Improve Search Engine Rankings

Keyword optimisation is just one element in ensuring you make it to the top of the SERPs. However, for SEO algorithms, it’s about more than keywords alone. Factors such as how long your visitors linger on your site, bounce rate, broken links, number of pages viewed all give Search Engines important information about how useful your website will be to users.

In a nutshell, how well you rank comes down to how user-friendly your site is. A site with great usability makes people want to remain there; helping it climb up the results pages. One important component is how easy it is for customers to find what they’re looking for on a website.

If they can’t locate something, they’re more likely to navigate away, impacting on your ranking. Next, your website needs to be intuitive – are calls to action visible, consistent and clearly clickable? If a website’s a struggle to use, people will give up and leave.

Is your site well-written and well-formatted? Easily-digested content and clear layouts and fonts keep readers reading. Errors on a site are another area to watch out for. A 404 Page Not Found error will not only frustrate visitors but also affect your SEO ranking.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to improve your SEO ranking – here are just a few:

• Content, content, content: We can’t say it enough. Content is king. Useful, high-quality content is what will keep visitors engaged and on your site. According to SerpIQ, research showed that websites ranking in the top 10 results for any Google Keyword had at least 2,000 words worth of content. The more content a web page has, the higher up the rankings it goes. Of course, what you write has to be interesting and relevant – but more words equal more value for visitors.
• Make header tags work hard: A well-formatted site can lead to a well-visited site. Knowing how to use header tags properly helps break up your content into easily assimilated sections (again improving the UX). Plus, by including relevant terms in header tags, you also help boost SEO rankings against those keywords.
• Get speedy: People are impatient – they don’t like to wait too long for pages to load. Bing and Google know this, and take this into account as part of their algorithms. And if people click away, that affects your bounce rate. So make sure your code is clean and streamlined, reduce the number of plug-ins you have, and optimise image sizing to speed up loading time.
• Social sharing: Tweets, Facebook shares and Pintrest pins can all help ranking. Plus, 4 in 10 Facebook users say they go from sharing/liking an item to buying it – so social sharing buttons on your site can improve sales too.
• Nifty navigation: If visitors can’t find what they want, they leave. Flat site architecture not only helps navigation but can also help improve SEO ranking as it links critical pages. Make your site slick, navigable and interesting, and you’ll soon find it climbing the SERPs.