As we look forward to a new year ahead, we should pay attention to organic ranking factors which are required by Google. Google rewards those websites that use content in a creative way to improve SEO. Search behavior is driven by long tail key words which make up the Google search. In simpler terms just come up with a phrase which someone will be sure to search for in Google. Here are a few factors that Google will be looking for in the year ahead:
- The number of website visits to your site
- How long someone spends on your site
- The amount of pages they visit per session
- The bounce rate (how often people leave the site)
- How many reciprocal websites are linked to yours
- The total amount of back links to your own site
- The length of your post content
- The consistency in publishing new content
- Is your site a “secure” website?
- Amount of keywords in the body text
- Organic and creative content
- Meta description and keyword density
How important is the size of the website?
Content is still king and the more pages a website displays, determines the value of the site, at least to Google and top search engines. Most websites are developed to have at least five to ten pages in the beginning. However, by adding blog posts regularly, you can increase the size of the site page count. This is because each new blog article published counts as a new page for your website. If Google has the choice of ranking a small site with few pages and no blog, or a site with a few pages and many blog posts, the site with the blog posts wins every time. This is another reason to add a blog post regularly. As the page count increases, so does the results in Google. More chances for your target audience to find your site.
WordPress is best for blogging:
Most professionals all agree that WordPress is by far, the best platform for blogging. If your site has no blog, ask your site developer to add a blog right away. There are professional bloggers available to blog for you and we have a list per your request for this information. Otherwise, there are tutorials online to learn the current blogging techniques. Consistency is key. Blog as much as you can and at least several times per month. The WordPress platform is easy to learn and allows easy access to each page for constant changes. Hiring a programmer to make changes can be costly. Some platforms such as Drupal and custom html are too difficult for the normal site owner to learn quickly. It is better to stick to the easier platform to learn. WordPress fits that bill.
Improving your landing page and adding an FAQ page:
As your customers search on Google, make sure that their search (using a keyword phrase) corresponds to a page in the website. Add informative keyword bullets on the home page and have those link to the corresponding page of information within the site. Keep the landing page content to a minimum and be concise as to your major services offered. Stay within a 300 word limit for the landing page. Further, creating an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page is a great way to attract inbound links to your website. The questions your target audience may ask will become the anchor text which leads them to your site and to the answer they are looking for. FAQ pages are becoming increasingly popular for all business sites. Offering this guide to the major questions within your own industry is a huge help for all visitors.
Why organic content will improves ranking factors:
One of the most powerful techniques in improving your website and getting the high traffic you are looking for is to blog regularly. Not any content will do however. The content you add to the site must be written by a human and not just something you have found online to copy and paste. Google knows the difference and is looking for content worth listing. Each time you add fresh content to your site you are announcing to the world that you are alive and still in business.
Otherwise your site is a big “dead” zone. And let’s face it, who wants to shop on a site that appears inactive. We want to know the site we are looking at is relevant and has information we can really use for our benefit. We search online today for anything and everything. Our time is valuable and if the site we are looking at is not useful, we will simply move on. Search queries are done to find active and informative sites. Know this and make the changes necessary to comply with what people are really searching for.
Christmas Holiday Sales:
Since the holidays are here, this is a great time for you to prepare and advertise holiday sales which benefit your customers. Offering a small discount and sending holiday news releases will bring big returns this month. Stay tuned as we discuss more on holiday marketing plans in our next blog post. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the holiday festive activities with friends and family. Contact us for your next big or small design project.
Ramona J. Holland-Rose
Chief Creative Officer & SEO Professional
Inside Design Orlando
