When you are creating a website for a business, enterprise, or company, it is very important to have good chances to attract the attention of potential clients. However, what ensures that a business can be easily found on the web is a complicated science. And for this, one of the most important factors in SEO, or search engine optimization, can determine where a website appears in Google, for example. In this task, the developer has a lot to do with it.
SEO
It’s about putting yourself in the user’s shoes and asking yourself: how will my customers find me?
There are steps that need to be taken on a site so that we are the first search result shown to people looking for a product like ours.
A good ranking in search results is very important. On the other hand, depending on the situation, it can be difficult to appear as the first relevant result, but with high search intent: without good optimization, you may not pay attention.
There are many factors that play a role in website search engine optimization, such as the Google algorithm. Familiarity with these terms is one of the most important tasks for making this aspect of your business effective, so here are 5 keys to help you get the results you want.
1. Make your website mobile-responsive
Probably many times you have found yourself viewing a website on your mobile rather than on a desktop or laptop computer, and if we consider the number of cell phones in the universe, how can we not deduce then all the people, worldwide, who see content from cell phones.
It is a trend and you just have to check Google Analytics statistics for any site. Today, the medium through which we most visit the internet is with our cell phones, without neglecting computers or tablets. So, if you want to take advantage of the full potential of your consumers so that they can see and use a website, don’t think about it and join in: you need to design responsively.
Responsive design is a technology that determines the screen size a user needs based on their device and is able to present pages in the right size and functionality, turning the user’s navigation into something fully responsive.
The point is that a responsive website can help you rank better in the world of search engines because it can reduce bounce rates when Google considers your site to be mobile-friendly, which is very important to Google and is valued by it. A good level of quality is reflected in a better click-through rate, which means better positioning in search results, well, we already know what that means, don’t we?
2. Keep your pages light, yes or yes
Images make a site look great, but put too many on a page, or do not reduce their weight, and you will see how the loading of the web becomes very slow: that definitely brings down your SEO Score. A good website balances need and benefit, and in this case, the use of words instead of text in graphics makes it possible. To reduce the loading time of your page, you need to make sure that your image files are small.
A web development tip is to resize images before uploading them to your website; when the image is already small, then upload them. Some content managers modify the size of the image but changing the width and height in the HTML: does not take the weight off a photo, but it will make your website noticeably slower for visitors and it will take away the weight that it should have. your SEO.
3. Enable cache
Another way to speed up the loading of your pages is to enable caching so that your website is saved in the visitor’s browser as an HTML version (this is very convenient to do with WordPress plugins, for example). This means that when visitors return to your site, they don’t have to completely reload the page, which saves waiting time. When designing your site, you can specify how long the page is cached and how long it should persist.
Why is this important? A website that loads slowly is “punished” by Google with lower quality, lower click-through rate, and therefore lower visibility in searches. What is a website with no visitors?
4. Move your website in the Social Media world
Although it applies beyond the development world … When you share your website on social networks, you give your SEO a great opportunity to stand out. Make it easy by sharing especially on Facebook with people, groups, or fanpages who know that your content might interest them, trying to place a clear link with which to access your website.
It is not 100% proven, but in practice, we can all realize that good content management, on Facebook, for example, will direct visits to your website that can even become conversions (when you sell a product) or a long visit (quality visit): That’s good for Google! This marketing advantage must be taken with care: if you are also going to include social media icons on your website, always put them at the end, in the footer: you may want everyone to know your Facebook fan page from the web, but sometimes it deviates attention and obstructs your followers from remembering to see the content of your website.
5. Strive for better usability
Good SEO isn’t just about keywords. You must promote good experiences to those who visit you so that they really want to be on your site and that they return, of course. You must ask yourself: Is my website really relevant to Google searches? Does it meet expectations? With usability, you can play a lot of things, which obviously you should pay attention to:
- Content: Is your website a useful resource for potential clients?
- Design: Is your website well designed, such as for easy navigation?
- Development: Can your website be loaded in 2 seconds?
- Responsive web design: Is your website readable and visible on a mobile phone?
One metric that you could check is your impact on your bounce rate. A bounce of more than 50% will let you know that you need to give your website more usability because people visit it, but it goes quickly. A website, especially if it is a company, can have many purposes, but one of the most important is to help you build the business and, for development with SEO, you must have the mentality and security of being helping the purpose, mainly generating sales, conversions or quality visits that help with the fulfillment of the objectives.