SEO and ranking organically in Google can be a tricky task to accomplish and can be quite overwhelming. If you do a quick search on how to increase your ranking in Google, you’ll be sure to stumble across some articles and tutorials that tell you what you SHOULD be doing, however, there are actually a few things that you SHOULDN’T be doing that can heavily impact your overall SEO and Google Rankings.
We understand that sometimes trying to adjust, edit and add all these minor setting tweaks, plugins and the occasional 4 leaf clover can just be overwhelming and discourage you from improving your SEO and Google Rankings. By making sure you at least aren’t doing the things outlined below, you can be confident in knowing you’re on the right track to better SEO and improved rankings!
What you may not know is that 5 out of 10 small businesses still don’t have a website (crazy, I know), but why is this important to know? Just this statistic alone shows how much opportunity lies ahead to be able to capture and target your ideal customers and get ahead of your competitors on Google. What is even more astonishing is that a whopping 47% of small businesses had no web presence at all in 2018. The time to strike is now, quick, before they all catch on!
With 55% of people searching for reviews and recommendations before they purchase, it’s important to get in front of these potential customers in the right way with the right information, and improving your SEO and organic rankings is a great way to do this. 52% of small businesses still don’t intend to use SEO at all and only 26% of small business use SEO Techniques, which means there is so much room left to get ahead of your competition! I can imagine after reading through these stats about how people and business are using the web and Google you’re itching to make sure you’re on the right path…well wait no more, let’s get you on your way!
Here are the top 3 mistakes that can hurt your search result rankings:
Google looks at a lot more than just the keywords used on your website, it looks at what we like to call your ‘Digital Ecosystem’, this is anything that helps give you a web presence for your business, including: Facebook and other social platforms as well as your Google Accounts and services such as Google My Business, Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Having these unlinked means less exposure and connections through the most used and popular platforms which could be costing you!
Showing and linking to your social media accounts via links, icons and integrations can be a great way to start this. Also connecting your Google Account with Analytics, Search Console and Google My Business is hands down one of the biggest factors that could help improve not only your presence online but your rankings in Google.
Writing your content for the website and/or blog can be done in so many ways, however one thing to remain common is the use of certain keywords to attract the right readers and potential customers. Gone are they days where you could dump all the related keywords you wanted and hide them (black hat SEO Technique) to try to rank first. Now you’ll find people try to squeeze and fit as many keywords as the can into their posts or content to achieve the same outcome. While yes doing this may well in fact trigger some results based on the keywords you’ve used, however if you’ve only focused on keywords and Google in the creation process of the content, you’ve missed the point of making the content readable and enjoyable to the user/reader – this is a big no no.
Google no longer focuses solely on keywords, they now focus on the user experience and journey. This means if your content isn’t user friendly, easy to read and follow, and informative, you’ll soon see people reading one paragraph (at most) before bouncing and looking else where to answer their question, provide them a service or even sell them a product.
When writing your content you need to focus on the user experience and keep them in mind so you can achieve the best of both worlds: great keyword use, great readability and great user experience.
Sometimes it’s easy to think that your website loads at a reasonable speed, looks fine and that users should know where to go to find the information they’re after. However you want to be confident in your site, you want to KNOW that your customers understand where to go to get the information they’re after and that your website looks and feels GREAT not fine, and most importantly, you want to be confident your website is loading at a great and quick speed.
Overlooking these factors on your website could be what’s stopping you from achieving or maximising your SEO & Ranking results. Your website is your foundation for your SEO and your rankings on Google, you wouldn’t build your house on an unstable foundation, so why would you do the same with your SEO and Rankings, the stronger the foundation, the more stable the house..are you following the analogy?
There are so many resources you can use to help audit your website to give you a better understanding as to how your website is performing, however sometimes the information and technical jargon thats used can be a bit much, but thats why we’re here!
Just these 3 things alone can place you on the path of success in improving your overall SEO and Google Rankings.
Of course, there are so many more ways to help improve this and more things that could be preventing you from achieving this. Unfortunately these area’s are far too intensive to put into a post. If you wish to make sure your website and digital ecosystem are up to scratch and aren’t holding you back, contact Evolution today and we can provide you with a website health check to make sure you’re capable of, and achieving your goals.
If you wish to talk more SEO and Google, we’d love to hear from you, you can contact Evolution on 03 5222 3328 or email hello@evolutiondesign.com.au
Lisa | Creative Director
Stats sourced from: WPForms and 2018 Telstra Small Business Intelligence Report
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