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So your website looks terrific. You’re done, right?
In truth, your website’s appearance is just the tip of the iceberg. Far more important is how it functions. Is it easy to use? Is it understandable? Is it engaging for website visitors? After all, your website doesn’t exist just to be pretty. Its function is to attract visitors and convert them into customers. For this reason, some companies struggle with website design, particularly in highly competitive business sectors. A poorly designed site can also fail at search engine optimization (SEO), meaning that your site is getting buried in a lot of competitive noise.
Luckily, there are some easy ways to correct these common website mistakes.
How to Fix Poor SEO
Your ultimate goal should be to keep your website’s ranking high in the search engine results pages (SERPs). For this reason, it’s critical that you follow best practices in search engine optimization to ensure that crawlers can locate your content easily and rank it well. SEO begins and ends with good, fresh content. Ensure that the material you post is written in a way that will appeal to browsers and online shoppers, in a language they appreciate and understand.
Using Bad Keywords
Many websites fail to correctly use the keywords that will attract browsers to their site. Take some time to identify the keywords that are important for your business and be sure to use them in the page headlines (especially the H1 and H2 headings). These should be chosen based on quality and data – not solely on the words you wish to come up for.
Understanding How Search Works
When people are conducting web searches, they often structure their search in the form of a question. (“Where can I get carpets cleaned in my area?”) Consider using the questions early in your content, and then using the rest of the body of the content to answer those questions.
Regular Content Updates Are Still Important
Search engines are more likely to rate sites with new, fresh content higher in the rankings. If it’s been a long time since you updated or added to your content, now is the time to get cracking with fresh, timely and relevant material. Consider blogging and also using your Google My Business Page to keep the browsers updated on what your business is up to.
Tags are Critical
Be sure you are naming your images properly as well as the alt text that will appear when web surfers hover over an image. These and correctly naming your page meta title and URLs and descriptions with the correct keywords and relevant information will weigh heavily on performance.
Stay Away from Keyword Stuffing
Yes, in 2022 you will still get penalized for keyword stuffing. Some find it tempting to jam a list of keywords into their alt tags. Search engines today are smart, and they are programmed to look for keyword stuffing, which could conceivably force your website to a lower ranking.
It’s All About UX
Before you even launch a site, test it out. Is it easy to find what shoppers are looking for? Or is the relevant information buried under lots of flash and design flair? Is your contact information front and center? Are you overwhelming visitors with video the moment they arrive? Some search engines appear to rank websites based on the amount of written words on the site, so go easy with video and images as pretty and cool as they may look, words still matter. The more clean, easy to use and engaging your site is, the longer visitors will stay, and the better it will signal search engine rankings.
Professional Content is Our Business!
Content is too critical to the customer experience and the marketing strategy to leave it to chance. If you don’t have the resources to produce fresh and innovative content in-house, look to a team of SEO professionals to help you. At Connecticut-based Keyword Performance, we can help you develop a unique content marketing strategy – and content to make it work. We also offer web design, web development and paid ads services to help you reach your long-term marketing goals. Visit our web site or call 203-284-1929 for a FREE consultation.
