KHML Podcast | Does Your Website Platform Affect Your SEO
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm Pip from Seymour Digital Media. You're listening to Know How Marketing Lab podcast. This podcast brings together different experts in marketing from our Facebook group, Cyber Punk Geeks, marketing mixer. Each week we get on here and we talk [00:00:20] about something search marketing like Google.
Or Social media marketing. From Facebook to TikTok or website marketing. If you're a marketer or aspiring marketer, a business owner or entrepreneur, this podcast for you, we're gonna share the best seo, search, social and website strategies. We share tips and [00:00:40] hacks. Google ad strategies, what's going on in the current market.
Each week we discuss something exciting and awesome in marketing. Hello there. My name is Phelan. My name's Pip, and today we're gonna be talking about does your website platform affect your seo? Yes, it does. [00:01:00] It does, but I think in much more subtle ways than we initially think. Yeah, it's true, and I think you also have to take into account.
This is a deciding factor for you? Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely one that, there's lots of different options out there. There's platforms that come to mind. WordPress, just general Wix, [00:01:20] Squarespace, even ones like Shopify for eCommerce or BigCommerce. Those are. Other ones that are available as well. We believe you have a note for Weebly.
Is that Cuz? Cuz we're dealing with, Cause I was just dealing with a Weebly website and I just wanted to say that I, how much I hated their platform. We're Wix partners too, but we're also Squarespace partners and if WordPress [00:01:40] had partners, we'd be a partner. Yes. With everything said wordpress.com, like not a big fan of them.
Oh. I like some of their blog posts, I do. So some of their stuff is good, but using their platform, it leaves a little bit to be desired for me. Oh, okay. See Phelan you're talking about like the wordpress.org. [00:02:00] no.com is the com business com, and when you're a business owner and you have a WordPress site, it's WordPress.
Dot org. That's where all like the free open source stuff that you can download and that's how then you buy a theme and you have hosting. And so that's not what you're talking about when you say you hate Word. Exactly. I'm saying wordpress.com, meaning the business that [00:02:20] does the hosting. I see. Yeah.
Anyway, getting back to the SEO and different platforms and how they affect your seo, so there's, there are definitely a few things to keep in mind. The top one is how much control does the platform give you in order to edit things? I think that's the outcome, right? The more control you have, the more you have to do.
Yeah, so [00:02:40] less control, less you have to do, but then the less control. And if there's something that a platform does that isn't SEO friendly, let's say, I don't know, URLs, then that will, You won't have any control over that. Exactly. And it's definitely one where the, if you can't control certain aspects or you don't get access to it, like we ran into this with GoDaddy [00:03:00] host website platform.
Yeah. That was not our favorite. Hey, a message to go, Daddy, if you ever hear this, why can I not add a tag manager to your platform when creating a WordPress site? In your dashboard? Yeah. Or the website builder. The official name for, Oh yes. And it's definitely, yeah. So [00:03:20] you're gonna run into situations like that.
Can you edit? What can you edit? Can you get in? And the more technical you get with your seo, the more you're gonna want to be able have more control over that. So the one you have the most control over is word. Yeah. And then, and you even have control over images and the image sizing where on wics and Squarespace and Shopify, [00:03:40] maybe Weeble, you upload images and they manage the weight of the image for you, right?
Yeah, they, So if you do, they call 'em self-hosted platform so that the company is hosting it for you and you're paying them. And so they're doing a bunch of like stuff in the back end to make it run super quick and you're outsourcing the back end, whereas like a WordPress. [00:04:00] That you're hosting on like host skater, you are entirely responsible for everything that's going on with it, and it gives you a lot more control, but it also means you're all out on your own.
Yeah. And they all do different things like how they store the images and the sizes of the images for you. Yeah, and just to be clear, images are a big part of seo. They're gonna help [00:04:20] with low time, so that's why it's a big thing if you've got images and you want 'em a certain. You may want, may wanna look at these systems and they definitely will slow down your website if you're not careful, which will definitely affect your SEO rankings.
How many pictures, how many people have taken pictures and then uploaded them right to their site. So sometimes you'd be able to do that on Wix [00:04:40] or Squarespace or Shopify, or how many people have gone to Canva, made an image for their header image, downloaded it, not known the weight of it, and the weight being Many things that come into play with image optimization, which we'll get into at a later date.
Yeah, that's a story for another time. But it's definitely, [00:05:00] yeah, images are definitely a huge component in how each of these, you work with them and what would I say, deploy them on the website. So how that really will affect your seo. So that's a big one. The other one is like how it's mobile friendly as Google is.
It's all about mobile. Mobile first. Mobile first. And so they definitely you wanna make sure that. [00:05:20] It's outta the box. It's mobile friendly. If not, there are tools to help it become mobile friendly. And that would be Techn, more technical seo, right? Depending on what you're doing, you are gonna focus on different things.
What am I saying here? I am not sure anymore, but basically having a mobile friendly site, super important. That's [00:05:40] technical seo. And again, I think a lot of business owners and even marketers just cross their fingers in hope, right? Cause if you start getting into technical SEO and looking at it, you can get pretty overwhelmed with that first paint and all that chassis stuff.
There's definitely some parts of, and what Pips referring to is [00:06:00] called page speed insights. And so Google's got these terms. That's about, again, we were talking about loading and so that's things that are getting affected. How quickly does it load? There's also the, there's Google has, So if you go to Google and you type in mobile friendly test, you can put in your website and they do a pretty quick check and I would use that tool over any other one.
And [00:06:20] because Google is the one that's still gonna be ranking you. So if Tool says that your website's mobile friendly or not, that's probably gonna be the best indicator. Want to know more about seo? We've got a class for that. Our mission is to educate students about the right tools, techniques, and strategies to grow their businesses using the most up to date [00:06:40] search engine marketing optimization techniques and tools.
Find out more at knowhowmarketinglab.com. I once got asked, Does do you do the same thing for SEO on other platforms than you that you would do on Google and I was not Google's the one we're gonna be paying attention to. Yeah. Bing or Duck [00:07:00] dot Go or, Yeah. Cause they all, they're all gonna have their own algorithm.
Yeah, they're all gonna have their own algorithms. The thing I think of is that they're all gonna be taking cues from Google and what they're doing because they're the big player. And so it'd be foolish for some small platform that's like barely struggling to get by to [00:07:20] just be like, No, we're gonna do this completely different.
So I guess the question is, if you are doing everything yourself and you don't have a lot of technical skill and you don't have the. Wherewithal to learn it or access to someone who could help you with it. Yeah. Then you maybe you're not gonna worry about your SEO as much, or you're gonna [00:07:40] do the best you can with what you have.
Yeah. And then when you get to a certain level, you'll probably level up and maybe make your way over to WordPress. WordPress is harder to use on the back end for. People. Yeah. For if you're not technically savvy or if you're, This is not your li you're not working online all the time and like you're very used to doing with these tools, [00:08:00] then yeah, you're gonna have a bit of a, it's gonna be a bit of a learning curve.
But if you have someone to show you. Yeah. Cause we all start somewhere or dedicated to YouTube for a good week. Like you can learn everything you need on YouTube, but you just have to be willing to dig That's Yeah. And not take every single person that face value for what they're saying is. Yeah. There's definitely gonna be [00:08:20] some people that'll have opinions that it might not be the best.
Yeah. So you'll have to take it with a grain salt, but you can find gold on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Going off that if you are looking to get started and you're not super SEO savvy, I would probably say stick with a square space or a Wix for just the start. That'll help you with the image, the [00:08:40] SEO image stuff.
And the weight of the images. But it won't help you with the URLs. Same with Shopify. They just cuz out of the box there, URLs are longer. Yeah. And then, and Google, like shorter URLs for instance, if you have. Service pages, they could just be pages on your [00:09:00] website that don't need to go under a category, like under a, like you have a parent page and a child page, right?
Yeah. So what, yeah, what you're saying is like you'd have like your domain.com/services/. House painting. Yeah. For example. And then instead you could just mind doing.com/house painting. Yeah. And then you would just remove one level and then that would [00:09:20] make it Google. Yeah. Definitely appreciates shorter URLs.
One other thing about that, that why I would suggest using wics and Squarespace is that they do have a lot of SEO tools to help you get started. Like a little setup wizard and like you. Plug in some basic information and so just to get you your tip, your toe into it. Honestly, though, I [00:09:40] am a bigger fan of WordPress, but that's just cuz I like the control.
So answer is, it depends on who you are. Your SEO is affected by the platform you choose. Yeah. But depending on what you need at the time you need it. Each one is gonna have its benefits and it's negative sides. Yeah. And yeah, it's definitely one where you're gonna have [00:10:00] to get the kind of the quadrants of how much time, how much money, how much technical skills, and just trying to figure out where you fit in that.
And then, yeah, ultimately you're probably gonna wanna, like you said, move to a WordPress site at the end, cuz that's, But we don't mind. Square Works. We work in those and we, Squarespace. Squarespace, Sorry, I always say Square. Yeah. [00:10:20] Squarespace, which has a different company all together that has to do with e-commerce and stuff like that.
And Shopify. I like Shopify too, but I don't know much about Weebley actually. So I'm hearing you hate it. It's a little antiquated. It's from, It's a relic of a bygone era. It's like using Jula or something like, or I saw something the other day. I, when I worked for that company [00:10:40] who sold website Duda. Dude or something.
something like they're still around. I saw an ad for them, or something like that. They're a direct competitor to WordPress. They have the drag and drop functionality too. It might not be DDA though. I think it's, I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on what it is. , one other thing that's gonna really [00:11:00] be helpful for you is when you're getting started, seeing how much content or resources are available, how many people are making YouTube videos about this?
How much of their help docs are. If you find that, that's helpful. Yeah, I, it's one that I have learned to appreciate is a good knowledge library that a company has that goes, Hey, you wanna do this? This is [00:11:20] how you do it. And they have it all written out with steps and like they've updated it.
That's also very important because Wix and Squarespace do a really good job of that. Yes, they do a good job. Shopify too. Shopify had, in the last couple years, they haven't been updating their docs as much as they should be. It's a hard thing to have to update your docs when things are going moving so [00:11:40] fast.
Yes, exactly. I don't ever fault anyone for do. For not updating their docs because like it's one of those things that there's always something else that's more important, but it's definitely one as well as like people on YouTube making tutorials or stuff like that, or trick tips and tricks for your platform that are gonna be super important as well, because you want to know that other people are [00:12:00] using it and there's ways to optimize it.
The other thing to consider is if you're doing a WordPress website, you're gonna have a theme, and that theme can be cluttered with code and be bad. Lots of people use divvy. I've used Divvy, and lots of people have really old sites, right? And all those [00:12:20] things can make your site heavier or slower. So if you do use WordPress, the theme does matter.
And same. And that goes across for every one of those platforms that they, Oh, so how do you check for that? That's where the page speed insights will definitely be really useful for you. And it'll give you a grade out of a hundred. But if you, So if [00:12:40] you're thinking of buying a theme though how would you figure out if it's a good theme or a bad theme?
If you're using WordPress, if you're, I would go read the doc. Read the docs, find a demo site and put that demo site through Page speed insights. That'll probably tell you some stuff as well, that if they have a theme and it unoptimized and it [00:13:00] already like it has a really poor score out of the box, like then you might want to avoid it.
Interesting. Yeah, there's a lot to go through. If you're DIYing it, there's a lot to learn. You start with websites. If you're focused on seo, websites are a big part of seo, right? So you'll learn all of this as you go along over. Yeah, definitely. It's one, [00:13:20] like we're, we've been saying a couple times now where you're gonna be stair stepping your way through this, so you don't have to be master SEO right out of the gate.
You're definitely gonna start off small, learn a little bit, then build on that over time, because it does take time and explain. I'm nodding yes, . Exactly. And it's definitely, yeah, there's gonna be a lot [00:13:40] of experience. You're just gonna have to experiment a little bit. And just also remember that no matter what platform you pick, most of them are really good at being able to export things and you'll be able to switch platforms.
There'll be a bit of headache at the start, but like none of this is set in stone once you're right. And if you get a marketing friend, you can ask them, ask a couple of [00:14:00] marketing people. Lots of people who are in marketing have opinion. It's so true, but, and lots of seo. You can always Facebook message people or Twitter tweet at people, and lots of people will answer you depending on what your questions are.
I would do a search for the theme on Google, and that's where you start with everything. Yeah, [00:14:20] exactly. You're gonna start with Google. You also see any reviews and negative reviews, that kind of stuff, which are always helpful. I think we're out of time. Are we out of time? I believe that we are out of time.
We should go. All right. Bye for now. Bye.
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