An eCommerce store needs a formidable online presence—of which a good website and quality products are just the beginning. The real challenge lies in letting probable customers know that your brand exists amidst the digital racket. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing come in.
While SEO lays a foundation for organic traffic through search engines, social media is what fosters brand awareness and allows for engagement or direct interaction with consumers. Both components of an ecommerce strategy are very relevant, but it’s paramount to strike the perfect balance.
This article will take a closer look into the balancing of the two for a better online presence.
Understanding E-commerce SEO
SEO serves as the virtual compass guiding potential customers to your online storefront. It encompasses a set of strategies aimed at improving your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). By optimizing various elements of your site, you can increase the likelihood of appearing prominently when users search for products or services related to your business.
But effective eCommerce SEO isn’t merely about driving traffic; it’s about attracting the right traffic. This involves targeting keywords that align with user intent, ensuring that your website caters to the needs of those actively seeking the products you offer.
It’s always advisable to work withtop ecommerce SEO agenciesthat have an effective approach for eCommerce SEO through on-page and off-page optimization. This can include techniques such as technical SEO, content creation, distribution, and backlink building.
Elements of E-commerce SEO
To achieve success in eCommerce SEO, it’s essential to master a variety of interconnected strategies. These core elements work together to enhance your website’s visibility, usability, and overall appeal to both search engines and potential customers.
Keyword Research
First, any search engine optimization plan starts with keyword research, which determines the exact terms and phrases your target is using to conduct their searches. For eCommerce businesses, it means a high focus on product-based keywords, such as “women’s running shoes,” and long-tail keywords capturing more specific Product intent, like “best lightweight running shoes for women.”
On-Page Optimization
This is about creating compelling product descriptions, keyword-rich titles, and meta tags, and ensuring that product images are properly labeled and optimized. It’s also about well-structured, readable, scannable content, which ensures great user experience—a criterion indirectly boosting SEO rankings.
Technical SEO
While content is king, the technical aspects of your website play a crucial role in SEO. These include optimizing site speed as a slow-loading website can deter users and negatively impact rankings. Additionally, you should ensure mobile friendliness as around60% of online searchesare now conducted on mobile devices. Finally, address any crawl errors or broken links that could hinder search engine bots from indexing your site.
Content Marketing
Beyond product pages, creating informative and engaging content such as blog posts, buying guides, and how-to articles can attract potential customers and establish your brand as an authority in your niche. This can also be optimized for relevant keywords, further expanding your reach in search results.
Link Building
Earning backlinks from reputable websites is a powerful way to signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and relevant. This can be achieved through guest blogging, creating shareable content, and building relationships with industry influencers. While link building can be a long-term endeavor, it’s an essential component of a comprehensive eCommerce SEO strategy.
Harnessing the Power of Social Media
Social media enhances the way eCommerce businesses connect with their customers, offering a dynamic platform to amplify brand visibility and drive sales. It’s more than just posting pretty pictures; it’s about strategically leveraging various platforms to achieve specific marketing goals.
Brand Awareness
Establishinga strong brand identityis essential for your business’s digital campaign. Social media platforms provide a visual and interactive space to showcase your brand’s personality, values, and unique selling propositions. Through eye-catching visuals, compelling storytelling, and consistent messaging, you can leave a lasting impression on your target audience.
Community Building
Unlike traditional channels of marketing, social media makes provisions for easier communication. These platforms put brands and consumers in close contact, opening special chances for building a community around your brand.
You can start by engaging active customers, either by responding to comments, having live Q&A sessions, or simply interacting with them to make them feel really attached to the brand on a personal level. Another major payoff of having a strong online community is that it can be an extremely rich source of user-generated content in the form of reviews, testimonials, and more.
Driving Traffic to Product Pages
While social media can be a powerful tool for brand building and engagement, it’s equally important to leverage it to drive traffic to your product pages and ultimately generate sales. Strategic placement of links in your social media posts, as well as shoppable posts on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, can create a seamless path for users to explore and purchase your products.
Integrating SEO and Social Media Strategies
Social media SEO can be used to create a powerful marketing strategy that boosts traffic and sales. Through this, eCommerce businesses can amplify their reach, engagement, and, ultimately, their conversions. Here’s how:
Promote SEO-Optimized Content
Your nicely written, SEO-optimized blog posts and product descriptions are better than simply holding a place on your website. Social media offers the perfect platform where this content should be shared in front of many.
Sharing links to pages, whether those are of articles, product pages, or landing pages, across multiple social channels can help drive huge traffic to a website. Moreover, social media posts are perfect in arousing interest and enticing your audience to click through to your site.
Market Research and Keyword Insights
Social media isn’t just a broadcasting platform; it’s a goldmine of valuable insights into your target audience. By monitoring conversations, hashtags, and trends related to your industry, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ preferences, pain points, and interests.
These insights can help you identify trending topics and popular keywords, allowing you to tailor your content to align with user intent and drive more targeted traffic to your website.
Creating Shoppable Posts on Social Media Platforms
Several social media platforms now offer features that allow users to directly purchase products without leaving the app. Shoppable posts on Instagram and Facebook, for instance, make it incredibly convenient for users to browse and buy products they discover while strolling through their feeds.
Running Social Media Contests
Social media contests and giveaways are proven methods for boosting engagement and attracting new followers. By linking these promotions to specific product pages, you can direct a surge of traffic to your website.
To maximize the social SEO benefits of these campaigns, consider incorporating relevant keywords into the contest rules or descriptions. Moreover, encourage participants to share the contest on their own profiles, thereby extending your reach and potentially earning backlinks to your product pages.
Conclusion
The interplay between SEO and social media in eCommerce can’t be stressed enough. Knowing and putting into practice those strategies discussed in this article will yield full power over both channels in attracting customers for conversion.
As a result, an eCommerce business can execute long-lasting growth and create a firm position within the competitive online marketplace.
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Women’s accessories sold by Shein, Temu and AliExpress contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in South Korea found.
144 products from the retailer were tested, and multiple products from all companies failed to meet legal standards.
Seoul officials have asked for the products to be removed from sale.
Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said on Wednesday.
Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in recent years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at stunningly low prices.
The explosive growth has led to increased scrutiny of their business practices and safety standards, including in the European Union and South Korea, where Seoul officials have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by online platforms.
In the most recent inspection, 144 products from Shein, AliExpress and Temu were tested, and multiple products from all companies failed to meet legal standards.
Shoes from Shein were found to contain significantly high levels of phthalates – chemicals used to make plastics more flexible – with one pair 229 times above the legal limit.
“Phthalate-based plasticisers affect reproductive functions such as sperm count reduction, and can cause infertility and even premature birth,” an official from Seoul’s environmental health team told AFP.
One such chemical “is classified as a human carcinogen by the International Cancer Institute, so special care should be taken to avoid long-term contact with the human body”, they added.
Formaldehyde, a chemical commonly used in home building products, was detected in Shein’s caps at double the allowable threshold.
Two bottles of nail polish from Shein were found to have dioxane – a possible human carcinogen that can cause liver poisoning – at levels more than 3.6 times the allowed limit and methanol concentrations 1.4 times above the acceptable level.
Shein told AFP that they “work closely with international third-party testing agencies… to regularly carry out risk-based sampling tests to ensure that products provided by suppliers meet Shein’s product safety standards”.
“Our suppliers are required to comply with the controls and standards we have put in place as well as the product safety laws and regulations in the countries we operate in,” the company added.
Seoul authorities found sandals from Temu contained lead in the insoles at levels more than 11 times the permissible limit.
“Upon receiving notice from the Seoul city government, we immediately launched an internal investigation,” a spokesperson from Temu told AFP.
“We have swiftly removed these product listings from our global marketplace and are enhancing our systems and guidance to merchants to ensure they comply with safety standards and local regulations.”
Based on the provided search results, here is a comprehensive site audit checklist:
Domain Factors
Domain Name: Verify the domain name and its registration details.
Domain Age: Check the domain age and its impact on SEO.
Domain History: Review the domain’s history, including any previous owners or notable changes.
Other Domain Factors: Evaluate other domain-related factors, such as domain extensions, subdomains, and parked domains.
Page-Level Factors
E-A-T: Assess the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the content creators.
Headlines: Review headlines for relevance, accuracy, and optimization.
Keyword Cannibalization: Identify and address potential keyword cannibalization issues.
User Engagement: Evaluate user engagement metrics, such as bounce rates and time on page.
Content Length: Assess the optimal content length for each page.
Content Factors
Schema Markup: Verify the presence and accuracy of schema markup.
Site Architecture: Review the site’s architecture and navigation.
Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR): Evaluate the CTR for each page.
Content Organization: Assess the organization and hierarchy of content.
Technical SEO Factors
Crawlability: Verify that the website is crawlable by search engines.
Indexing: Check the website’s indexing status and identify any issues.
Robots.txt: Review and optimize the robots.txt file.
Sitemaps: Verify the presence and accuracy of sitemaps.
Image Optimization: Evaluate image optimization, including file names, alt tags, and compression.
Website Updates: Monitor ongoing website changes and identify potential issues.
Link Profile Audit
Link Acquisition: Evaluate the quality and relevance of incoming links.
Link Disavowal: Identify and disavow toxic or spammy links.
Link Building: Assess the website’s link building strategy and opportunities.
On-Site Technical SEO Factors
Page Speed: Evaluate page speed and optimize for faster loading times.
Mobile-Friendliness: Verify mobile-friendliness and ensure a responsive design.
SSL Encryption: Check the presence and configuration of SSL encryption.
Additional Tips
Regular Website Audits: Schedule regular website audits to identify and address issues proactively.
Professional SEO Tools: Utilize professional SEO tools, such as Ahrefs or Semrush, to streamline the audit process.
By following this comprehensive site audit checklist, you’ll be able to identify and address various technical, content, and link-related issues, ultimately improving your website’s SEO and search engine rankings.
EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED AS IN VIDEO ABOVE;
My Site Audit Checklist explaining the following steps I will analyze this service is requested.
Robots.txt Explanation: A search engine bot views the Robot.txt file before crawling a site. It gives directives on how to crawl (or not crawl) the website. For one, it contains instructions about folders or pages to omit and other critical instructions. As a good practice, it should also link to the XML sitemap so the bot can find a list of the most important URLs.
XML sitemap Explanation: Live list of all the pages on the sites; best practice for Google to maintain a record of pages on the site.
HTTPS Explanation: For “secure” sites, Google Chrome shows if a site is “secure” or “https” with green lettering a lock image in the address bar.
Mobile Friendly Explanation: More than 50% of searches come from mobile and Google takes how the website looks on mobile into consideration.
Page Speed Explanation: Google has found searchers prefer fast websites. Page speed improvements can lead directly to improved visibility on Google.
SEO Tag Health Check Explanation: A series of “tags” should appear in the section of the website so that Google can properly “index” the website. These include: title, description, canonical, robots.
Crawling Explanation: Google crawls the web with bots, executing links. It’s important to code the site in a way to make the content accessible. Overuse of JavaScript, broke links, or requiring user action to reveal content are some of the ways that disrupt crawling.
Rendering Explanation: How Google displays the content on the site.
Indexing Explanation: Once Google crawls and discovers pages it stores them in its index.
On-Page Optimization Explanation: The extent that the site utilizes keywords in key on-page areas, like meta and header tags, and content. Keyword research is a prerequisite to this step so you know what you’re targeting.
Relevance Explanation: Supporting content on category pages help searchers learn more about the product and help choose the best available product for their needs. Consider the user experience of the person coming in from the targeted keywords.
Schema.org Explanation: Code that gives semantic meaning to the content, e.g. a telephone number, or a “product.” In certain instances Google uses this code to enrich a search listing with Star ratings, event info, etc.
Faceted Navigation Explanation: For catalog sites, how filter/sort functions are presented.
Accessibility Explanation: Alt images, text not images, progressive enhancement principles.
Authority Content Explanation: Content that helps build authority on the topic. Targeted “how to” “best” or “tips” content. Attract searchers during all phases of the “customer journey.” For catalog sites, how filter/sort functions are presented.
Accessibility Explanation: Alt images, text not images, progressive enhancement principles.
Authority Content Explanation: Content that helps build authority on the topic. Targeted “how to” “best” or “tips” content. Attract searchers during all phases of the “customer journey.”
Bounce rate is a metric used to measure the effectiveness of a website in terms of user engagement. It’s calculated by dividing the number of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page by the total number of visitors that arrive at your site. In other words, it shows you how many people “bounced” away from your website after viewing one page.
What is a good bounce rate?
It depends on your industry, where your traffic comes from, and what type of page it lands on. According to HubSpot, the average bounce rate for most websites is anywhere from 26% to 70%. Moreover, the average bounce rate for a B2B website is 56%, while the average bounce rate for a B2C website is 45%.
However, it’s important to note that these figures vary by page type, with blog posts having a higher bounce rate of around 65% and ecommerce pages averaging 33%.
Data from Contentsquare seems to contradict SmartBugMedia’s 33%, as the latter found that the average bounce rate for ecommerce sites was 47%.
In any event, the reason a blog or news website might have a higher bounce rate is that visitors may have come to read a specific article and then leave. Conversely, an ecommerce website would want a lower bounce rate anyway since visitors are more likely to browse and make purchases on multiple pages.
As a general guideline, a bounce rate of 40% or lower is considered good, while a bounce rate of 55% or higher is considered high and may indicate that improvements are needed to engage visitors and encourage them to explore more of your website.
But it’s important to keep in mind that every website is unique, and there may be other factors that influence bounce rate.
It’s important to note that these benchmarks are just general guidelines and may not apply to every website. It’s also important to consider other factors, such as the quality of your website’s content and user experience, when evaluating your bounce rate.
Bounce rate vs. exit rate
It can be easy to get these two concepts confused. Exit rate is the percentage of people who leave a particular page after visiting any number of pages on a website. The bounce rate, on the other hand, is the percentage of people who land on a page and leave that same page without taking any further action.
That’s why it’s important to understand what type of content works best for your site and how people are interacting with it, so you can make the necessary changes to optimize your bounce rate.
How to find your bounce rates
To calculate your website’s bounce rate manually, you’ll need to know the total number of visitors who entered your website (also known as “entrances”) and the total number of visitors who bounced (i.e., left your website after viewing only one page).
Bounce Rate = (Total Number of Bounces / Total Number of Entrances) x 100
For example, if you had 1,000 visitors to your website, and 500 of them left after viewing only one page, your bounce rate would be:
Bounce Rate = (500 / 1,000) x 100 = 50%
So, in this case, your website’s bounce rate would be 50%.
Please note that bounce rate is just one metric to consider when evaluating your website’s performance. You should also look at other metrics, such as time on site, pages per session, and conversion rates, to get a more comprehensive understanding of how users are interacting with your website.
What does bounce rate reveal about your website/page?
The bounce rate can tell you a lot about how your page is performing. It reveals whether or not visitors are engaged with your content and if they view other pages on your website after landing on the initial page.
A low bounce rate is a sign that your page is doing its job in inspiring visitors to explore more pages on your website, while a high bounce rate indicates that something is off and needs to be adjusted.
It also provides some hints about the kind of content you’re offering: Is it relevant, interesting, or useful? Are there too many ads or pop-ups? Is the page load time too slow? Is the user experience design intuitive and aesthetically pleasing? All these things can affect how people interact with your site, so it’s important to look at what the bounce rate reveals about your website/page.
Remember, the bounce rate is only one aspect of many quantitative data points; thus, it’s essential to pair quantitative information with qualitative understanding from behavioral data platforms like Fullstory in order to get a comprehensive picture of your website’s performance. Customer analytics can provide deeper insights into user behavior, helping you interpret bounce rates in the context of overall customer journeys and interactions.
Understanding where and why people leave your website is key to optimizing your bounce rate. Analyzing how people interact with your website will help you understand what is and isn’t working so you can make the necessary adjustments to keep your visitors engaged and coming back for more.
There’s more than one reason why your bounce rate may be higher than you’d like it to be. Here are a few of the most common culprits:
Slow-to-load page
We’ve all been to websites that are agonizingly slow to load. It’s enough to make anyone hit the back button and look for a faster solution. And that’s precisely what most users do—they don’t stick around to suffer through slow loading times and bad user experience.
Misleading metadata
If the title tag and meta description of a page don’t accurately reflect the content, it might confuse visitors and lead them to click away in search of something more closely related to what they expected.
Blank page or technical error
It’s not unusual for websites to experience technical issues from time to time, including blank pages or server errors. Not only do these give your website a bad reputation, but they can also quickly reduce the number of visitors that stick around long enough to explore what you have to offer.
Under-optimized content
Low-quality content is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to high bounce rates. If your content is filled with spelling and grammar errors, overly long paragraphs, or irrelevant topics, readers won’t be inclined to stick around for long.
Poor UX
A website’s user experience (UX) is a huge factor when it comes to whether someone will stay on the page or not. If your website is filled with intrusive ads, annoying pop-ups, or auto-playing videos, chances are users won’t stick around to find out what else you have to offer.
The page isn’t mobile-friendly
With more and more people using mobile devices to access websites, it’s important that your site is optimized for these platforms. If your website isn’t optimized to look and work properly on mobile devices, then visitors will likely leave in search of a better user experience.
Remember—Google uses mobile data to determine search rankings, so mobile usability is more important than ever before.
Asking for too much
On certain pages, you may be asking visitors to do more than just read the content—like signing up for an account or filling out a form. If the page is asking for too much information or requires too many steps, then visitors may leave before taking any action; they’ll have perceived too much cost before perceiving value.
Understanding and optimizing your website’s bounce rate can help you maintain a healthy level of engagement with your visitors. So keep an eye on your analytics (Fullstory, Google Analytics, etc.) to make sure that your bounce rates are in line with what you expect from your website. With the right adjustments, you can keep visitors engaged and coming back for more.
How to lower your bounce rates
Improve page load speed
As mentioned earlier, page load speed has a major effect on bounce rate. If your pages have slow loading speed, visitors are likely to get frustrated and leave the site before they’ve had the chance to explore further. To improve page load time, focus on optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, leveraging caching technologies, and compressing files.
The “Site Performance” report in Semrush’s Site Audit tool can help you get an overview of your website’s speed metrics, so you can see what improvements need to be made. And with a few simple changes, you’ll be well on your way to lowering those pesky bounce rates.
Optimize your mobile user experience
With more than half of online traffic now coming from mobile devices, if you want your website to be successful, it must stay functional on phones and tablets. Google’s Mobile Friendly Test is an easy way to double-check how your site looks on the go.
To run a quick assessment, simply right-click anywhere on the page you would like to analyze and select “Inspect” from the menu that appears—this will give you instant insight into what needs improvement!
The Mobile Friendly Test will also give you some tips on how to improve your website for mobile users, such as increasing font sizes and tap targets, reducing plugins and adverts, or enabling a responsive design.
By optimizing your mobile user experience, you’ll be able to give your visitors a more enjoyable and engaging experience—one that won’t end after viewing just one page.
Purposefully use internal links
Another way you can keep visitors engaged and reduce your bounce rate is by using internal links. Internal links are hyperlinks that direct users to other pages on the same website, as opposed to external links, which take them to a different website.
Using internal links can prevent visitors from bouncing away from your pages because it encourages them to click through and explore more of your content. A great way to do this is by adding a “related posts” section at the end of your articles, which will give users an additional opportunity to click through and read more posts that may be relevant to their interests.
Not only are internal links great for keeping visitors engaged, but they’re also crucial for SEO success. This is because they help Google find and understand all of the pages on your site, as well as help it figure out which pages are most important.
Make your content easy to read
This may sound like an obvious necessity, but it gets overlooked more than it should. It’s important to make sure your content is easy to read and understand. This means writing clear, concise sentences that are broken up into short paragraphs, and using headings and subheadings to break up long sections of text.
Additionally, you should use visuals like images and videos whenever appropriate since they can help keep readers engaged with your content and break up long blocks of text. You can use a photo editor to enhance the quality of your images, making them more appealing and professional.
Ultimately, the goal is to make sure your site visitors aren’t overwhelmed with too much information at once and are able to easily consume it.
Using readability calculators are a great way to start understanding how easy or hard your text is to read.
Satisfy search intent
Search intent is a crucial factor when it comes to decreasing your bounce rate. When someone searches for something in Google, they have a particular goal or intention in mind. If you can satisfy that goal quickly and accurately, they’ll be more likely to stay on your page—and even explore other pages within your website.
To accomplish this, start by conducting SERP (search engine results page) analysis. This will help you understand the kind of content that Google has already identified as relevant to the searcher’s keyword—and how you can create better content than what’s already out there (this will also help you in your international SEO rankings and search results)
Additionally, make sure your page titles and meta descriptions accurately reflect the content on each page so that users are less likely to “bounce” away in disappointment.
Use a table of contents
If you have long-form content on your website, adding a table of contents can be a great way to keep visitors engaged and reduce bounce rate. A table of contents allows readers to quickly identify the topics that are most relevant to them—and click directly to the sections they’re interested in. Plus, it gives readers an idea of what to expect, so they’re more likely to stay on the page.
Use interactive content
Interactive content is an excellent way to increase user engagement and decrease bounce rate. By creating interactive quizzes, polls, surveys, or games, you can keep users interested in your content—and encourage them to explore more pages on your website.
Show your credibility
Being credible is a key way to build trust with your visitors. Showcase customer reviews, ratings, and other social proof that shows how reliable you are. This will help make visitors feel more comfortable engaging with your website—and more likely to stick around.
Keep your blog full of fresh content
Creating and regularly updating content on your blog is a great way to keep visitors engaged. Post new content every week or two, and make sure it’s interesting and relevant to what your users are searching for.
Do some A/B testing
Running A/B tests on different elements of your website, such as page layout and design, headline copy, or even the color of a button, can help you figure out what works best for your audience.
Attract the right visitors
You want the right people visiting your website—people who are likely to buy or invest in you. Make sure your content aligns with their interests and the medium they came from, and that you’re targeting the right audience.
Include a clear call-to-action
Make sure your call-to-action stands out and that visitors know what you want them to do. You can use eye-catching buttons or text links or even videos and images to help people take the next step.
Use visuals to captivate quicker
People are more likely to stay on a website longer if they find the content visually attractive. Incorporate visuals like videos, infographics, and images into your page designs to give visitors something to look at and draw their attention away from the immediate desire to exit your website.
This article was sourced from: The Full Story Team – written on March 23, 2023
“I want to own my website” Sooner or later, every web design company needs to address this request. Simple as it sounds, it really is complicated. A website is built with many assembled parts and you may be surprised to learn who legally owns each part.
The following website terminology is a guide of what you really own and what you’re really just leasing.
Web Server – You Don’t Typically Own This
The computer running the Web Server Platform that hosts your website.
For most, hosting services opens a new window. The data center owns your web server and leases it to you or your web vendor.
Obviously, you will own your website server if you purchase one, but this is usually cost prohibitive to maintain.
Web Server Platform – You Don’t Own This
This is the system software running on the server. Common examples include LAMP (Linux Apache MySql PHP), Windows IIS + ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL Server.
You will never own this.
Content Management System (CMS) – You Don’t Own This
A Web Application that is used to manage the administration of content for your website. Examples include WordPress, Drupal, and Shopify.
You only own your CMS if you author your own source code and wrote it yourself. This is common to all software. Unless you’re a software company, you don’t own any software on any computer.
The CMS (and all software) is owned by the respective creators and licensed to you.
Custom programming written on top of a Website Platform might be something you can own. This gets complicated with Open-Source platforms due to the GNU General Public License.
Database Software – You Don’t Own This
Common examples include MySql, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access.
You will never own the actual database.
You own your website data and content stored in the database if you author it.
Source Code (other custom programming) – You Don’t Typically Own This
The programmed code created in the language of the Web Server Platform that contains the logic and connectors to other software running on the server. Source code may also communicate with outside integrated system servers. The source code will generate the HTML/CSS/Javascript for the browser to render to your screen.
You will own your website source code if you or your employee authors it.
Otherwise, it is owned by the creator and licensed to you.
“Work for hire” could be specified in the agreement to ensure you own the website source code upon completion and final payment of the project. This gets complicated with proprietary and Open-Source platforms due to Intellectual Property and the GNU General Public License.
“Control” of the source code is usually the critical concern with contracting custom development and is usually amenable by using an open-source platform.
HTML/CSS/Javascript – You Should Own This
HTML and CSS are the building blocks of almost all websites. It is a language that browsers understand. The Javascript is programming that may alter the HTML and CSS as one interacts with the website.
The website creator should provide an agreement giving HTML/CSS/Javascript ownership to you upon completion and final payment of the project.
Otherwise, unless you or your employees authored it, it is owned by the website creator and licensed to you.
Visual Design – You Should Own This
The combination of layout and presentable graphical assets like colors, photography and typography to create the user interface, images and videos, and readable content of the website. The HTML/CSS/Javascript will contain the information to display these assets so the browser can render the website on your screen.
The website creator should provide an agreement giving website visual design ownership to you upon completion and final payment of the project.
Otherwise, unless you or your employee created the designs, it is owned by the creator and licensed to you.
Text Content – You Own This
The formatted, readable, search engine indexable, copy and pastable website text that is rendered in the browser.
You will own your website text content if you or your employee authors the content.
Otherwise, the creator of the website is the legal “author” of the website text content.
The website creator should provide an agreement giving website content ownership to you upon completion and final payment of the project.
Photography – You Own This… If You Took The Pictures
The entire or part of a digitized photograph used on a website as either part of the logo, user interface, slideshow, gallery, video or other visual design asset.
You will own your website photography if you or your employee captures the photographs
Otherwise, you are only given a license to others’ photography. Keep a record of that license.
Browser – You Don’t Own This
A browser is the computer software we use to look at websites. Examples are Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. A browser will display the rendered website which includes the HTML/CSS/Javascript and all visual design assets.
You will never own this.
Domain Name – You Don’t Own This Either. Surprised?
The Domain Name appears in the address bar of the browser. It is the humanly memorable, identifiable part of the website URL that is indexed by search engines, displayed in most marketing, and remembered as part of the brand.
You do not actually own a domain name even though you are a registered domain owner.
You have a contract with the domain registrar giving you “ownership” of the domain much like a contract with a telephone company for a phone number.
From Wikipedia: “…domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use.”
The Legal Reality of Owning a Website
You will never legally own the domain name, web server platform, CMS, web platform, database software, or language used to build your website.
You will usually never own the web server that hosts your website.
You are be granted a license to use the Intellectual Property of the website creator and/or the web platform used to build it.
Only if you program the website yourself or have a “work for hire” agreement, you will own the website source code.
If you author your own content, design the interface, take your own photographs, and create your own graphics, you will own all of the website “visual design” and content.
Own Your Website “Finished Assembled Work”
The website terminology that matters most is the “finished assembled work.” I define this as the HTML/CSS/Javascript, visual design, and the text content that is rendered by the Browser. The entirety of finished assembled work can be saved and stored by you, and can be rebuilt with any website platform. Look for contractual terms defining “finished assembled work” and stating you own the website “finished assembled work” upon completion and final payment of the project.
Article via: Barrett Lombardo, Co-Founder / Chief Operating Officer of Orbit Media Studios
Barrett Lombardo is the Co-Founder and COO at Orbit Media Studios. Barrett has been developing websites since 1995.
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