How to Optimize Website for effective SEO?

Optimizing a website for SEO is one of the most important responsibilities of every entrepreneur. The latest Gemius search engine ranking shows us that over 97% of all searches by Internet users in the period from 5 to 18 June this year come from the Google search engine. Other players, such as Bing or Yahoo, occupy 1.30% and 0.75% successively – as you can see, the market is completely monopolized.

Most of the traffic on the website is usually generated by the search engine, so the method to increase the effectiveness of our site is first of all to get a high position in the search results. It is worth realizing that “positioning” is a process, so you have to wait for the effects of our actions.

After all, this is one of the best methods for generating traffic on the website, and hence, a higher conversion rate and sales level.

1. White hat SEO and Mobile SEO

The continuous increase in the number of Internet users motivates to create updates that will improve the comfort of both Internet users and web site founders. The new Google algorithms have a huge impact on positioning – even if our site was created for SEO, after updating the algorithm, the position of the website may fluctuate. This is because each update introduces new requirements, the fulfillment of which determines our position in the SERP, that is the search results.

In 2017, the importance of mobile devices grow – according to research conducted by We Are Social and Hootsuite, already half of the population uses the Internet, while 46% of them connect to the network using smartphones and tablets.

The optimization of websites for mobile devices is currently a main priority – creating a simple interface and a mobile version (responsive web design) with a transparent layout is one of the most important elements of SEO.

Google has announced a change to the current principle that this desktop version of the website is taken into account when evaluating and determining the position of the page in the search engine for the mobile version.

It is also worth paying attention to the design of UX and UI, i.e. creating positive impressions from staying on our site by improving its functionality and usability as well as optimizing technical parameters, such as charging speed, layout or interface.

Practices to avoid are copy content, redirection, broken link, cloaking and weak linking – this site will never gain a good position in Google’s results. An attempt to deceive Google’s algorithms by using unnatural building links leading to our domain (Black Hat SEO) may bring short-term effects but in the long run it will only hurt.

The Google algorithm is improved several hundred times a year in order to improve the quality of delivered results in the search engine.

2. New Ranking Factors and Artificial Intelligence

Recent Google reports reveal that one of the new ranking factors is the SSL security certificate- there have been reports that pages without an SSL certificate will receive the category “Unsecured” and even “Dangerous” from the search engine.

One of the newest elements of the algorithm is also RankBrain, or the mechanism of artificial intelligence. It is very important in the positioning process – it was classified as third in terms of importance (just after the page content and linking) search engine positioning factor (SERP – Search Engine Result Page).

RankBrain focuses on verifying the content on the page – it is not about mindless filling in the page, but about sharing valuable content. Companies with interesting materials will be able to count on high positions in the ranking. Long texts with pictures added on the website can help us gain the desired position in the search results.

When optimizing a website for SEO, it is worth focusing on each of the above elements, because ultimately all are crucial for the position and efficiency of our site.

3. An SEO Audit wills Help Us Fix Errors

It often happens that despite the optimization, our site still does not occupy a high result in the search engine. Helpful in this case may be an SEO audit, during which specialists will show us mistakes and give advice in relation to every aspect of the site.

Such a report will give us a detailed analysis of the problems that we can easily fix, enabling our site to take a higher rank. It is worth remembering that the SEO audit will not describe exactly all ranking factors – specialists estimate that there are about 200 of them, but Google does not provide too much data on the subject.

Companies such as Searchmetrics publish reports on this subject every year, but this is only hypothetical knowledge, based on the analysis of high-ranking pages.

The SEO audit should focus on the indexing study, that is, whether all the pages that we would like to place there appear in the search results.

In addition, the analysis concerns the visibility of our site in terms of individual phrases, the correctness of external and internal linking , the compatibility of phrases with the content published on the site and the construction of URLs.

Technical parameters such as the structure and layout of the website, adaptation to mobile devices, and impressions from staying on the site, loading speed, safety certificates and all parameters related to UX are also examined during the audit.

A well-made SEO audit, however, is very helpful and can give us tips useful in increasing positions, which will directly convert into higher sales results.