New On-Site SEO
As we all know SEO moves forward with Google algorithm changes and how people search. So how can we, as Search Engine Optimisers, keep up to date with the necessary information, ensuring the best possible results for the website we are working on?
On-Site SEO plays a huge role in achieving high Google rankings. So how has this evolved over the years, where is it today and what form will it take in the future?
Traditional On-Site
Keyword Targeting
This process is matching relevant search terms that the target audience would search for and taking them to the correct landing page. In this process, you would optimise Meta title, Meta description, image alt, body text and heading tags (H1, H2 etc).
Quality & Uniqueness
Making sure you have unique, quality content on your website so that it stands out from the crowd. Since the Panda update, it is pivotal that you have unique engaging content that interacts with your audience.
Crawl/Bot Friendly
It’s important that your site/pages can be crawled correctly and efficiently by search engines including Google. Having 404 errors that can delay a crawl by a robot or not letting the robot crawl the pages you want it too can have a significance effect on your rankings.
Snippet Optimisation
The aim of snippet optimisation is to get your Google listing to stand out compared to your competitors for target search terms. Snippet Optimisation helps you identify the appearance of your listing to improve click through rate from Google and other search engines.
UX/Multi- Device
In this multiple device world we live in, you need to have your site optimised for all devices, desktop, tablet and mobile, therefore delivering the best user experience by reacting to the exact needs of your customers / visitors for the products or service you’re offering.
The above factors are still important in today’s SEO World but new factors are emerging that will affect your Google rankings and are factors you need to understand and be able to implement into your SEO strategy.
New On-Site
Relative CTR (click through rate)
For example, if your site is getting ranked number 3 for a search term and your result is getting clicked more than position number 2 you may get moved up to number 2 as Google sees people are clicking your listing more.
Factors to consider for a good CTR are:
- Does the title reflect what users want?
- Is the URL convincing?
- Searchers recognise the domain?
- Is your result fresh?
- Does the description create interest and make the user want to click?
Short vs. Long Click
There is a phrase called pogo-sticking where a user would select result 1, then come back to Google and select result 2, then come back to Google and select result 3, and then stay on this website as this has fulfilled their search. If this process happens for a few searches then Google would recognise that result 3 is better than result 1 and 2 and reward them with position 1. The aim here is to make your site have good speed, it engages with the user so they interact with your website and stay on your site to complete their answer.
Content Gap Fulfilment
Google looks at the content on your site to see if it can answer searcher queries. The topics it may look are text classification, parsing and question answering.
Earning Share, Links & Loyalty
Recent results show pages that get plenty of social activity but don’t have many links do rank well compared to pages that have no social activity but have more links. Having social activity is important as this shows activity to the search engines on your site which relate to website engagement.
Task Completion Success
If your site can complete a searcher task from start to finish then your website is doing what Google wants your site to do. Google’s aim is to give searcher their answer quickly and if your site can help Google do that with product, service or by answering the searchers question correctly you will be rewarded.
Driving traffic to your website by use of on-site optimisation was traditionally only recognised by the search engines ( i.e. the robots ) however increasingly the new on-site factors are being led by people, as a result of this recognising the importance of human response to the search engines / search terms has become critical. Here at Internet Sales Drive we ensure that your SEO strategy is optimised for both the algorithm (Robots) and human interaction in order to deliver the targeted traffic to your website.