Hammerhead https://codehammerhead.com Vancouver's Strategic Digital Agency Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:32:19 +0000 en-CA hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 https://codehammerhead.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-hh-icon-32x32.png Hammerhead https://codehammerhead.com 32 32 Hammerhead Named Among the Top WordPress Development Companies of 2024 by Techreviewer.co https://codehammerhead.com/blog/hammerhead-top-wordpress-development-co/ Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:32:17 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5528 Read More

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Hammerhead, one of the top WordPress development companies leading web development agencies, is proud to announce its recognition as one of the Top WordPress Developers in 2024 by Techreviewer.co, a highly reputed IT market research and analysis company. Hammerhead’s outstanding services have also earned the firm a spot in the list of top 100 companies.

The listing serves as a testament to Hammerhead’s continuous dedication to offering high-quality WordPress development services. Hammerhead’s unique ability to tailor digital experiences, its innovative approach to problem-solving, and its relentless commitment to customer satisfaction have set them apart in the competitive field of WordPress development.

Hammerhead Named Among the Top WordPress Development Companies of 2023 by Techreviewer.co

Why is Hammerhead Listed Among the Top WordPress Development Companies of 2024?

This recognition by Techreviewer.co is a clear demonstration of Hammerhead’s industry leadership and commitment to the digital evolution of businesses of all sizes. This achievement underlines the company’s core strength in leveraging WordPress, one of the most widely used and flexible content management systems, to create robust, SEO-friendly, and high-performing websites.

In recent years, Hammerhead has grown rapidly to deliver a wide array of services including custom WordPress development, WooCommerce development, WordPress plugin development, and WordPress theme development. Their client-centric approach and relentless pursuit of innovation have consistently led to successful project deliveries and highly satisfied clients, thereby contributing to their place among the top 100 companies on Techreviewer.co.

The recognition from Techreviewer.co also highlights Hammerhead’s proficiency in other technology domains. Their expertise extends beyond WordPress to include custom software development, mobile app development, UX/UI design, and digital marketing services.

Hammerhead’s inclusion in Techreviewer.co’s list is a beacon of their commitment to excellence, technical prowess, and consistent delivery of high-quality, tailored solutions for clients across various industries. The company continues to demonstrate its drive to innovate, impress, and excel in the web development space.

About Hammerhead

Hammerhead is a leading digital agency and top WordPress development agency specializing in WordPress development, custom software solutions, and digital marketing services. Founded with the mission to help businesses unlock their digital potential, Hammerhead has successfully delivered countless projects across multiple industries, creating compelling digital experiences that drive success.

About Techreviewer.co

Techreviewer.co is a trusted IT market research and analysis company that conducts annual surveys to evaluate and rank the best in the tech industry. Their objective assessments and rankings are relied upon by businesses seeking reliable and efficient technology and development partners.

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Hammerhead is a Winner of Clutch’s 2023 WooCommerce Award! https://codehammerhead.com/blog/top-woocommerce-developer-in-vancouver/ Mon, 20 Nov 2023 19:45:37 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5695 Read More

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Hammerhead, one of the top WordPress development companies and website development agencies, is proud to announce its recognition as one of the Top Global WooCommerce developers of 2023 by Clutch, a highly reputed IT market research and analysis company. Hammerhead’s outstanding services have earned the firm a spot in the list of top companies.

The listing serves as a testament to Hammerhead’s continuous dedication to offering high-quality WordPress development services. Hammerhead’s unique ability to tailor digital experiences, its innovative approach to problem-solving, and its relentless commitment to customer satisfaction have set them apart in the competitive field of WooCommerce development.

Hammerhead Vancouver named a Top WooCommerce developer in 2023.

Why is Hammerhead Listed Among the Top WooCommerce Providers of 2023?

This recognition by Clutch is a clear demonstration of Hammerhead’s industry leadership and commitment to the digital evolution of businesses of all sizes. This achievement underlines the company’s core strength in leveraging WordPress, one of the most widely used and flexible content management systems, to create robust, SEO-friendly, and high-performing websites.

About Hammerhead

Hammerhead is a leading digital agency and top WordPress development agency specializing in WordPress development, custom software solutions, and digital marketing services. Founded with the mission to help businesses unlock their digital potential, Hammerhead has successfully delivered countless projects across multiple industries, creating compelling digital experiences that drive success.

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Hammerhead Named Among the Top Digital Service Providers of 2023 by Upcity https://codehammerhead.com/blog/hammerhead-among-top-digital-service-providers/ Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:12:37 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5686 Read More

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Hammerhead, one of the top WordPress development companies and website development agencies, is proud to announce its recognition as one of the Top Digital Service Providers in British Columbia 2023 by UpCity, a highly reputed IT market research and analysis company. Hammerhead’s outstanding services have earned the firm a spot in the list of top companies.

The listing serves as a testament to Hammerhead’s continuous dedication to offering high-quality WordPress development services. Hammerhead’s unique ability to tailor digital experiences, its innovative approach to problem-solving, and its relentless commitment to customer satisfaction have set them apart in the competitive field of WordPress development.

Hammerhead named one of the top digital service providers in BC

Why is Hammerhead Listed Among the Top Digital Service Providers of 2023?

This recognition by UpCity is a clear demonstration of Hammerhead’s industry leadership and commitment to the digital evolution of businesses of all sizes. This achievement underlines the company’s core strength in leveraging WordPress, one of the most widely used and flexible content management systems, to create robust, SEO-friendly, and high-performing websites.

About Hammerhead

Hammerhead is a leading digital agency and top WordPress development agency specializing in WordPress development, custom software solutions, and digital marketing services. Founded with the mission to help businesses unlock their digital potential, Hammerhead has successfully delivered countless projects across multiple industries, creating compelling digital experiences that drive success.

About UpCity

UpCity is a resource that helps connect businesses to service providers they can trust. With more than 50,000 listed providers—from marketing agencies to accounting firms to HR consultants, and many more—1.5 million businesses (and counting) have visited UpCity to identify the best partner for their needs.

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Update your Website Content and BOOST your 1st Page Results https://codehammerhead.com/blog/update-your-website-content/ Wed, 31 May 2023 18:06:14 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5424 Read More

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Writing content for a page or post takes a lot of time but it can provide your website with a nice boost in traffic. Left unattended you’ll watch your once epic article fail to drive the traffic it once did. The good news is that if you update your website content you will increase relevancy, providing you with better search rankings and increasing traffic to your website. Let’s update your content and BOOST your 1st-page search results!

Boost Search Results by Updating Your Website Content

Your content was good! Why is it no longer generating traffic? There are a few reasons why this might be happening. Either the new kid on the block has written more appealing content to search engines or your content is no longer answering users’ queries. Ultimately what we are trying to do is craft our content to match users’ search terms (keywords) and intent. You might even find your updated website content brings in more traffic than your old content ever did!

Steps to Update your Website Content

Review Page Analytics Information

Google Search Console and Google Analytics are your best friends when it comes to identifying outdated content. You’re looking for pages that are no longer getting found in searches and are therefore not helping you drive conversions.

GA4 showing us that we need to update this website content.
GA4 showing us that we need to update this website content.

In the above (Google Analytics 4) example, we can see that our Vimeo OTT portfolio piece is getting less traffic compared to last year and could use a revision! The backlink I added up above will probably help as well! 😉

Review & Update your Keywords

Run searches and do keyword research to figure out what terms users are now searching. Search relevancy is the term for matching your keywords to users’ searches. Could your keywords be more relevant to users’ searches?

Search Terms: search terms change, lingo evolves, and branding changes. You have to speak your target user group’s language. Let’s say for example you have a guitar blog and you wrote an article about your collection of Fender Stratocasters. Time is passed and that article no longer ranks. You do some research and determine that users are no longer searching for “Fender Stratocasters”, but they are now searching for “Strats”. This might be a lingo or branding change, but it’s something you need to be aware of! So you change your keywords to include “Strats” and notice a small boost in rankings.

Search Intent: like search terms, search intent evolves over time. The internet is constantly growing, new articles are created every minute. You’re once great “Fender Stratocaster” has been buried in the depths of content. Specifically more relevant content. You do some keyword research and learn that long-tail keywords provide something short-tail keywords do not. Intent. Search intent describes the purpose of an online search. Users’ search intent usually falls under one of these categories

  • Navigational: Users want to find a specific page and will search using a query like this “Fender Login” looking for this page.
  • Informational: Users want to learn more about something and will search for something like “History of the Fender Strat” trying to find this page.
  • Commercial: Users want to research before making a purchase decision and search something like “Dave Murray Strat price” hoping to find a page like this.
  • Transactional: Users wanting to make a purchase might search “Buy Ritchie Blackmore Strat” hoping to find a page like this.

Armed with this information you update your page title to “My Collection of 1960-1970 Vintage Strats” hoping to match the search intent of fellow collectors. For more information on search intent check out this SEMRush post!

Review and Update your Website Content

Is your content still accurate? Is your content relevant? Does it match the search intent indicated by your long-tail keywords? If you answered “no” to any of the above questions then it’s your duty to update that content! Check your content for spelling or grammatical errors. Are your sentences short? Is your content easy to read and understand? Remember, you are writing for your audience, not yourself. Ensure your content provides good direction and is easy to understand.

Broken links indicate to your users that your content may be out-of-date and unmaintained. This hurts SEO by affecting metrics like bounce rate and time on site. Ensure the page you are linking is still relevant to your content and up to date. If it is not, then you need to find another destination to link to. Remember, the better user experience you provide for you users, the better you will rank.

Review and Update Images

Do your images still provide accurate information? Are they relevant to your updated content? If your answer is yes to these questions ask yourself if your images make your post feel outdated. Design standards change, if you’re still using the design standards of the last decade you’re sending a signal to your audience that the content may also be updated. Ensure your images provide accurate information, are relevant to your updated content and match modern design standards.

Update your Meta Information and Alt Tags

Meta information and image alt tags provide descriptive information about your page, post or image content to search engines and tools that help with accessibility. Make sure these descriptions and tags are relevant to your blog updates!

Add Video Content

Search engines and users love video content! Adding video content to your pages and posts provides you with another opportunity to reach your audience through search. Video content also enhances the usability of your page. Some users would simply prefer to watch a video than read your content.

Add or Improve Schema

Using schema markup on your website provides additional information to help search engines understand what your content is about. Using schema provides you with more opportunities to be featured in search results (Rich snippets) and enables your website to be included in voice search results. Plugins like Yoast and Rank Math make schema entry much easier. Ensure you are using the correct schema to help your content be found by search engines!

Now that you have updated your page, image and video content ask yourself these questions Does my URL still make sense and are my keywords included in my URL. If the answer is no to either of these questions, you should update your URL or permalink. Make sure you redirect your old URL to your new URL.

Purge and Redirect Old Content to Relevant Pages

Sometimes content shouldn’t be updated. Perhaps the old content is no longer accurate and new content should be created to provide current information. When this happens it is important to create a redirect to direct users to relevant, current content. This process also helps Search Engines index the new content. If you forget to implement redirects, you can lose search engine rankings and end up with disappointed users.

Need Help Updating your Web Content?

Need help? We offer content writing services! Contact us today to chat about how we can help update your website content.

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The Importance of Conversion Tracking https://codehammerhead.com/blog/the-importance-of-conversion-tracking/ Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:49:00 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5463 Read More

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Your website is up and running, but that’s it, right? Not quite yet! You still have to set up conversion tracking! In this post, we talk about the importance of setting up website goals and how they contribute to you achieving your marketing & business goals!

Google Analytics Goal Tracking

The first thing you should configure is your Google Analytics 4 conversions setup. Setting this up lets you keep an eye on conversions and allows you to set a baseline for conversion rate optimization activities down the line. When you are ready to set up Google Ads you can import your Google Analytics conversions quickly to get conversions set up over there as well!

A Note About Setting Up Events and Conversion Goals

There are a few ways you can go about setting up conversions. In Google Analytics 4 or externally in Google Tag Manager. We recommend you set up conversions in Google Tag Manager. There are a few good reasons to do this. Most notably, conversions can quickly be set back up if you ever need to set up a new Analytics property.

Once you set your events up, be sure to mark them as conversions. This is an easy step to forget!

To enable conversion tracking be sure to mark the event as a conversion.
To enable conversion tracking, be sure to mark the event as a conversion.

Google Ads Conversion Tracking

Setting up your Google Ads conversion tracking helps you better allocate your ad spend to opportunities that will result in a conversion. From an administrative standpoint, you are able to see which campaigns, ad groups and ads result in a conversion. You can then allocate more budget to advertising that results in success and pause or remove advertising that does not result in a conversion. Smart advertising is the future, optimization processes require your administrator’s guidance to achieve great results. This starts with setting up conversions!

Conversion tracking for this funny kitty advertisement proved this type of creative resonated with the target audience.
Conversion tracking for this funny kitty advertisement proved this type of creative resonated with the target audience.

We launched the creative above with promotional creatives (30% off) and before & after content. The humorous ads provided more conversions time in and time out. Conversion tracking not only showed us what type of creative achieved the best rests, it helps us understand the client’s audience better. We cross referenced this conversion data, with Google Analytics and Google Review data to help us paint a clearer picture of our user groups.

Meta Ads/Facebook Conversion Pixel Tracking

Similar to Google Ads, Meta or Facebook ads are guided by conversion tracking. Be sure to set up your pixel to help administrators see which ads are converting and optimize processes to help you achieve better results.

WooCommerce Conversion Tracking

When it comes to eCommerce, WooCommerce conversions are the source of truth. These conversions are your sales. As such, these should be reviewed whenever you are setting business and sales goals. Sometimes advertisements play no role in a sale. Administrators should attempt to discover how these sales were achieved as well.

Shopify Conversion Tracking

Shopify is another popular eCommerce engine. Like WooCommerce, it is your source of truth for eCommerce conversions. Compare this data with conversion data from your advertising platform to see, what percentage of your sales are coming from your advertising activities.

Looker Studio (Data Studio) Conversion Tracking

Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) is a free tool that turns your data into informative, easy-to-read, easy-to-share, and fully customizable dashboards and reports. There are connectors for all Google products (Analytics, Ads, etc) that allow you to plug your data directly into the report. For other products (like Meta/Facebook adverting) there are paid partner connectors that allow you to plug this data into Looker Studio reports.

We Can Help You Set Up Conversion Tracking

Contact us today for assistance setting up your conversion tracking!

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The Ultimate Canadian Guide to WooCommerce https://codehammerhead.com/blog/the-ultimate-canadian-guide-to-woocommerce/ Tue, 21 Feb 2023 19:33:14 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5179 Read More

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A very special hello to our fellow Canucks! Welcome to the Ultimate Canadian Guide to WooCommerce! This post assumes the following:

  1. you have chosen WordPress WooCommerce for your eCommerce website;
  2. your (online) business is located in Canada or you’re selling to Canadians.

In this post, we’re going to help you tackle any and all of the questions you have about running a WooCommerce store in Canada. If your question is not in this post, fear not! We’re happy to help you! Send us an email at in**@co************.com and we will do our best to answer your question.

Why Do Canadians Use WooCommerce?

For Users, WordPress & WooCommerce has a low degree of difficulty relative to other CMS and eCommerce tools. A massive open-source community creates a never-ending supply of high-quality plugins. A developer-friendly back-end and rich documentation enable quality agencies like Hammerhead even further!

WooCommerce includes many helpful features, like order tracking, delivery status updates, inventory management, customer engagement and more. For all these reasons, it makes perfect sense why Canadians choose WooCommerce for their eCommerce needs!

FAQs About Setting Up WooCommerce in Canada

What is WooCommerce and How is it Used in Canada?

How to set up WooCommerce in Canada?

What Can I Sell with WooCommerce?

How Do I Set Up WooCommerce for the Canadian Dollar (CAD)?

Is It Possible to Configure WooCommerce to Display Prices in Canadian Dollars?

Is There a Way to Set Up Automatic Currency Conversion for Canadian Customers on my WooCommerce Store?

Can I Use WooCommerce to Handle Multiple Currency including Canadian Currency Transactions?

Can I Use WooCommerce to Handle Canadian Dollar Subscriptions and Recurring Payments?

How Do I Set Up Canadian Shipping Rates and Zones in my WooCommerce Store?

Can I Use the Canada Post Shipping Method with WooCommerce?

Can I Add Shipment Tracking for Canada Post on my WooCommerce Website?

What are my WooCommerce Canada shipping options?

Can I use WooCommerce to Handle Canadian Postal Codes for Shipping and Billing?

Can I Set Up Canadian-Specific Customer Groups and Pricing in my WooCommerce Store?

Can I Restrict Which Products I Sell to Canadian Customers?

What Payment Gateways are Available to WooCommerce in Canada?

Can I use WooCommerce to Handle Canadian-Specific Promotions and Discounts?

How Do I Set Up Canadian Taxes for WooCommerce?

Are There Any Canadian-Based WooCommerce Experts or Developers that can Help Me with my Store?

Can you Recommend a Canadian WooCommerce Hosting Provider?

Can I Set Up Multi-Language Support for my Canadian WooCommerce Store?

What are some recommended WooCommerce Themes for a Canadian eCommerce store?

Can You Recommend any Canadian Plugins that Enhance the Functionality of My WooCommerce Store?

Can I Run In-Store Payments Through my Canadian WooCommerce Store?

Can I Optimize my Canadian WooCommerce Store for Better SEO and Search Visibility?

What Inventory Management Tools are Available for my Canadian WooCommerce Store?”

WooCommerce, Canada and Hammerhead Web Design

Your Canadian Guide to WooCommerce

At Hammerhead, we consider ourselves an extension of our client’s team. We get to know you, your business & marketing goals, your competitors and your customers. We help you see around corners and manage growth. We are your guide to WooCommerce in Canada. Let’s chat about your Canadian WooCommerce website today!

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How to Increase Recurring Income with WooCommerce Subscriptions https://codehammerhead.com/blog/recurring-income-with-woocommerce/ Thu, 27 Oct 2022 18:44:04 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5031 Read More

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Subscription-based businesses have seen a surge in popularity in recent years, and for good reason. Not only do they provide a steady stream of income for business owners, but they also offer convenience and simplicity for customers. If you are curious about the best ways to create a recurring income with WooCommerce this article is for you.

For us, it has always been integral to our agency’s culture to help our clients increase the monthly revenue of their online stores. More often than not this is achieved through digital marketing programs, and conversion rate optimization paired with traditional products and services. As part of our digital strategy services, we have also helped our clients re-envision their offerings as subscription services. This type of product restructuring has helped our clients stabilize cash flow and achieve their growth targets. In this article, we explore our approaches to subscriptions using WooCommerce.

Quick FAQs About WooCommerce Subscriptions

Can you do Subscriptions on WooCommerce?

Can I Offer a Free Trial with WooCommerce Subscriptions?

How do I Stop Users from Taking Advantage of Free Trials?

Can I Automate Portions of WooCommerce Subscription?

What is the Difference Between WooCommerce Subscriptions and Membership?

Can I Create a Subscription Crate with WooCommerce Subscriptions

How Can I Turn my Products into Subscriptions with WooCommerce?

Recurring Income with WooCommerce Subscriptions in Practice.

Our client Keystone Financial uses the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin. This plugin allows their customers to subscribe to their services and pay on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.

WooCommerce Subscriptions on Keystone Financial’s Keystocks Website

On the Keystocks website, we created a heavily customized subscription landing page to simplify a complex purchase decision into a few simple steps. In the backend subscriptions are automatically created, allowing the Keystone team to focus on their services, rather than website administration. We have added a quick video of the functionality below, but it’s worth your time to explore the website as well! This build is jammed packed with special features you don’t see anywhere else. Check out the full Keystocks Custom WooCommerce case study here!

The Become a Client subscription page on Keystocks.com

We also used subscription products on the Pacific Rim College Online project. We won’t dive too deep into this one, because the use of subscriptions is subtle, but we created subscription products for users that opt for a payment plan on certificate programs. This was an easy workaround to make payments a little easier for students.

Capture Residual Revenue with Recurring Payments

If you’re looking to start your own subscription-based business, WooCommerce is a great platform to use. Interested in taking eCommerce to the next level? Let’s chat today! We create digital strategies to help our clients improve recurring revenue and achieve their sales targets!

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The Manifest Names Hammerhead as a Top eCommerce Development Firm in Vancouver https://codehammerhead.com/blog/top-ecommerce-development-in-vancouver/ Wed, 26 Oct 2022 22:05:00 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5085 Read More

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When trustworthy agencies are few and far between, Hammerhead is your digital agency. We are passionate about our client’s success. We work with clients who believe in what they do because success is inevitable when you combine expertise and passion with purpose.

For this reason, we are proud to share a milestone we achieved this year. The Manifest has recognized Hammerhead as one of the top eCommerce development companies in Vancouver’s eCommerce web development industry. A B2B guide, The Manifest is a business news and how-to website that compiles and analyzes practical business wisdom for innovators, entrepreneurs, and small and mid-market businesses

The Manifest awards recognizes Hammerhead as one of the Top Ecommerce Development Agencies in Vancouver

Are you curious about how we got here? Let’s take a look at where it all started.

In 2016, Evan Holmgren, Rory Mullin, and Alonso Ysa established Hammerhead to help businesses grow their digital presence by utilizing real data and sound research to ensure our work meets your needs. Starting as a white-label agency, Hammerhead worked as the web developer for digital agencies in Vancouver. 

In 2017, we began the client-facing era of our business. In this year We guided Bluzelle from an obscure tech company to a multi-million-dollar tech giant. Our marketing, fundraising, whitelisting and ICO websites helped raise $21 million through the blockchain in just under a year. 

In the same year we worked with the University of British Columbia – one of British Columbia’s most recognized brands. The client needed their website migrated from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8 and required we adhere to strict look & feel guidelines. The university hired us to perform data migration, create custom templates, customize contributed modules and to launch the website to their onsite servers. .

“The transition brings our website to standard with other university websites, and provides a much better interface compared to the previous design and look and feel.”

Theresa Liao, Communications Coordinator, University of BC

Our Award as one of the Top Ecommerce Development Agencies in Vancouver.

In 2022, The Manifest recognizes Vancouver’s Top eCommerce Development Agencies, naming Hammerhead among the leaders. The Most Reviewed Company Award on The Manifest features the top 15 companies on each listing page that have received the most number of new reviews in the past 12 months.

With our extensive experience and in-depth industry knowledge, you can always count on us to deliver top-quality eCommerce development projects.

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What is Google Search Console and What Does it Do? https://codehammerhead.com/blog/what-is-google-search-console/ Sat, 13 Aug 2022 20:53:00 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=5538 Read More

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What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps site owners to monitor and improve the visibility of their websites on Google search engine result pages. Search console tools and reports help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results.

What is Google Search Console and What Does it Do? This is Google Search Console!

What Does Google Search Console Do?

Most simply, it provides advice. Google wants to provide their users with the best search results possible. Google Search Console lets you know if your website’s content is indexed and provides a good user experience.

Google Console also lets you know why your content is not indexed or why it does not provide a good user experience. When the number one search engine in the world, provides you with advice. It’s worth listening to. At least if you want your website to be shared, for free, on their platform.

How Do I Set Up My Google Search Console Account?

This will be slightly different depending on your website, however, the first step is always the same: go to the Google Search Console page and sign up for an account.

The sign-up process puts you on rails to Google My Business and Google Search Console account creation. Once you have finished your account setup, it’s time to attach the account to your website. Adding the link to your website depends on many variables like which content management system you have used to build your website. For the big ones, like WordPress, there is typically a plugin solution like Google Site Kit to help you link your website to your account. Alternatively, just ask your web developer to get this set up for you!

How Do I Connect Google Search Console to my Website?

Once you get Search Console set up you’ll have to submit your sitemap for indexing. If you are using WordPress, you can use plugins like Rank Math or Yoast to create a sitemap.

Once your website has a sitemap, you can visit the Sitemaps page in Google Search Console to submit your sitemap for indexing. Alternatively, just ask your web developer to get this set up for you!

Submitting Sitemaps in Google Search Console.

How Do I Use Google Search Console to Improve My Website?

There are quite a few different ways Google Search Console helps you Improve your website.

  • Indexing: errors that prevent your website from being displayed on search
  • Experience: design, accessibility and performance issues that provide a poor user experience
  • Enhancements: enhancements tell you which website features have been detected on your website. These elements typically require the use of schema to be detected.
  • Security & Manual Actions: Security is pretty straightforward, but manual action needs a bit of explaining. Google issues a manual action against a site when a human reviewer at Google has determined that pages on the site are not compliant with Google’s webmaster quality guidelines. This action is a typical response when a website attempts to game or manipulate search results. Be good, follow guidelines, and no black hat stuff – Google doesn’t like it.
How Do I Use Google Search Console to Improve My Website?

How Do I Fix Google Search Console Errors?

This is not always so straightforward. If a page has issues, inspect the URL with the search bar at the top of the page in Search Console. Clicking on the errors will show you how the page appears and provide you with some idea of what needs to change. If you are hitting a wall, ask your developer for help. That’s what we’re here for! 🙂

Fixing Google Search Console Errors.

For certain errors, like structure data (schema) issues, Google Search Console will highlight invalid code. In the case of this Parsing error: Missing ‘}’ or object member name error, we are told exactly what is missing and how to remedy the error.

Parsing error: Missing '}' or object member name in Google Search Console.

Google Search Console has Logged an Error Incorrectly

Hey! It happens. Click “Validate Fix” and wait for the page to be indexed once again.

What Happens If An Error Cannot Be Fixed?

You will get errors for things like “Page with redirect”, but what does that really mean? Let’s say you had outdated content, which you deleted and redirected to an updated page. Search Console will report this redirect as an error, even though it is not. Don’t worry so much about these. Toggle the setting from All Known Pages to All Submitted Pages. These are the ones you need to be concerned about fixing.

Hammerhead What is Google Search Console and What Does it Do?

For certain errors, you might also consider requesting a Removal. Click on Removals in Google Search Console to access this tool.

Remove cached URL in Google Search Console

Be sure to No-Index pages that you don’t want to appear in search results or delete & redirect pages that you no longer wish to serve on the website.

Last Piece of Advice

Ask for help! Errors are a part of growth. The internet is never stationary. It can be tough to keep up with the pace of this change. A good developer goes a long way! Let’s have a chat if you need a hand with search indexing or resolving Search Console errors!

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The Top 5 Reasons Why UI UX is Important https://codehammerhead.com/blog/the-top-5-reasons-why-ui-ux-is-important/ Fri, 12 Aug 2022 21:38:22 +0000 https://codehammerhead.com/?p=4562 Read More

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We all know what we like. We see something and we just get a good feeling about it. As it turns out that feeling has a lot to do with our online purchase decisions. Happy users are more likely to visit your website, purchase your products and subscribe to your services. In this article we let the good times roll and dive deep into why UI UX is Important for your website.

How do we Know UI UX is Important?

As data-driven UI UX designers, we can create websites that make users happy. When an unhappy user abandons a checkout process you’re leaving money on the table. When an unhappy user abandons your website and never returns you are paying to send your customers to your competitor.

Mere seconds. That’s how quickly a user decides they don’t want to do business with you. That’s also the amount of time you have to prove your value to potential customers. In mere seconds good UI & UX puts your users on the path to conversion and lifetime value. 

What is the Difference between UI & UX?

UI & UX are often mentioned in the same breath because they work together to enhance your website. Let’s quickly define each term and explore what elements of design fall in each category. 

User Interface (UI) design is the visual elements, interactions, and animations that make up the website or web app. Visual elements consist of images, fonts, buttons, forms and colour palettes. Users interact with these elements in order to achieve their goals or purpose for visiting the website. Animations are used to enhance the user interface, prompt the user to take a desirable action or improve the interface design.

“UI is the saddle, the stirrups, & the reins. UX is the feeling you get being able to ride the horse.”

Dain Miller, Web Developer

What Falls Under UI Design? 

  • Accessibility
  • Usability
  • Website Performance
  • User Stories & User Journeys
  • Information Architecture
  • Content Hierarchy

What Falls Under UX Design? 

  • Accessibility
  • Usability
  • Website Performance
  • User Stories & User Journeys
  • Information Architecture
  • Content Hierarchy

User Experience (UX) is a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a website or web application. Great user experience can be defined as a simple, pleasurable interaction that empowers users to accomplish their online tasks, goals or purpose.

“UX is improving how useful, easy, pleasant, marketable, or addictive it is to use a product”

Steve Krug, Author of Don’t Make Me Think

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Run a UI UX Audit

There are many reasons why running an audit for UI UX is important. Here are our top 5 reasons why you should consider looking into it sooner rather than later.

1. Personalization is the Future of User Experience.

Providing users with a personalized experience is becoming the standard at the enterprise level. Today, customers don’t just exchange money for goods and services. They share their personal information and trust companies with their privacy in exchange for relevant brand experiences.

The automotive industry is actively adopting increased personalization to improve user experiences. We see this with personalized websites, web apps and integration with vehicles. We now live in a world where your car lets you know when it’s time for routine maintenance, which can be scheduled through an app in your car, on your smartphone or through a web browser. First-party data is the key to building these experiences on your website. Further, customer information can be used to create Customer Match types on Google Ads. Kia recently reported that using first-party data yielded a 4X better conversion rate, a 268% increase in click-through rate, and 55% new-user engagement compared with previous benchmarks.

Enterprise businesses have a tendency to create a new normal. Mid-market businesses should start incorporating personalization features to meet and exceed the expectations of their users in the coming year.

2. Good UI Builds Trust, Even if it’s Deceptive.

Designers have been utilizing UI tricks for years to shuffle users through the online process to improve conversion rates. Loading screens reassure users that the website is processing a request. Progress bars let users know how far they are through check out. Counts like “you are number 2 in line” in support chats provide users with a perceived wait time. Without these features, users are more likely to abandon the process. These examples provide transparency and provide an added level of insight for users. Simply, this is design building trust.

Since this is rather boring, I wanted to introduce you to a new term “Beneficial Deception”.  Eytan Adar introduced the world to Benevolent Deception in a 2013 paper citing a wide range of design decisions that trick users – but leave them better off. Examples of Benevolent Deception include the artificial static Skype plays during quiet moments in conversation to let users know the call has not dropped or the default recommendations displayed by Netflix when there is not enough bandwidth to display personalized recommendations. TurboTax employed a similarly deceptive technique to build credibility with its users as reported by The Atlantic. Rather than implementing a simple progress bar, TurboTax implemented this embellishment: 

TurboTax implementing benevolent deception proving yet again why considerate UI/UX is Important to users.
TurboTax Loading Screen

While the program is not actually running any checks, just submitting the form, the design inspires confidence in users and provides a distraction from possible performance issues. Sneaky, very sneaky. 

3. Fix UX Issues Now or Lose Customers Forever.

A now-famous white paper projected a trillion-dollar eCommerce loss due to bad UX in 2020. The study identifies that eCommerce businesses leave 35% of sales on the table due to bad user experience. Businesses tend to focus on statistics like cart abandonment to improve conversion rate, while largely ignoring the impact of the entire interaction with the website. We suggest looking at systems holistically. The truth is many of your potential customers are not even reaching the checkout process. According to Justin Mifsud, founder of Usability Geek “88% of Consumers are Less Likely to Return to a Site with Bad UX“. That’s a massive amount of missed opportunity that proves why UI UX is important to you.

“88% of Consumers are Less Likely to Return to a Site with Bad UX”

Justin Mifsud, founder, Usability Geek

4. Performance Matters, Milliseconds Make Millions.

Users are becoming increasingly impatient. A blank screen or loading icon feels like a back button to most website visitors. You can’t afford to keep them waiting. Based on a 0.1s natural mobile site speed improvement, Deloitte observed the following key improvements to conversions and customer engagement: 

  • Mobile site speed improvements had a direct correlation to improved funnel progression.
  • A positive change in the number of page views, conversion rates and average order value across all verticals.
  • Retail conversions increased by 8.4% and average order value increased by 9.2%.
  • Travel conversions increased by 10.1% and average order value increased by 1.9%.
  • Luxury brand page views per session increased by 8.6%.
  • Lead generation information pages bounce rate improved by 8.3%

For growing businesses these stats might translate to expanding a product line, opening a new physical location or an annual bonus for the whole team! 

More than half of all users now complete transactions from their smartphones. Always consider performance from a mobile perspective first. Mobile devices typically have lower performance capabilities and operate on slower networks than other devices. If your performance metrics are strong on mobile, chances are good they are going to be good across the board. The competitive gap will widen between brands that provide great mobile experiences and those that don’t. 

5. You can be Fined for Poor Usability

Website accessibility relates to the ease of use of online services for all users, regardless of how they consume the information or interact with the web page. UI UX is important to different users for different reasons. For example, many users navigate websites with a screen, visually locate relevant information and click on links using a mouse. However, some users navigate a website with a screen reader, locate relevant information with auditory tools and use a specialized apparatus for clicking. Accessibility ensures that your website is easy for everyone to use.

There are many laws around website accessibility. You may have heard of terms like ADA Compliance or AODA Compliance, What you might not know is that in Canada you can be fined the following amounts for non-compliance to AODA:

  • Corporations can be fined up to $100,000 per day.
  • Individuals and unincorporated organizations can be fined up to $50,000 per day.
  • Directors and officers of a corporation or organization can be fined up to $50,000 per day.

In the USA, Federal law allows fines of up to $75,000 for the first violation and $150,000 for additional ADA violations. 

We offer services like AODA Compliant Website Development and WCAG, AODA & ADA Compliance Monitoring to ensure your website remains compliant with evolving regulations. 

UI UX is Important to All of Us!

Ready to get started? Let’s Start your UI UX Audit Today! The importance of UI UX design stretches into areas we often do not consider. It is important to not only think about design from our own perspectives, but also from others’ points of view. This is difficult for any of us to do. Luckily, there are data-gathering tools that help businesses capture insights. Pair with a strong development team and you are poised for success!

Not quite ready to make a change? Need more examples of why UI UX is important? Learn more about our Website Audits, UI & UX Design and Conversion Rate Optimization Services.


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