The latest information to get your website noticed by Google.
As many of you will already know, keeping your website high in the search engine results is an ongoing task, and can seem to some, one that is full of complexities. I am an avid reader of any tips for SEO as it is such a constantly changing subject.
I have just come across a great article, by Erin Everhart (connect with her on twitter @erinever) that explains in easy terms the ‘6 Best Practices for Modern SEO‘.
Google has recently changed its algorithm again, a major update that has affected how websites and businesses appear in Google. This therefore means that the methods we use to optimise websites has to be rethought, and once again the struggle to come top has to start from scratch.
Google is now looking to social media for recommendations on the most popular, interesting, or quality content by the amount of times a page is shared. So it is incredibly important to have sharing buttons on your content pages, and to set up your own Facebook pages, and twitter accounts etc to work alongside your website/business.
Google is also looking for content that it considers ‘fresh’. That is, up to date or modern. Google is now indexing the internet faster than it did before, and can find new content on current news and events within a few minutes of it being written. However, it is not good enough to change content on pages you already have to keep it current, as Google keeps a record of when the page was originally ‘new’, and compares this with the newly updated page. Fresh, new quality content on certain searches is what Google is looking for.
So what can we do to keep up with Google? One of the important tips I take away with me from Erin’s article is the information on local search and the eye-tracking research. Is your website listed on Google places and other local maps and directories? It seems that people are always looking for local companies before they look further afield. Check your keywords for area related words to help the search engines determine where you are.
The other useful information from Erin’s article is about schema.org. Schema.org is a set of website standards set up by three major search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo, to help you tell the search engines what your website is about, via some html markup tags. The Schema website explains how to mark up your html page with these tags to help the search engines determine what your page is about. Using these special tags in your markup you can describe items or products on your page to the search engines, rather than leaving it up to their own determination and ambiguity.
I hope you find the article and these tips helpful, let me know if you have any of your own tips for SEO.
Along with the above, as part of talking to the customers, incorporate your social media profiles, Sometimes your visitors may not be ready to buy when they first come to your site, if they can start to follow you on social media profiles, you have a good chance of converting them into sales later on.Make it ways for them to follow you.All part of Call of action.