Most successful business ideas are wrapped around one thing: a critical problem or desire they are solving for their ideal customer. Every person who buys a product and service is looking for something, and these days they search the internet to find that something! Where does your business stand in those search results? Are you even on the first page? The majority of people tend not to go past the first page when searching for things, because of this search engine optimization (SEO) is vital to the success of your business. As more and more people turn to the web to find what they seek, it’s more important than ever to pay attention to your web design and content on your business pages. Are you maximizing your company’s potential?
The Juicy Details on Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is crucial in getting your business the spotlight because over 80% of people take advantage of the internet’s many resources when searching for the answer to their wildest dreams. (Source: Template Monster) So you need to be competing wildly for a spot because research also shows that 95% of traffic lives on the first page, and a meek 5% for anything on the second page, even less for the third! (Source: Chitika) How many results does Google show on their first page anyway? About 10. That’s it! That is way fewer spots than there are competitors of yours fighting for those spots.
There are over a dozen different factors that weigh in on how well Google or other search engines rank your site and pages in their listings. But the top two that hover over them all is web design and content. And content won’t even matter if the search engine robots can’t crawl to your content or understand it. Wait…. crawl? …Understand? …. ROBOTS? What does it all mean?!
Wait, what was this about robots and my website?
It used to be that webmasters would build a site and make it beautiful and easy to use and that was all that mattered, but because SEO is a big player in the battle of the businesses, other factors must be considered. Robots are a way for search engines to investigate your website and determine its value. Many things determine value but here are four important ones:
- Link Authority: What about the links in your content? Do all the links work or are they broken? Does your site link to other sites? Do other sites link to you? The more links you can amass on your website from external sites, the higher authority search engines give you.
- Reliability: Does everything work well on your site? Are the picture carousels flowing smoothly, pages loading quickly, playlists loading seamlessly?
- UX: Can you move from the homepage easily to every part of your website that you want to show customers and search engines? If you have a blog and there isn’t an easy path from the homepage to the blog, then the robots won’t be able to see it or index it in their listings for your customer’s search queries. Location of the content on your site, how things are spaced out and placed all matter in search engine optimization.
- Content and Keywords: What problem are you trying to solve? What keywords get your customers calling or showing up? The more content sprinkled with targeted keywords on your website, the better.
Now What?
This information is just the beginning when it comes to optimizing your web design and content for search engines. There are many pieces to the puzzle that is search engine optimization, and they are all critical in getting your business the spotlight it deserves. How far down the SEO hole have you gone for your company? Have you made sure that your web design flows in accordance? Now is a great time to consult with a team who knows the delicate intricacies of SEO and how to tie it, web design, and content into a neat little package. Chat with your favorite digital marketing agency today!
