Every business wants to rank highly for search engines, particularly for semantic searches (general terms describing your product or service). At Online Amplify, we work with clients to optimize their online presence with two key objectives in mind:
- To achieve high placement in the search results
- To respond to user needs when visitors clicks through to the client website
The process is complex, because search engines (like Google) use a multifaceted and proprietary algorithm to sequence search results. While a fair number of the factors are generally recognized, Google continually adds and tweaks the weighting of factors with the goal of serving the best results to users.
There are literally hundreds of ranking factors which may impact your site’s placement in the search results. While even 100 is an overwhelming number of factors for most business owners to consider, a review offers valuable insights worthwhile of your time. In a quest to offer a consumable summary which may be more manageable for business owners, we offer the following 10 highlights to explore for your own website:
- Domain – Your rank is impacted by how long your site has been active and whether the url contains relevant keywords
- Keywords and Metatags – Are your title, description, keyword and alt tags coded appropriately?
- Content – To achieve high rankings, your content must offer value. Is it unique, well-written, keyword-rich, and updated frequently? And is it understandable by your potential customers?
- Links – Does your site link to and from relevant (well respected) sites, and do you have internal links within your site? Are your site links contextual?
- Word Count – Generally, sites with more content and pages outrank very lean sites — but content must be useful and of high quality
- Usability – A logical and well designed architecture and a site map which documents it are important factors influencing search engine ranking
- Mobile Friendly – Utilize a responsive design to optimize your site for mobile devices to earn points with search engines
- User Analytics – Strong website metrics associated with visitor time on site, page views and bounce rate signal a higher quality site, earning a higher ranking
- Social Influence – A higher number of social shares, likes and pins of your pages indicates authority and quality
- Legitimacy – Credibility signals such as a robust Contact page, active social profiles and website listings in directories are positive ranking factors
Check your site rankings in a few search engines for various search terms. If you aren’t ranking well, consider the items above and contact us if you need help.
Can you explain more about #1, domain? My site is pretty new (less than a year) and I don’t get a lot of people calling me saying that they found me on the Web.
There are several issues relating to your domain. First, ideally your domain name should have relevant keyword(s) in it. For example, if you are a chiropractor, including words like chiropractic, back, spine, or well can help your site to rank more highly. Second, as part of the process when creating a new website, your developer should submit your site to key search engines. There’s so much content on the web that it takes the search engines a while to index all the new content, and submitting your site to key search engines can speed up the process.
Very helpful post. I like the infographic but it’s overwhelming — thank you for identifying some good places to start, and explaining in terms I can understand.
You’re very welcome Roberta! There are many details to consider, and it absolutely can be overwhelming. The key is to start somewhere and stick with it. Thanks for taking the time to comment.