SEO Santa Barbara
We’ve talked about how having a website can significantly improve your reach, reputation, and customer relations. However, it is not enough to just have a website, you need to make sure people will see it. To do that, you will need to understand Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short.
This optimization allows your website to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. While this may not seem important, you have to remember that 80% of search engine users will only go to three pages at most. That means every spot counts on those three pages, so you have to make sure you rank high in them.
How is SEO Determined
So how does good SEO rank your website? The algorithm determines your rank. The algorithm is what platforms like Google use to decide which websites will appear first in the search. Typically, there are specific requirements that you have to reach in the search engine algorithm to rank. The more requirements you meet, the better your score will be.
The actual algorithm is not definite, though, as most search engines regularly update it and make changes every once in a while. Generally some areas remain more or less the same.
Things That Affect SEO
Website Structure
The website structure is one of the most basic yet important areas to consider when improving your SEO. This refers to how you present your website and connect to other pages. The appearance of your website is the first thing that people will see when they click on your website, and because of that, you need to make sure the design elements attract potential customers.
Almost three-fourths of people will lose interest in your website if they do not like what they see. Things like walls of texts, a lack of images, or a plain background will quickly turn people off to your website.
Aside from these low-hanging fruit, there are many things you can do to spruce up your website. Things like visual aids, interactive tools, internal links, and taxonomies can appeal to people and make visiting your website a more pleasant experience. Keeping a proper heading hierarchy can be great at improving your SEO rating because it shows organization in your work.
Website Functionality
A website is not just an advertisement for your products and services, it is a platform, and you need to treat it like that. Aside from ensuring it’s pretty to look at, you need to make sure everything works the way it should. A lot goes into it, such as having website tools that make navigating it easier or internal linking that allows you to go through pages quickly. Even basic things such as working images, fast loading content, and functioning links are essential.
Almost 90% of users agree that they will not go back to a website after a bad experience, so you have to make sure you get this right. If your customers want something, they should be able to find it with the snap of their fingers.
To ensure this, it means regularly checking your content to ensure that everything is up to date. Another thing is to make sure that all the tools you offer are working and easy to find. Lay them out in a way that’s clear and won’t give your customer any trouble.
Leave A Breadcrumb Trail
As you look into a website’s customers, you have to give them a reason to stay even if they like what they say. That is why a breadcrumb trail is essential to keep your viewers invested. Picture this, and they are reading one of the articles about the services you are offering. While there, they notice a link on that page leading them to another article. They click on that once they finish and read the new post, and there is another link which they click again, again, and again. This cycle goes on until they reach back to the article they started.
That is the breadcrumb trail, and it allows your customers to explore more of your website without feeling forced. Instead, you manage to insert other services you have to offer organically to get their interest. With this method, you can engage your users with multiple articles at a time.
However, you must maintain a balance between the number of links you put in per page. If you end up putting too many might just end up overwhelming your users. The general rule of thumb puts the ratio at around 3-5 images for every thousand words.
While this is great for content that your users are not expecting it, you should not apply it for all situations. If they are looking for something, then its better to give them what they want with as few clicks as possible. Having navigation depth that requires so many clicks is a bad sign and makes it more frustrating for customers who just want to see what they are looking for. Generally, you should keep navigation depth to four clicks or less.
What To Research for SEO
Keywords
One of the first things you should research when improving your SEO are the keywords you will focus on. Keywords are the words you will be using in a place like your title, headings, and sections of the text you will draw attention to. You need to find the words that your audience is searching for so your website will come up in their search. Finding the right ones can make your websites rank higher up in the search engines.
However, you should avoid just picking the most popular ones. While it is true that many people search for them, these are also the ones all websites will be using, so you will have stiff competition. You should focus on getting more traffic but be more specific to your reach.
When you find the right keywords, make sure to update them every once to keep your content fresh. The popular keywords change based on trends and changes in the search engines, so you should always do research every once in a while.
Research Your Audience
Aside from the keywords, also be sure to research your audience. If you want to impact them, you have to know what they are looking for. Be sure to see how well your competitors are doing, what kind of content they are making, and which keywords they are using. Doing that can give you an idea of which content is doing well for the market in general and not just your website.
It is important to remember that this needs to be consistent research done to ensure success in the future. Consumer trends can change over time, and even within a month, your data can become outdated. So you should always make sure you can see where the consumers are heading.
Website Type
Lastly, here is what you should do with your data regarding your website. Once you have the information, you should apply it to set up the website. There are different types of websites that you can use for your content.
- Hierarchical: This website focuses on content that slowly branches out to smaller sections. ie: Clothing that branches out to shirts that branch out to blouses, etc. A website like this is popular with E-commerce, where there are many categories you have to consider.
- Sequential: Unlike Hierarchical methods, this structure guides customers down a particular path to lead them to your landing pages. This means following a linear process where your users go through a series of landing pages to gain content.
- Database: This structure focuses on a ground-up approach where users search for the content they want. To be successful, you will need actual data to search for with their content. However, you can easily add data as time goes on.
- Matrix: A structure like this is a wiki-style template focusing on users searching for the content they want. It is best used for content that focuses on a vast topic.
Trust the SEO Santa Barbara experts
The only thing left is to take action, by jumping in and doing the research to update your SEO strategy. Or you can contact Local Internet Space and our internet marketing services team with any questions you have regarding improving your website ranking. Our experts spend all day everyday studying SEO so were able to provide better faster results. Saving you time and money. We’re excited to help improve your visibility, leads, and sales, so call us right away for a free consultation
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