5 Actions to Improve Your Search Engine Visibility in 2016
Search engine optimization (SEO) is not, and never will be, dead. Search engines will always use criteria plugged into algorithms to identify and provide the highest quality sites users are searching for. That’s just a fact.
If your goal is to popularize your brand, drive traffic to your site, increase conversion rate, and inspire customer loyalty, improving your SEO is a critical starting point.
You don’t have control over search engine ranking factors, but you can improve the known factors that affect your site. Here are 5 easy ways to improve your SEO.
1. Start with an SEO Audit
Broken incoming and outgoing links, bad redirects, duplicate content, and other SEO errors can hurt your search engine rank.
The Fix: Repairing on-page mistakes is the first step to SEO success.
Free Tools:
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Screaming Frog
- Ahrefs
- Our Web Developer and Tech Specialist Mark Ricco also recommends this Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin. Read his take here on LinkedIn.
BONUS HARDCORE SEO TIP:
Go one step farther. Check out this SEO article: 5 Components of a Comprehensive SEO Audit.
2. Assess Your Content
Google relies heavily on quality of content. Everything on your site should be relevant to your industry, authoritative, and original. If you must use duplicate content, identify it with canonical tags. Be sure keywords are represented, but not overused.
Before you decide to remove an outdated or poorly written page, be sure there are no incoming links directed to that page. If a quality site is linking to your content, it’s better to update or rewrite than remove it.
The Fix: Quality content is absolutely essential. Add fresh, relevant content, and rewrite bad content.
3. Search Competitor Keywords
If your competitors are outranking you in search engine results, there’s a reason.
The Fix: Discover the keywords your competitors rank for and build new content around the same or similar words.
Free Tools:
4. Analyze Visitor Behavior
One key SEO factor is bounce rate. Bounce rate is measured by how fast visitors decide to leave your site. It’s not always bad—visitors might go straight to a landing page that directs them to an affiliate link, for example. If your site visitors are clicking through to where you want them to go, no problem. If they’re clicking to escape your site—that’s a problem.
Top reasons visitors immediately leave your site:
- Slow loading. You have 2-3 seconds.
- Confusing navigation or layout.
- Poor quality website.
- Content isn’t what they were looking for (which means your metatags are poorly crafted).
- No matter how cool you think it is, anything that plays when your page loads is annoying to the vast majority of people.
The Fix: Figure out why people are leaving your site and fix the issue.
Free Tools:
5. Go Mobile
More than 60% of all searches come from a mobile device these days, so you can’t afford not to go mobile. Google recommends mobile-friendly responsive design—and when Google talks, SEO pros listen.
The Fix: Design and implement a mobile-friendly website. Read more about mobile-friendly website design in this FREE downloadable guide.
Mobile-friendly responsive design is the KEY to great SEO. Not sure if your site is mobile friendly? Use the free and easy Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool to find out. Now’s the time to go mobile, but how? Check out this handy and comprehensive FREE guide to making your website mobile friendly.
While there’s no guarantee you’ll get to the very top of search engine results, ignoring SEO will ensure you never get there. It’s a complicated issue involving ever-evolving algorithms. Only one thing remains constant: Google’s quest to provide the highest quality user experience.
If your website is high quality and up-to-date, you can’t go wrong.