Ten years ago, it used to be that SEO was largely about piling up usage of keywords in website copy to gain ranking, but search engines, led by Google, eventually recognized that the results were . . . suboptimal, to put it kindly. The kind of dreck that was fashioned in order to place sites near the front in search pages became almost in many instances virtually unreadable.
Google responded by gradually reworking the algorithms that evaluate and rank websites. The algorithms were rewritten to value things like ease of use, inter- and extra-site integration through links, variety of information and illustration, clarity of layout, relevance of copy, grammatical sense of copy, speed in serving up pages, and so forth. The emphasis was shifted to the overall user experience of the site, and while keywords still play a part, naturally, that part is much less prominent than it used to be.
What are some of the things you can do to take advantage of this new SEO dispensation? They are not quite as simple as they used to be, but they are also not nearly as boring.
Keep Your Website’s Technology Current
As mentioned above, one of the things that Google’s ranking takes into account is how fast your pages are served. If you are using old plug-ins, or ones that are no longer compatible with other changes to your site, that may place you at a disadvantage. The team at SunAnt can get a look into the plumbing, revise things, or perform scheduled maintenance to make sure you’re staying up to date.
Cross-Site Layout and Integration
How easy is it for your customers to navigate from one part of your website to another? How easily can they find what they are looking for? How easily can they log in and conduct transactions, if you sell goods and services directly from your site? The new algorithms measure cross-platform integration, to take these things into account.
Content Variety, Quality, and Currency
Do you update some of your content from time to time to keep it fresh, or at least reflective of what changes in your business? Do you take advantage of the range of media that your site can host? Are there good illustrations, infographics, videos, options for contact, FAQs and the like? Are you making your message as stimulating as you can to draw potential clients? If you need help or advice regarding any of these things, SunAnt can provide it. For example, they can put you on a monthly, quarterly or other content revision plan.
Does Your Site Function Well Across Platforms, and for Special Needs Customers?
As more and more commercial web traffic shifts to cell phones and other portable devices, it becomes increasingly critical to optimize your site to serve up information in a format that’s also easily accessible from those devices. In addition, it’s becoming ever more critical to make sure your site is accessible for the sight impaired. Undoubtedly, Google will increasingly place weight on whether your site is accessible to the differently abled in this way.
Your website is critical to your business success. Give the friendly experts at SunAnt a call to talk about how they can make it work even better for you.
