Creating a solid online presence and visibility is impossible without proper SEO implementation. Your potential customers are currently roaming around on search engines like Google, searching for particular services or products, that you might provide.
Now, if your website doesn’t show up on the first page of the SERP, you are missing out on over 75% of organic traffic, with the website on rank #1 taking 30% of all your potential customers. But, this can all change and you can start climbing up the search engine ladder if you start focusing on your SEO game.
You see, search engines use algorithms to rank websites in reference to a particular search term a.k.a. keyword. This can make you think that SEO is all about keyword optimization, but that is not the case – especially in 2019.
Google wants to connect users to websites that offer the most value alongside an engaging user experience. And so, their algorithms are programmed to judge your website not only on keywords but also on the overall design, performance, domain authority and much more. You have to make sure that you are on top of all these different ranking factors if you want to appear on the first page of the SERP, let alone the number one ranking.
With this in consideration, we have covered a few basic points that you should keep in mind while doing SEO on your website. This will help you get on the good side of Google and avoid getting penalized by their algorithms.
Create Content For Humans, Not Robots
You might think that since web crawlers and search engine bots are going to analyze your website, you should optimize your content for the machines. But in doing so, you might end up with reduced readability and user interactiveness leading to increased bounce rates
Now, Google penalizes websites that have high bounce rates, and therefore, you should not take human readers lightly. The search engine giant uses complex algorithms to decide whether users like to be on your website, with user engagement levels being a crucial deciding factor in your site’s ranking.
You can improve this by avoiding keyword stuffing, making sure you have a clean and uncluttered UI boasting clear call-to-action. Mobile-friendly websites are also favoured by the algorithm, so make sure that your website boasts a responsive design.
Help Google, It’ll Help You
Google uses search engine bots and web crawlers to scan the internet to rank and index all the different websites and web-pages they can find – emphasis on ìthey can find.î Sometimes it can happen that Google misses on a page or a post on your website. If that is the case, then it will never get any traction from users.
To avoid such situations, you should incorporate an XML sitemap on your website. Having a thriving social media presence also helps. On top of that, you can add meta tags and meta descriptions to your media files to let Google know of their relevance so that they incorporate these factors into ranking you higher.
Here is a detailed infographic covering 25+ SEO mistakes users tend to make while doing SEO on their website. Make sure to avoid these mistakes if you want to achieve higher rankings on the SERP.
25+ Common SEO Mistakes That Are Killing Your Website[Infographic] by the team at Hosting Clues
