The thing that many business owners and even some SEO experts forget is that search engine optimization is not a static science. The major search engines are constantly refining the way they locate and index pages for ranking and the rules are always subject to change. As more than one hapless business owner has learned, methods that generated a lot of search engine love last month or last year suddenly becomes grounds for driving those pages to the bottom of the rankings.
If you are serious about retaining your audience and attracting more people, it pays to stay on top of the latest moves by the major engines. Here are some tips that will help you maintain the momentum and maybe even make your site and your brand more popular than ever.
Descriptions: Taking a Fresh Look at User Experience
Did you know that the experience of those who find their way to your site actually begins before they make the decision to visit one of your pages? There’s an increasing emphasis on coming up with short, succinct, and eye-catching descriptions that show up in search engine results.
While the descriptions have always been a piece of the puzzle, now is an excellent time to take a second look at what is displayed when your site shows up in search engine results. Try to step back and read that short description. Would it motivate you to click on the link and go to the site? If not, you can bet it isn’t doing a lot for users either.
Since you may find it hard to be objective, getting help from one of the SEO experts makes sense. An expert can examine the description and determine if it accurately describes what the user will find if he or she does decide to click through. That same expert can also use the latest information about search engine evaluation and decide if the description needs some tweaking to generate more positive attention.
Display is More Important Than Ever
You already know that more people are conducting searches and doing shopping using their phones. The days when laptops, desktops, and even tablets ruled the day for searches is over. That means you need to rethink the way your site displays on different devices.
Some business owners still rely on a dual approach of having one site that displays fine on larger screens and match it with a mobile version that displays on the smaller smartphone screens. Others are going with single sites that look great on any screen while still others are opting for apps built especially for smart phone use.
What does this have to do with SEO? Simply put, the site must load quickly enough to hold the user’s attention. Too many quick bounces – meaning visitors get to your site and leave before the page loads – tells the search engines that people aren’t finding your site helpful. That doesn’t help your ranking at all. Test your pages periodically and make sure they load quickly and give people a real chance to see what you offer.
Whether you are trying to reach an international audience or need help with local SEO remember that the game changes every time a search engine protocol is altered, dumped, or replaced. Work with a pro who keeps up with and anticipates the changes. In the long run, you’ll have more traffic, a lower bounce rate, and build a wider audience.