Getting your website ranked organically for your keywords can really mean the difference between really succeeding and barely scraping by. According to Marketing Land on average, 71.33% of searches resulted in a page one Google organic click. This goes on to support the saying the best page to bury a dead body is on the second page of Google. We recently relaunched our website and we have worked our way back to the first page for “San Francisco web design, “San Francisco web designer” and “San Francisco website designer,” three of the most competitive search terms in our industry. Apart from SEO, here are the most important things that we did to earn our position on the first page of Google.
Fresh Content Relevant to Your Target Market
Write content that is interesting and relevant to your target market. Think of what customers and prospects would find useful and blog or write webpages about those topics on a regular basis. Think of long tail expressions that your users would be searching for and who would find your products or services useful. Long tail keywords are three- or four-word phrases that are very specific to what you are selling. When a prospect uses a highly specific search term, they are likely looking for exactly what they are going to buy. Be careful not to repeat your keywords too many times or you will be penalized for keyword spamming. Fresh and unique content is the way to Google’s heart and there is no shortcut.
Mobile-Friendly
A mobile-friendly website, otherwise known as a responsive website means that it supports an optimal viewing and interactive experience for mobile users by reorganizing the content and layout for easy reading and navigation with minimum resizing, scrolling and panning. On April 21, 2015, Google started penalizing websites in search results that were not mobile-friendly. If you notice that your website was negatively affected by Mobilegeddon, you should redesign your website with responsive coding as soon as possible. With mobile traffic having surpassed traditional laptop and desktop traffic as of last year, there is no reason not to do this if you want to successfully convert more mobile users into customers.
Custom Coded to Load Fast
Page loading time is one of the biggest reasons why we never support customizing pre-made WordPress themes. Buying a cheap WordPress theme and populating it with your content can seem like a great idea but you will pay for it in other ways. Because a pre-made theme is bloated with endless features and functionality, it will always load slower and be more generic than a custom WordPress website built from scratch catered to convert your target market. Loading time is a major factor in website abandonment and bounce rate. According to KissMetrics, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load and a one second delay in page response can result in a 7% decrease in conversions. Check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify ways to make your site faster and more mobile-friendly.
Verify Your Business on Google+
If you are a local business, creating a Google+ page, verifying your address and getting a few reviews can go a long way to getting you ranked for your local keywords. To verify your business, first login to Google+ and click “Manage this page” on the page you’d like to verify. Next click “Verify your business” under your address and you will receive a postcard in 2-3 weeks with a PIN number which you will enter to verify your business and improve your website’s ranking in local search results.
In Conclusion
Google’s Panda and Mobilegeddon updates this year have really shaken up search engine rankings. However, we found that implementing these tips in addition to SEO really helped us in getting back on the first page of Google for our specific keywords. Please contact us if your website rankings have been negatively impacted.