ImagesMagUK_February_2021

www.images-magazine.com FEBRUARY 2021 images 25 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT message in the address bar when you’re viewing a non-HTTPS website. The HTTPS protocol means that all information submitted through your website is encrypted to keep it secure. Switching to HTTPS is all but mandatory nowadays if you want users and search engines to trust your website. 2. Give your website a responsive design Mobile web traffic overtook desktop browsing years ago, but there are still plenty of sites that are difficult to navigate on smaller screens because they were designed with no regard for mobile users. If your website is among them, it’s high time you switched to a responsive website design that adapts to fit the screen on which it’s viewed. 3. Improve your ‘Core Web Vitals’ score If you’re serious about preparing your website for the May 2021 page experience update, you’ll want to keep an eye on the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console. This report will highlight pages on your website that score poorly on loading speed, interactivity (how long users have to wait before inputting information on your page) and visual stability (how much your page jumps around while loading). I n May 2021, Google will be rolling out a new ‘page experience’ update in order to help its users find websites that offer an enjoyable browsing experience. ‘Page experience’ is Google’s name for a diverse set of quality signals that includes: ■ How quickly your page loads ■ How much your page jumps around while loading ■ Whether your page is mobile-friendly ■ Whether you use intrusive interstitials (eg pop-up ads) ■ Whether your website is safe to browse ■ Whether your page is under HTTPS From May onwards, these ranking factors will carry greater weight in Google’s ranking calculations. If testing goes well, Google may also begin displaying some sort of page experience score in its search results to help users find the best, fastest- loading pages. This means that it will be more crucial than ever to ensure that your website is a pleasure to browse on any device. Now, as with every Google announcement, the forthcoming page experience update has generated a lot of chatter in the SEO world. In all honesty though, there’s nothing particularly radical here – Google’s search algorithm already tends to prefer user- friendly websites that load quickly, look good on mobile devices, and use HTTPS to encrypt sensitive information. That being said, there’s always room for improvement. If you haven’t already done these three things, be sure to do them before May in order to help cushion your Google rankings against the impact of the page experience update. 1. Switch fromHTTP to HTTPS Most web browsers – including Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox – already display a ‘Not secure’ Page experience: Howto prepare yourwebsite for Google’s forthcoming update Joel Dear is from ETrader, one of the industry’s leading suppliers of websites to garment decorators across the UK. www.etraderwebsites.co.uk T ikTok isn’t just for teenagers dancing in the bedroom mirror. My accountant is on there, my dentist does videos; soon, your solicitor will be using it too. If you are a professional who has information to put across, you can use it as a tool to promote your services. We have had a few viral videos topping well over a million views. In real-world terms that translates into a huge surge of website views as people try to find out about the business behind them. Although TikTok tends to be consumed for fun, you can still gain loads of useful tips and tricks from it about your favourite subjects. The algorithm is so strong you can simply add a few topics you enjoy and it builds an endless stream of videos around your preferences. TikTok offers its users an enormous library of music, soundbites and transitions that sync up to videos. If you are finding it difficult to think of novel ways to present your latest offering, TikTok can give you the framework. For example, I might be inspired by the way another user used a song to present a new piece of kit and do my own version. This video is then displayed on Instagram and Facebook at the same time, once I have those synced up too. You can now tag videos and pictures with products featured to give an informative but more subtle way to sell. TikTok is for everyone For example, the inks I use and the screens I am printing with are tagged to lead people onto a website shop. Our team finds making videos and material a five-minute daily job. It is even in our contracts to submit one photo and a short video every day! Think of the library of media you could build. These photos can then be used on your Google business listing, blog, catalogues or even – if you are really savvy – you can sell them on Shutterstock. Chessie Rosier-Parker is director and studio manager of Squeegee & Ink, a screen printing and embroidery studio that also provides pre-exposed screens and film to printers along with tutorial videos and resources. www.squeegeeandink.co.uk/ learn-to-screen-print