In today’s world, a website has become a necessity for any business to survive. It is the first point of contact for your potential customers that gives them information and increases the credibility of your business. Before the era of the internet, people used to rely on word-of-mouth and referrals before opting for a product or service, but today they just Google. Statistics show that 97 percent of the people search online to find a local business. Even if you operate in a B2B environment, a website is important. In research, 75 percent of the B2B buyers said that the website content affects their decision, while 62 percent said that they made their buying decision based on website content. We hope that these statistics are enough to convince you why you should have a website.
If you are convinced, great! However, merely having a website is not enough. You have to play by the digital world rules, which mean that your website should follow certain criteria for it to be a success and earn good points with Google. In other words, your website is useless if it does not show up on the first page and for that to happen, you need to understand what Google values the most. Here is how you can make your website worthy of Google and customers.
1. Structure
The most important factor before anything comes into the picture is the structure of the website. The structure of your website improves its usability for the customers, giving a hint to Google that this website is good enough.
A human mind desires cognitive equilibrium, which means it has to find things where they are expected to be. Hence, it a logical structure cognitively satisfies users. When users find a website useful, they tend to dwell on it longer and bounce less, increasing the website’s click-through rate.
A good structure also improves site crawlability. Search engines crawl your website to see what your website is about and if they encounter a dead end, then you will get some negative points. To improve crawlability of your website, make sure to include a lot of internal links.
Moreover, a good structure earns you sitelinks in the SERPs. Sitelinks basically improve navigation of your website, gives useful information instantly and help you stand out in the SERPs. Well, there is no form that you can fill to get sitelinks; Google awards sitelinks to websites by analyzing their structure through its algorithm.
In short, you could say that a good website structure forms the foundation of SEO. To obtain a good structure, plan the taxonomy of your website and choose the minimum required categories.
This leather skin shop website design, for example, is simple and yet elegant. It has a breathing space,and there are a few categories mentioned clearly on the top, which makes navigation easier.
2. Links
While internal links improve the website structure, external links improve the credibility of your website. External links are when other websites link back to you,or you link to other websites. According to a survey conducted by Moz with the top marketers, Domain level link features are the topmost factor in the ranking algorithm. This is because this factor is very hard to manipulate and hence search engines’ favourite criteria to judge the popularity of a page.
However, you just cannot have any links. Search engines evaluate external links based on their relevancy, trustworthiness,and popularity among other factors.
Linking to other websites will make you a valuable resource since no one can possibly have all the information required by customers. Moreover, your linking will provide an incentive to others to link back to you. Hence, if you want to improve the SEO of your website, you need to work on the links.
3. Blog
A blog and hence good quality content is yet another important factor for SEO. A blog gives you the opportunity to provide value to your customers, which makes them dwell on your website a little longer. Moreover, blogs help you get quality links. A research shows that companies that blog get 97 percent more links than the companies that don’t.
A blog also helps your social media strategy. Often marketers struggle with what to share on social media pages,and a blog gives a regular supply of good content that can be shared.
A blog that helps your customers helps you establish your credibility and authority in the industry that you are operating. Plus, the best part is that it is a free marketing tool and hence it does not make any sense to not leverage it.
4. Newsletter subscription
Most of the websites have a section where visitors can subscribe to the newsletter. This allows a company to capture email addresses of potential customers to carry out email marketing. Email marketing is a cost-effective and personalized way to let your customers know about any upcoming offers or new products. Statistics show that 3.7 billion people use email and this figure is going to rise to 4.3 billion by 2022, which shows that this is not an opportunity that you should miss. Moreover, people who leave their emails on your website show that they are already interested and hence there are better chances of lead conversion.
When you send emails, make sure to include a catchy subject line for higher click-through rates and add a touch of personalization to keep your readers engaged.
Your website is an important asset to your business. If used correctly, it is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to drive sales and market your product. Hence, you need to make sure that your website stands out from your competitors in terms of design and content. If you are an ecommerce website, then your entire sales depend on your website,and hence we recommend that you should get it developed by an ecommerce website design company to avoid any glitches and clutter.
