product you will carry. In other words, you will never carry, manufacture, upgrade or release new versions. It is only in this instance that you will want to try and optimize unique pages for variants. If you do go this route, you need to build a solid site structure and make sure your copy is 100% unique for each version. SEO can penalize sites that have the same content on multiple pages.

Exceptions to the Rule

There will always be exceptions to the rule. However, the general rule of thumb is if there is no need for individual variant pages and no actual benefit to the end-user, use a single page and apply canonical links to the variants.

Our search engine optimization Waterloo team at Unwired Web Solutions takes pride in helping businesses set up their eCommerce sites to increase conversations. Contact us today and learn more about how we can positively impact your website and ensure your products and variations are set up effectively and efficiently.