Great SEO starts with a great website.  So what makes a website great for SEO?

First and foremost, yours and your website must be optimally designed for a great user experience.

In one of our previous posts, we have discussed Google’s Search Quality Rating Guidelines for their human evaluators.  Humans then rate search results which serve as feedback to improve their algorithm.

This is Google’s way of ensuring search results displayed by their algorithms are what they should be – answers to what users are looking for.

Google has been aligning their machine learning and algorithms with the user experience by coming up with website performance metrics.  Here are some of the metrics they’re using, and may be using, as ranking signals:

 

• Site Speed
• Low Bounce Rate
• Mobile-friendliness

 

Site Speed

Users easily give up on slow websites. A study by Akamai revealed that:

• 52% of smartphone users
• 47% for desktop users 

…expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.

  

According to Aberdeen Group, a 1-second delay in page load time yields:

• 11% fewer page views
• 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
• 7% loss in conversions

 

Here are some techniques we use for a fast-loading website.

• Caching
• GZIP Compression
• CSS Optimization
• Minification
• WordPress Plug-ins Optimization
• Image Optimization
• …and more

 

Bounce Rate 

If you are performing great SEO your bounce rate should be low. Bounce rate shows a strong correlation with rankings.

So it is important to pay attention to decreasing your bounce rate — low bounce rate is an indication (but not in the strictest sense) that your website visitors are engaged by going to other pages on your site.

A high bounce rate can be caused by factors such as design and usability.

 

• Design and Layout
  
  Aside from bad content, bad design and layout turns off website visitors.
   
• Easy Navigation
  
  If your visitors couldn’t figure out where to go next or where they are in the context of your entire website, they’d probably just drop off.

 

Here is Google’s guide to improve bounce rate.

  

Mobile-Friendliness 

Although non-mobile-friendly websites obviously get high bounce rates from users who are on a mobile device – thereby making mobile-friendliness an element to decreasing bounce rates, it is a ranking factor in its own category.

 Google’s Mobile Friendly Update on April 21, 2015 was designed to give a ranking boost to mobile-friendly pages on Google’s search results on mobile devices. Here is a detailed post about the importance of a mobile-friendly website.

Our web designs have great navigation and themes for every niche. We are always up to date with the latest mobile-friendly guidelines and newest call to actions to create conversions!

Great SEO starts with a great website! Our Web Builds are lightweight, optimized for speed, have sound design and layout, and are mobile-friendly.

 

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Top 5 Checklist For Your Website

 

1) Call-only campaigns are specially designed to only show on mobile devices that can make phone calls. This means every click you pay for can be a phone call to your business.

2) Benefits of call only campaign:-

– Adding phone numbers to our ads makes it easy for people to call you when you’re on the go.
– We can share these numbers across ads within an ad group or entire campaign.
– Clicks on call-only ads exclusively drive calls to our business.
– We can set numbers to appear only when your business can take calls.
– We can count calls as conversions.
– Call extensions can typically increase click-through rates by 6-8%.

3) For more information, visit –https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453991#callonly

I’ve put together my Top 5 checklist below.

If your website is missing or fails any of the things listed below it is highly recommended you give us a call (847.359.6969) so we can either fix them for you, or guide you through the process of fixing them yourself.

1. Your Website HAS to be Mobile Friendly
This one we’ve been warning our customers about for almost 12 months now. I am amazed that nearly half of the small business websites I visit each day are still not mobile friendly. Google have a useful Mobile Checker you can run to check this. It takes about 10 seconds. Here is the link: Google Mobile-Friendly Test.

Here is a great article on the importance of a Mobile-Friendly website: The Importance of a Mobile-Friendly Website

3. Have a Clear Call To Action & Click To Call Button2. Get Listed on Google Maps and Get Some Google Reviews
Did you know that you only need 5 reviews to get 5 stars next to your business name on your Google Map listings? Get your best customers to review you right away. If you need help with this call us and ask about our Google Digital Marketing Packages.

All websites need a clear and concise “Call To Action”. Do you want your customers to request a quote, maybe fill out a form, or at the very least give you a call. This needs to be clearly communicated on your website. We want you to call us after reading this email. Check out our “Click To Call” button at the bottom of this email.

4. Ensure an Acceptable Page Speed
The speed of your website is one of the many factors Google looks at when ranking your website. You need to ensure you’re at the very least in the “Orange” range when you run this test: Google Page Speed Test.

Online Shops – Extra Tips5. A Modern 2016 Look
Your site from 2012 just won’t cut it anymore. If you haven’t freshened up the look of your website in the past couple of years now is the time to consider it.

If you’re running an Online Shop the five points above all apply. In addition, you should absolutely ensure you have:

1. A One Page Checkout
Make sure your customers can pay with as few clicks as possible. If you don’t have a one-page checkout give us a call, we can get one installed for you for a minimal cost.

2. An SSL – Security Certificate
Apart from giving your customers more confidence during the checkout process (they’ll see the little padlock) an SSL also gives Google confidence and can contribute to your site’s ranking.

In order to come up with a killer content strategy for SEO, you should have a Chief Content Officer who can champion your content using a mission statement.

Create a Mission Statement

Your mission statement will provide you with the guidance you need to keep your content focused. Your mission statement should provide the answers to these three questions:

1. Who is my audience?
2. What can I teach them?
3. What are my learning objectives?

Create a Content Calendar

 Use the same premise for your content as the best publications out there. Lay out a years’ worth of articles or blogs and have a deadline for their approval and the date they will be posted on your site. Allow the seasons to act as a base. Most businesses have a sales cycle you can use to choose the most persuasive and informative content to publish at the best time of the year. You can then fill the holes with relevant information that will engage your audience and help you create a following.

 

Tap Your Resources  

Your own team is your best resource for content. They should be experts in their field and should be able to provide ideas and insights into the business. Remember you are trying to create information that will provide a forum for your keywords to help the search engines understand what you represent. Using your own people will add credibility and also offer some authentic personality to your content. It will also help you create unique and authoritative content, SEO strategy’s best friend.

 

Find a Voice to Represent your Brand

 You need to create a consistent voice that will represent your brand. Are you witty and clever, funny and insightful or solid and trustworthy? If you are the owner of the business consider who you are and if you like your own persona. Also if you are going to feature articles from your team it is not necessarily a bad thing if they use their own personalities as it helps create a sense of diversity with each person coming together offering their own area of expertise. It makes you look well-rounded as long as you don’t come across too disparate.

 

To Outsource or Not?

 Outsourcing content to a third party can be a great way to get quality content for your company. You just need to find the right person or people that will write your content. Preferably, they will have experience and knowledge in your industry. Once they write a few articles, edit the articles to make minor changes that ensures your brand identity is consistent.

Consult an expert at www.seosolutions.us to learn more about content strategies that yield results.