Website didn’t rank as well as you had hoped? Read on!
That’s okay, that just means there’s more room for growth. Grab a coffee and keep reading because there’s a few different aspects we can look at to improve your website’s search rankings. Remember, don’t be frustrated if your website isn’t doing as great as you thought it would. The tips in this posting will help, but don’t expect to see immediate results. Even small changes take time to update in various databases across the web.
Let’s get started!
Keywords
Keywords are arguably the most important part of the search process, so it’s a great place to start. In order to gain a footing in the search rankings, Forbes’ Jia Wertz recommends spending a few days doing some homework to identify the best keywords for each product/page of your site. It might take some time, but the better and more accurate your keywords are, the better your page will rank and visits will increase.
In addition to knowing which keywords to use, Wertz also strongly recommends optimizing for Long-Tail keywords – a [search] phrase containing three or more words. She details that identifying and applying Long-Tail keywords significantly help search engines to more easily rank your website. The more easily it can do that, the higher your site will rank.
Relevant Landing Page
A common pitfall both new and old search entries face is accurately sending searchers to the correct landing page. For example, if I was the automotive tire company GoodYear, I would be extremely careful to match landing pages to their search terms. A search for “What are the best tires for Subaru BRZ” should link to a search page on GoodYear.com displaying only the tires that would fit specifically on a Subaru BRZ. In this age of digital marketing, it’s simply not enough to link a specific keyword to a generic landing page. Customers who don’t land on the page they were expecting quickly become alienated and hit the exit button. If you are specific in your keywords, it should link to that specific item.
Fix Broken Links
Speaking of alienating customers and risking their departure, having dead or broken links is another bad practice that ends up being a huge turn-off to potential customers.
Luckily there are services available online to ensure your website is up-to-date and watertight, with no dead or broken links. A few services recommended by WebSolutions are Online Broken Link Checker and Dead Link Checker.
Test, Revise, and Apply
As the digital age evolves and consumer preferences change, it’s vastly important to stay flexible and change with them. It could be as unnoticeable as one color being preferred over another, or as small as a single word change, but utilizing A/B Testing is a great tool to figure out exactly what works and what doesn’t – with real, hard data.
A/B Testing can be incredibly useful – learn more about A/B Testing by reading QuickSprout.com’s Beginners Guide To A/B Testing
