What crosses your mind when hearing the word SEO or Search Engine Optimization? Some of you probably think about keywords when hearing the term. Many business owners only focus on keywords for their SEO strategies. If you have done the same thing and yet to get good results, perhaps you need to look for other significant factors that affect your website ranking on search engines. Search result algorithms are not only affected by keywords.
There are many other factors that affect your website ranking on search results. For example, the number of views, broken links, the quality of inbound and outbound links, bounce rates, how long visitors spend time on your website, and many more. In this article, we will let you know about website usability and how to improve search engine ranking for your website.
What is Website Usability?
Website usability is a combination of various website elements related to conversion. These website elements are:
- Effectivity. Do visitors immediately get the information they need when they visit your website? For example, can they contact the customer care or buy a product they want in less than 7 seconds?
- Efficiency. Efficiency is an addition to effectiveness. How long does it take for customers to complete their activities, such as buying products, on your website? If your business website makes it hard for customers to buy products in a short time, they will likely leave your website.
- Memorability. Can visitors find your website again for the same keyword? Return traffic is an important thing in Google’s algorithmic assessment and affects your website SEO. One of the ways you can try to make your visitors remember your website is using new extension domains, such as .store, .tech, and so on. These domains are helpful for making a unique, short domain name so that it improves your website memorability.
- Error Prevention. Errors on your website will affect user experience as well as SEO rankings. These errors include expired links, links lead to wrong pages, and the 404 page not found error.
All businesses always look for the right way to improve their website rankings on search engines. And building SEO for a business is a long-term investment. SEO is a long process so if there is any company or service promising you that you will get quick results from SEO, you should be suspicious.
How to Improve Your Website Ranking
Below are some tips you can try to improve search engine ranking for your website.
1. Mobile Version Website Optimization
This one is crucial. With Google applying the Mobile-First index, the first thing you have to do to improve your website ranking on search engines is doing a mobile-friendly test. You need to pay close attention to a mobile-friendly website to avoid lowering your website ranking in search results on smartphones. Your task is to make it easier for visitors to visit your website via smartphones, without disturbing their activities.
2. Do SEO Audit
Lack of information about websites and information structures can fail even the best SEO strategy. Google’s algorithms do not really like websites with complicated navigations. Therefore, make your website navigation as easy as possible for visitors. In order to start it, you can learn about SEO basics. Once you have understood about SEO basics, you will have better insights and knowledge and figure out what to improve.
3. Fix Loading Time
The third tip to improve your website ranking on search engines is fixing loading time. This is a continuous process. You are suggested to always monitor your website speed, both for desktop and mobile versions. Below are several things you can do to improve the loading speed on your website:
- Image File Size. Before uploading an image, you can use tools like TinyPNG to shrink the image file size without having to sacrifice the quality of the picture.
- Script. Before uploading CSS and JS files on your website, it is better to re-check if you really need them or not. It is because these files can slow down your website loading speed. If it is possible, you can merge several scripts into one file.
- Browser Cache. When a browser displays a website page, it can also load a number of files. These cache files are locally stored in visitors’ computers. This way, when a visitor moves to a new page, the cache files do not need to be loaded again. Most websites enable browser caching by adding access code files to hosting or server.
4. Fix Broken Links
Fixing broken links can also improve search engine ranking. Both external links and internal links affect your website ranking on search results. Usually, website owners or managers ignore broken links. In fact, they can affect user experience when visitors access your website. You can use tools like W3C Link Checker to detect broken links so that you can immediately fix them.
5. Create Appropriate Anchor Texts
Though it looks unimportant, anchor texts significantly affect Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Having appropriate anchor texts is a crucial factor when it comes to building a link. If your anchor text matches the intended link, search engines will get a positive signal about your website. The anchor text and website address should have a high matching level to improve the website SEO.
So, how long does it take to get a ranking on the first page of search engines like Google? Well, it cannot be ensured. It can take both long and short time. It is because there are a lot of factors that affect a website ranking. And each case needs different methods to improve the ranking.
Conclusion
Search engines like Google and Naver always update their algorithms and how they determine the ranking of a website. The strategies mentioned above are proven to be effective in improving website rankings on search results. But keep in mind that you have to do those strategies continuously to get the best result. As it is said before, improving SEO and website ranking is a long process. So, are you ready to improve search engine ranking for your website?
