Best Practices To Rank Well In Search Results
Organic search is an important traffic souce for any website, and can bring you the most qualified leads if you are ranking for the right keywords. Let me show you the best ways to optimise your web pages so you can rank well, attract the best customers, and help grow your revenue.
Is your website mobile responsive?
A mobile responsive website is not only important for usability, but it is also an important factor in ranking high in search engines. A mobile responsive website allows customers to access your content easily from a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smartphone.
It is more important than ever to have a mobile responsive website because smartphones now account for up to 60% of all online searches. Google will look at how responsive your website is when determining the ranking of your website.
How fast does your website load?
Another factor that Google will consider when ranking a website is how fast your website loads. This is also important in terms of usability, especially for smartphone users who are using mobile data. Nearly half of website users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and tend to abandon a site that hasn't loaded within 3 seconds.
Considering that up to 60% of all searches are performed on mobile devices, how could your page load speed be affecting your bottom line?
There are online tools to test your website load speed which will offer suggestions on how to fix the problem. A major factor is the images on your website which need to be optimised.
Another thing to conside is your website hosting provider. If your customer base is in New Zealand, and your website server is in the USA, then your customers are likely waiting a long time for your website to load.
What keywords are you trying to rank for?
Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important factors to decide upon before starting to write any content on your website.
What do people search for when looking for a product or service like yours? Avoid using industry jargon, as this is often not what real life customers will use.
Ofcourse there are online tools, paid and free, that can help you decide on the best keywords to use. Did you know that a handy tool to use is Google search? Just type in any search term such as 'Shoes NZ' and Google will show you a list of popular search terms, which are often long tail keywords offering more value.
What are the hidden factors that affect rankings?
There are hidden elements on any webpage that tell Google what the page is about, and these will also affect your ranking.
Title Tags
The Title tag is one of the most important elements for your webpage, and it needs to be unique for every page. Not only does the page title need to represent clearly what is on your page, it also shows publicly in search results which can help attract your customers.
Headings
H1 tags are for the main heading on your page, and there should only be one per page. H2 and H3 tags are for subheadings ands help break up your content and also give hierarchy to content on your page.
Page URL
The page URL or the address of your page is also important. It helps tell serach engines and users what the page is about, and also gives you an opportunity to add keywords to influence search results.
Meta Descriptions
A meta description is a short snippet that appears in the search results page. This helps Gogle and users understand your page, and gives you the opportunity to tease users to click on your webpage in the search results.
Image Alt Text
Image Alt Text tells search engines what your image is about. It is a short description that also enables you to include keywords.
How does Google know about the changes you have made?
It is important o generate a sitemap and submit this to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools so that search engines know about the changes to your website and will index your new content faster.
What next?
There are many more factors and strategies to achieve a better ranking in search results, however these tips are a great way to get started. For any questions or advice please get in touch.