Earning a preferable ranking on search engine result pages is essential for the success of online businesses. As of this writing, there is an estimated 1.6 billion websites in existence, with the first page of Google search results capturing 71% of search traffic clicks and the second coming in very far behind at below 6%.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a definite shift towards digitalising consumer purchases forcing even the most traditional businesses to go digital. Due to this, companies focus on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and how its successful usage is essential for their digital properties.
Many elements go into the build-up of SEO. Still, the key is understanding what they are and how they work to utilise them fully to boost your site’s visibility and searchability. Many business owners like to think that they have a sound understanding of these elements, but the truth is that many are overlooked. Below we list several overlooked factors essential for SEO – continue reading to find out more.
Stop Visitors From Going Back To The Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
In short, visitors click on your site because they hope that it’ll fulfil their requirements, so they don’t have to back to the search engine results page and click a different result. Ideally, you want to prevent the latter from happening as much as possible since signals will be sent to Google that a visitor has clicked on your site, gone back to the SERP, clicked another site and not gone back to yours.
This highlights to Google that the site the visitor clicked on after yours was more helpful in answering their questions, meaning that Google is more likely to increase its SEO ranking while yours is lowered.
The key to preventing visitors from going back to the SERP is satisfaction, as this is the key reason they’re using a search engine in the first place to find answers to their questions and sate their curiosity. Ideally, you’ll want your website to answer visitors’ questions by using keywords relevant to their search, clear, concise, understandable language, lightboxes, bold words for emphasis, etc. It makes it easier for visitors to find the answer they are looking for and prevent them from going back to the SERP.
Consider Outsourcing For Your SEO Needs
Another overlooked SEO is outsourcing. Nowadays, you can outsource just about any aspect of your business, including your SEO needs. You can do a lot with an in-house SEO team, but sometimes it’s best to know when to leave it to the professionals. Hiring a digital marketing agency or SEO company means that you’ll rely on them to handle the entirety (or a portion) of the SEO work for your brand.
Depending on your business needs, you may enlist the services of an SEO company to handle a variety of SEO-based tasks on your behalf. This may include some of the following:
Conducting keyword research.
On-page optimisation.
Off-page optimisation.
Devising new content.
Creating a strategy for content.
Measuring and reporting differences to your site.
Since SEO companies focus entirely on SEO, you can rest easy knowing that your site is in capable, knowledgeable hands. Outsourcing this aspect of your business can reap many benefits, such as reducing the cost of hiring/training, getting back precious time, faster results, more powerful SEO tools, more powerful marketing strategies and much more.
Reputable SEO agencies should be able to provide you with evidence of past campaigns that demonstrate how their services have helped improve traffic, ranking and business results before you enlist their services. For more information, consider contacting SEO companies such as Big Surf Digital that can help open your eyes to many more overlooked factors of SEO and give you expert advice. Visit their website for further information and a free quotation for their services today.
Aim To Make Your Content Longer
Most businesses do not need an SEO company to tell them that content is key to improving SEO. It’s widely known how important it is to publish regular and relevant content, but it is lesser known that the most successful content is longer in length.
Search engines like Google will generally overlook content less than three hundred words in length, meaning that it is less likely to appear on the higher result pages. Instead, it is considered that content with a length of six hundred words or above is optimal for SEO. Longer content ranks well on search engines and entices visitors to stay on your site longer, especially if the piece their reading is thorough.
Ensure You Update Your Site Regularly
Another overlooked SEO factor is the frequency in which businesses update their site. Since search engines prioritise regularly updated websites, if your business only posts three updates a year, it’s a waste of search engine resources to continue checking your site, causing your ranking to suffer.
Whereas if your business puts out several updates per day, then search engines must check your site multiple times a day so that those results can be indexed and displayed. To avoid slipping under the radar, ensure that you try to post every week – this way, your SEO rankings won’t suffer, and your site will attract more traffic.
