Last year, more than three-quarters of search engine traffic worldwide came from Google. It is no secret that the most successful companies are those that are highly ranked by the search engine’s algorithms and placed on the first pages of their results. These search outcomes are what experts call organic ranking. Meaning, they are the non-paid results. Outside of this, it will be very hard for potential customers to find your company. While many believe that obtaining a positive outcome is limited only to large companies, this is simply not the case. Any website on the internet has the same potential to be ranked highly. It is a matter of optimizing the site ahead of the competition. Therefore, company size does not play a role.
First, take a long-term approach
Improving a website and then having such improvements noticed by the top search engines takes time. Although there may be a disagreement on the exact amount of time, most stipulate that it can be as little as a few months to several years. Furthermore, results will depend on several factors including how aggressively your competition is optimizing and investing in search term ranking. Many people do not have the patience and, therefore, chose to ignore the effort altogether. However, as time passes, and people continue to discover web content through search, it’s important to make improvements so that your company can benefit from these user behaviors. Once you’ve established search optimization as a priority, you can get to work. Start by visiting Link Laboratory and obtaining a free analysis. This will help you understand where you stand and what you need to address immediately.
Google and user experience
One thing to keep in mind as your set out to optimize your website is that Google values the user experience of its top ranked websites. The tech giant wants to send its users to pages that provide valuable content and good usability, and rank pages accordingly. For example, if Google sends you to a website but you leave before the page loads, that tells Google that the loading time is too long for the user, and your search engine ranking will suffer. Run tools like PageSpeed Insights by Google to ensure that your sites loading times are ideal.
Additionally, Google wants its users to receive the highest quality information. An article or piece of web content that has little if any research and is of a low word count likely does not provide any meaningful value. Google and its users will see through the mediocre attempt; therefore, it will produce little to no engagement and will not help in the ranking. Instead, focus on in-depth content that has a good amount of research that web surfers will want to read and share. Write to the user and never for the search engine. Have a mix of content that engages people of all levels. Some can be 1000-word articles with great depth while others are 3000-word research papers that include statistical data.
Additional factors to consider
Other factors will also play a critical role in the ranking of a website. For one, having duplicate content will have a negative effect. Therefore, make sure to look for and remove anything that is a copy. Also, perform a web search and ensure that your content is not being replicated. Furthermore, update your content regularly. This indicates to Google that your site is relevant, active, and being consistently updated. Additionally, work on the mobile-friendliness of the site. Google rolled out a mobile-first index that looks for sites to pass the mobility test. If your site is not optimized for smartphones and tablets, it will be ranked lower.
