Skip to main content

Cayman SEO: Making Faster Websites

In my previous post I had discussed Page Speed and all its advantages, particularly as it relates to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  This time, I would like to show you an example of what exactly we have done.  I would to introduce  www.grandviewcondos.com - the most visible website in the Accommodations Industry in the Cayman Islands and now, probably one of the fastest if not the fastest.  I still have to test the page speed of every single website but for the most part, I have tested around 80% of the websites in the accommodations industry, particularly the direct competition of Grandview Condos. 


The most visible website in the Seven Mile Beach Condos Industry 
Grandview Condos is no. 1 for the keyword, "condos seven mile beach" which has global monthly searches of 880 according to Adwords Keyword Tool. 

No. 1 for 'grand cayman condos seven mile beach' which has a total global monthly search of 390

It is also on the first page of all major and minor keywords as it relates to the Cayman Islands and the Accommodations industry. In fact, it is the only property on seven mile beach that shows up on the first page of 'cayman vacation' a major keyword that attracts 5,400 global monthly searches.  The rest of the organic results are booking/reservation websites such as Expedia, Travelocity, etc.
How were we able to make this website faster than most and in effect more visible than its competitors?  It was actually a very challenging and humbling experience.  We are still currently working on increasing its page speed and on some days, some of the guys have wanted to give up but truly, we are very proud of what we have accomplished so far. 
Here is a list of adjustments we have made to ensure the website's optimization: 
  • Source-Ordered Codes to ensure content (not scripts) is read first by the Search bots 
  • Combined external CSS
  • Leveraged browser caching
  • Minify CSS
  • Minify Javascript
  • Minimize DNS lookup
  • Minimize redirects
  • Enabled Compression
  • Minimize request size
  • Optimize Images
  • Remove query strings from static resources
  • Avoided bad requests
  • Combined images into CSS spirts
  • Optimize the order of styles and scripts
  • Parallelize downloads across hostnames
  • Put CSS in document head
  • Serve resources from a consistent URL
  • Serve scaled images
  • Specify a Vary: Accept-Encoding header
  • Specify a cache validator
  • Specify a character set early
Having done all of the above, here is a comparison between www.grandviewcondos.com and its competitors for the keyword, 'seven mile beach condos'

Organic Result for 'seven mile beach condos' on Google

Screenshot of Grandviewcondos.com Page Speed result 92/100
  1. Grandviewcondos.com Page Speed Score: 92/100 - Dynamic /Web 2.0 enabled
  2. Silversandscondos.com Page Speed Score: 86/100 - Static site
  3. Travelpo.com/condos/seven_mile_beach.htm/ Page Speed Score: 82/100 - Booking Site
  4. 10kvacationrentals.com/lodging/cayman-islands/seven-mile-beach/ Page Speed Score 78/100 - Booking Site
  5. Aquabayclub.com/en/index.html Page Speed Score: 60/100 - Dynamic /Web 2.0 enabled 
  6. Tripadvisor.com (lengthy link) Page Speed Score: 77/100 - Booking Site
  7. Cicondos.com Page Speed Score: 66/100 - Dynamic /Web 2.0 enabled
  8. Vacationhomes.com/2097 Page Speed Score: 72/100 - Booking Site
  9. Vrbo.com/49383 Page Speed Score: 75/100 - Booking Site
  10. Cayman.com.ky/condo-rentals-seven-mile-beach.html Page Speed Score: 62/100 - Booking Site
It is important to note that static websites will get a high score on page speed but will probably be ignore by Users simply because the website will feel 'old' and users will feel that it is representative of the rental property. No one wants to rent a tired looking property in the same way that no one will want to use a tired looking website.  It is important to ensure that the website is User friendly with all the intricacies of Web 2.0 (social media) to ensure a high usability rate. 
In closing, please note that Page Speed is a very important aspect of Optimization and that is why we have given it an emphasis in our SEO contracts with our clients.   It is important because Users have become less and less patient with waiting for websites to load.  If a website is clicked off before it loads and a high percentage of users are doing it, the search engines will notice and probably penalize the website by pushing it down the organic searches, and that is something that you never want to happen to your business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cayman SEO: Update on Changing to neutral Top Level Domains (TLD)

Just a very quick update on TLD's that address the geo targeting tool that Google released, or is it unleashed.  One of our internal website www.cayman4rent.ky already had a page rank of 3 and was very visible for online searches for most rental keywords in the Cayman Islands and it its domain age was not even 1 year old.  When google inserted the fixed geo-targeting location on Web Master Tools it was a wake up call of sorts. I quickly read up on what this could possible mean to the .ky and realized very quickly that Google was going to remove the .ky from its US data centres.  I wrote a blog regarding TLDs back in February and you can read it here .  On that blog I showed the fact that www.cayman4rent.ky was showing up for major keywords such as "grand cayman rentals" in the Cayman Islands but it was not showing up for the same keyword in the United States.  I was crushed really because it mean that I would have to give it a neutral TLD such as a .com for it to thrive
Post a Comment
Read more

Cayman SEO: TLD Wars: .KY vs. the .COM - which is better for my website?

A few years ago, a client asked me if it mattered whether the TLD (top level domain) of a website was a .com or a .ky for Search Engine Optimization and a couple of years ago, I answered 'No, it doesn't matter' because there were several factors that determined search results and not just the TLD.  Also it is important to note that Google's local search wasn't as strong as it is now.  The TLD informed Google where your site was located and that was a good thing. Things have changed though and because we are a tourism destination and because we need to attract users in the US before they come to the islands, my answer then is wrong now. Yes it matters depending on your target market's geographical location.  If your business is in the Cayman Islands and caters to users in the Cayman Islands ONLY then it still doesn't matter - use the .ky because its FREE and available to everyone on island.  But if your business objective is to attract customers before
Post a Comment
Read more

Cayman SEO NEWS: Unethical SEO practices by NETCLUES!

I am a very passionate person when it comes to work and sure, most of the time I don't have time to moderate comments on my blog. Not that there is alot of them mind you, but because I know some people are trying to ride on the link popularity of my blog caymanseo.blogspot.com, which has a pagerank of 4/10 - and because I know how difficult breaks can be - I don't mind and sometimes approve them. What I do mind is when a competing company does it. So my blog is decidedly no. 1 for most if not all the keywords relating to SEO and/or Internet Marketing in the Cayman Islands. Of course it is - I have applied alot of what I know about optimization to my blog. So it really makes me so angry that a competing company would even dare post a link back to their blog hoping to ride on my coat-tails. You should have made a comment at the very least and maybe I would have let it pass but to blatantly put a link back... thats just plain LAZY. Its embarrasing really. I would hate
3 comments
Read more