4 Basic Tips From Semalt To Increase Website Visibility
How to increase a website's visibility on Google? Many website owners struggle with this question. The problem is that there is no definitive answer. Every page is completely different and requires an individual approach. However, we can create a universal list of items that are worth checking and improving.
So let's start with the first one!
Keyword analysis and competition
The first step to increasing a website's visibility on Google is to analyze the keywords as broadly as possible. Before you start optimizing your site, be sure to check what phrases your potential customers are searching for.
Often the names of categories, products, and services on new websites do not exactly match how they are defined by search engine users. It's also helpful to know what words to use in content, metadata, and other places relevant to SEO on your website.
It's likewise important to remember that your website - like the entire company - operates in a business environment. Therefore, it's worthwhile to familiarize yourself with the competition's websites, as well as check their visibility on Google. This applies not only to national or global companies, but also to local ones.
Your direct rival in the battle for a potential customer's attention may not be a company in your neighborhood, but a company on the other side of the country that has decided to create an offer for the people in your area. The analysis of the competition provides a lot of inspiration regarding the form and content of the site, but also the keywords for which it is worth positioning.
For the analysis of keywords and competition, you can use the Dedicated SEO Dashboard. With this latest generation tool, you can check the visibility of any website, as well as search for keywords that should be used on your website, in a short time.
SEO audit, i.e. checking the state of the website and its visibility on Google
If you want to comprehensively check the status of your website, consider using an SEO audit service. A professional analysis covers the technical and content aspects of the website, as well as its link profile. Based on documents and consultation with a specialist, you will be able to optimize many elements, while meeting the needs of users. Which aspects of the website deserve special attention and how can they be improved?
To achieve this audit, you can use one of the features of the Dedicated SEO Dashboard called SEO-technical audit.
This function is one of the competitive advantages of the Dedicated SEO Dashboard. Indeed, this DSD feature allows you to perform a complete analysis of the site. Everything from technical audits and speed checks to plagiarism checks on the same platform.
Now let's get down to business.
How to increase the visibility of the website? First of all, the technical facilities
The technical aspects of SEO are extremely important to be able to observe the effects of website optimization. Without adapting the website to Google's requirements, it often turns out that our actions do not bring the expected results. This results in a lack of visibility, traffic, and conversion, but above all in an inflated budget. Therefore, you cannot ignore the problems related to the technical context, as they are the first step to increasing the visibility of the website.
Among them, there are both problems strictly related to the server and those related to the website - its construction, structure, and programming solutions used. It often turns out that improving the technical aspects requires the intervention of a specialist responsible for the site and its management. At this point, many people are discouraged from SEO activities, looking for alternative solutions that give a chance to increase visibility - but none of them will be as effective as improving the website from the "inside".
So where do you start with any technical optimization? What is included that is designed to improve website visibility? Here are our tips!
Optimize your website's loading speed
When working on a website's visibility, you also can't ignore such an important aspect as the site speed. This is important for both Google and its users, as too long a page load time can discourage customers from browsing and purchasing products.
Search engine spiders also abandon the address after a certain time, when they cannot receive a response from the server in the form of the page's source code. As a result, this contributes to a decrease in visibility, and therefore in conversion.
In 2021, Google introduced the so-called Core Web Vitals as an important ranking factor and page load speed plays an important role here.
CWVs are so-called core web metrics that evaluate all three aspects of page loading. They include the:
- Largest Contentful Paint - the time between the start of the page load and the display of the largest element (a block of text or an image - also inserted in the background in the stylesheet).
- First Input Delay - the time between the first interaction of the user with the website (for example, clicking a button) and the reaction to this action by the browser.
- Cumulative Layout Shift - the total measure of unexpected page element movements during the loading process.
- Interaction with Next Paint - a test metric to record the delay of all interactions on the website.
Each of them plays a very important role in website optimization and indicates whether the website meets the standards set by Google. A too-long loading time automatically reduces the chances of building strong visibility on the web. In turn, well-optimized CWV metrics significantly increase the chances that in the next Google algorithm update, the website will not lose its position, which would in such a case have to be rebuilt for months.
So how to improve the page load speed? There are several basic aspects:
- optimization of the website code (more details in the next chapter);
- optimization of the graphics (size and their adequacy to the page);
- use of the user and server-side cache;
- delay in loading elements that are not visible in the foreground;
- loading fonts from the local server.
You can test the effectiveness of your corrections and the current speed of your website in the Dedicated SEO Dashboard tool.
Fill your content with keywords
Since we've done a keyword analysis and know how to build the right content hierarchy, let's put it all together!
When preparing website content, you should include keywords attributed to the subpage on which it will be published. If possible, they should appear in the H1 title (the most important sentence), H2 and H3 titles (side sentences or repetition of the main sentence), as well as in the following paragraphs of the text.
The question is: how many times to use keywords? It is difficult to find an unequivocal answer here. Theoretically, a given keyword should appear 1 to 3 times per 1000 characters of text. But what if there are many keywords and the text is not too long?
First of all, don't force the phrases, they should appear naturally in the text. Don't be afraid of word variations and, in the case of ungrammatical words, separate them. The main point here is that a given sentence should appear in the text.
The above tips are fairly general. If you are fighting for the highest possible visibility of your page on Google, don't be afraid to compare with the top of the search results!
The SERP analysis of the Dedicated SEO Dashboard will help you with this.
Don't forget to optimize your graphics
Another element that only apparently affects the visibility of the page in search results. Graphics can also be optimized and it is not just a matter of reducing their size.
Before uploading your files to the server, make sure you give them a descriptive name indicating the content. Ideally, the name should contain a keyword related to the sub-page on which the graphic will be placed. Avoid using capital letters, special characters and, instead of spaces, use dashes "-". A good file name is "black-cocktail-dress.jpg" or "slow-key-analysis.jpg". This is much better than "IMG122434.jpg", isn't it?
Also, graphics are another way to properly saturate the subpage with keywords. If they are well optimized, they can also appear in Google Graphics - that is, generate additional visibility for the website on the Internet. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to them and using their untapped potential.
Remember that the size of the graphics is important in terms of website loading speed. Sometimes, an image, the size of which is not fully used, significantly prolongs the loading time of the whole site. Therefore, in addition to optimizing the file name, do not forget to reduce its size - preferably to 100-250 KB. If possible, save images in lighter formats, such as .jpg instead of .png.
Remember that the "more is better" principle does not apply here! Saturating content with keywords (known as keyword stuffing) can lead to a weakening of the website's evaluation by Google's robots. Instead of increasing the visibility of your website in search engines, it reduces it.
Understanding the recipient's intent
It's time for something that requires more than just keyword analysis. Until relatively recently, proper saturation of the sub-page with phrases, optimization, and links offered a great chance to improve position, and - with the right context and budget - the fight for leadership. Currently, however, there is another aspect that deserves our attention: the user's intentions.
And we have several of these:
- Searching for information
- Comparing products
- buying
- finding a specific brand or location
You can assign specific keywords to each intent. The problem, however, is that we are not able to tell 100% by looking at the very phrase to which group it belongs. While in the case of questions or complete product names, everything is usually clear, general words can surprise you.
Therefore, it is always worth looking closely at the search results for a given keyword. If, after typing the phrase, our eyes see mainly blogs with tips, rankings, or comparisons, we are unlikely to beat them with the product, service, or category page. The same is true for products and categories: if a given subpage type dominates the search results, it's an indication that it's worth " following the trend."
Summary
As you can see, many elements affect the visibility of a website in search engines. Have we exhausted the list of elements that increase the visibility of the page on Google? Certainly not, but we have identified a few key factors that should not be forgotten.
Remember, however, that the basis of effective positioning is the careful observation of your business environment and direct competition in the search results. By comparing yourself to your rivals, reacting to their actions, and introducing your own improvements that they don't have on their sites, you have a chance to generate great visibility on the Internet.
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.