Your website is one of the most important tools your business has for reaching and interacting with customers and potential customers. A whopping 87% of customers start their shopping experience using a search engine, usually Google. So, it's crucial that your website shows up within the first page of those search results, preferably above the scroll.
For that to happen, you need to consciously work to improve your website rankings. Each search engine uses algorithms to decide how to display search results. The algorithm gives each website a ranking and decides where the site will be in the search results based on its ranking. So, your website's ranking is an essential part of your business being found by potential or current customers.
Here are five easy things that you can do to improve your website's ranking today.
In the code of each of your website's pages, there's a tag called the <meta> description tag. When search engines are crawling your website and gathering information to determine the ranking, they look at the meta description tags to see what each page is about.
Writing descriptive, informative summaries of the information on each page of your website in the meta description tag will help search engines better understand the content of your site. This gives them more information to work with when determining your website's ranking. Each page should have its own description in the meta description tag.
Sometimes the content in the meta description tag will be used to create the snippet that goes under your website name in the search results. According to Google, the snippet is usually auto-generated based on the content on the page. However, if the content in the meta description tag is more informative than the auto-generated content, the snippet will use the content from the meta description tag.
The content that appears in the snippet in the search results is incredibly important for click-throughs because customers read this snippet to see if your website has the information they're looking for. So, writing a stellar meta description can help draw customers into your site by influencing the snippet displayed on the search engine.
The technical, behind the scenes aspects of your website are just as important to the search engines as the visible content. When search engines' algorithms are looking at your site, they're looking at all the code as well. Sites with clean code, organized architecture, and excellent technical performance are given higher rankings.
So, make sure that you're working on technical improvements to your site as well as content improvements.
Focus on improving the way your website is organized. Make sure that you have a sitemap and that you've removed old pages from the sitemap. Clean up your site navigation so that there aren't too many header navigation items and there aren't too many pages under each header navigation. Work on improving your site's load times.
Take time every month to review your website's technical performance and make improvements.
These days, people are more likely to access the Internet for personal use on their smartphone than they are to access the Internet on a computer. Some experts are predicting that within the next five years over three-quarters of the global population will access the Internet only via their mobile devices.
These statistics highlight why it's crucial to ensure that your website is easily accessible on mobile devices. This means that you either need to have a mobile version of your website or your website needs to be responsive. A responsive website automatically adjusts based on the device being used to access it.
Whether or not you have a mobile or responsive website is also crucial to your website's ranking, regardless of how people are actually accessing your website. Search engine algorithms check to see if you have a mobile or responsive site. If you don't it negatively impacts your website ranking.
Bottom line: you can't afford to ignore mobile.
As a business owner, you're intimately aware of how important your reputation is to your profits and your success. But did you know that your reputation also impacts your website's ranking with the search engines?
When Google is determining your website's ranking, they're not just looking at your website. They're also looking at your brand presence on social media and review sites, especially Google Reviews. They use this information to get a picture of your brand's online reputation.
They reward brands that have a good reputation by giving their websites a higher ranking in the search results. The idea behind this practice is that search engines are trying to give people the best information about their query. So, giving them a link to a business with a good online reputation is more valuable than giving them a link to a business with a bad online reputation.
To improve your website's rankings, make sure that you're paying attention to your customer reviews all over the Internet. Actively communicate with your customers and try to resolve any negative reviews.
When it comes to search engine rankings, content is always the most important factor. Search engines want to provide users with the answers they're looking for, so they strive to return search results containing websites with relevant, informative, and engaging content. If you want your website to rank well, you always need to be focusing on your content.
The best way to improve your search rankings is to ensure that you regularly add fresh content to your website. The easiest way to do this is to add a blog to your website and update it consistently.
Another easy way to make sure your content is fresh is to review a webpage each month and make small content updates. Don't just change a few words. Add a paragraph or two of new content that's useful and informative.
Adding new types of content, like video and images, is another great way to focus on improving your site's content.
Improving your website rankings doesn't have to be difficult. Doing these five simple things on a regular basis will ensure that your website is in optimal shape, which will improve your search engine rankings.
Check out this blog post for some more easy tips for improving your SEO.
