back to thedrum.com
Do’s: In order to achieve a good user experience, it is imperative for companies to adopt a responsive website design. This is due to the fact that an increasing amount of users are now using mobile devices to access websites. As a result, companies need a responsive layout that will automatically adjust to varying screen sizes. Improving your site speed will also improve your ranking, as Google uses this as a metric to analyse website quality. People do not like to wait a long time for a website to appear on their screen, consequently, Google wants to ensure that its users get speedy searches. A tool like PageSpeed Tools from Google is great for testing website performance. Don’ts: Pages with thin content are poorly ranked by search engines. Thin content includes any low quality pages that add no value to the user. In addition, overcomplicated website designs can be problematic. Companies should simplify their designs and avoid using excessive imagery and confusing colour schemes. If companies do not look at their websites through the eye of the user, they may become unattractive and messy. Consequently, the bounce rate will be much greater than the conversion rate.
Do’s: Keywords are fundamental for SEO. In order to choose the right key words, companies must not focus on generic terms as this is highly competitive. Instead, firms need to focus on using good phrases. Generating good phrases should focus on answering the simple question of what products/services do you sell and where? For example, SEO services in Newcastle. For small companies, it is also important to avoid vanity words (broad phrases that represent an entire industry). Instead, SMEs should focus on using more specific keywords that directly match the product offering. Don’ts: it is important to continue to write content for humans and not robots. Companies cannot outsmart Google by using keywords in every sentence, doing so creates an unnatural flow throughout the text that will disrupt the customer journey. Keyword “stuffing” is detrimental to SEO success. After all, search engines exist to help people. Helpful and engaging content will be the most effective in the long run, as consumers will spend the most time on these sites. Additionally, helpful sites will get shared and this will increase engagement and ranking even further.
Links provide paths between various web pages. Websites can use both internal and external links in order to gain a higher ranking on the search engine. Google wants users to find what it is searching. Through linking to other websites, firms are providing a beneficial service to Google and as a result of this, their website becomes a highly valuable resource. Internal links have the advantages of aiding navigation and helping the SEO. External links also help to improve your ranking, however, the quantity and quality of external links that you use have a significant impact. Do’s: In order to improve the credibility of your website you must use links to trustworthy and informative external websites. The external link will only be valuable if the external source is both relevant and popular. Don’ts: It is important never to link from an outside website that is poor in quality, as this can damage your ranking and Google's TF (trust flow). Click here for more information on SEO.
