What are Search Engine Rankings?
With the rise of cases during this pandemic, people are doing more with the internet. The services available have developed so much in recent years.
Now it is possible to get everything you need without stepping out of your home.
This might complicate things for new businesses entering the market. This is because your website won’t automatically make it to the top of the search results page.
Before, Google algorithms focused on the safety of searchers . With the May update of Google’s core algorithm, site ranking has changed.
The core algorithm is what’s in charge of ranking the sites Google has indexed. Through this algorithm, Google hopes to better match search queries with the right results.
Last May, Google’s core update led to volatility in site traffic. Analysis of this occurrence implies that Google has shifted focus onto site relevance with an emphasis on content quality.
Below, we’ve collected 10 ways you can improve your site’s rank in this time of the pandemic.
10 Ways to Improve Search Engine rankings
- Understand How Site Visitors Behave
The need for this should be easy to understand. The medical community has called for the rest of us to stay at home. This means a change in how we do things.
This includes how we behave online. This is due to the fact that people are spending more time on the internet.
There are tools available online to help you do this. Monitoring how traffic to your page has changed can help you understand your customers better. Tools like Hotjar even create a heatmap for you to help you visualize that data.
Hotar features different kinds of heatmaps; above is a movemap
Some ways understanding site behaviour can help you:
- Helps you understand which pages are the weakest
- Allows you to see how traffic changes through time
- Defines the trends when it comes to site interest vs. content
The list is really much longer than this. The important part is gathering this data.
Get a handle on your customer behavior first. This will allow you to plan your website more efficiently.
- Create Relevant Content
Now with the pandemic, it is important to provide relevant quality content.
The novel coronavirus crisis has had a big effect on businesses. Creating relevant content ensures that your site stays on the topic.
This also provides something new for your audiences. With content related to the pandemic, you ensure your page stays visible in searches.
Trends.google.com is a free tool that can come in handy here. You can find out what people are searching for and plan accordingly. Other sites like explodingtopics.com might help you narrow them down.
Google Trends displays everything in an easy to read graph
Content could be made through different media. The availability of multiple platforms lends itself to site owners. Get creative with how you bring in leads.
The important factor here would be its relevance to the situation.
- Prioritize your visitors’ user experience
Your site visitors are your leads. You’ll want to make sure that each lead will find something that interests them on your page.
Utilize multimedia to ensure that site visitors spend time on your page. Videos are a great way to catch interest.
You can keep a better eye on this if you use an analytics tool. With an analytics tool, you can see how many people are actually staying on your site.
Familiarise yourself with metrics like Bounce Rate and CTR. These help page owners measure the amount and quality of site traffic.
Ways an optimized user experience can help you:
- Site visitors have a reason to stay on the page
- Gives site visitors a reason to come back
- A better experience means a higher chance of exploring your site
Don’t forget to keep the pandemic in mind. These days people are spending more time at home. That’s a nice entry point for more detailed infographics or videos. Usually, these are too lengthy for a lot of people.
- Surveys Are Your Friends
It might be cliche, but surveys still do a lot for a business. Call it market research.
With the crisis going on, public perception of your content is going to matter. Do any of your pages have insensitive content? Alternatively, do any of your pages provide useful information?
Sometimes, these answers aren’t so obvious. It would be much better if you get the perspective of your target audience. If you don’t have a specified audience, surveys can help you determine that too.
Some useful things a survey can do for you:
- Determine brand standing vs. competitors
- Describe market demographics
- Develop insights about your product
- Understand audience behavior
The list goes on, and the limits are really based on the kind of questions you ask.
Surveymonkey.com and forms.google.com provide great services for surveys. Both will be able to provide visual aides for the data gathered. Both also have services catered towards businesses.
Asking respondents what they think of your content will allow you to pinpoint specifics. This time, the data you are gathering isn’t limited by numbers.
- Make the Most of Link Building
Link Building is a great way to help your site achieve a better rank. It “tells” Google that your site’s network is a good one. Update your site with links that make you relevant.
Another reason why you should pay attention to this is the Google core update. With the rollout of the May update, Google has shown more interest in a site’s authority. These are sites that have quality backlinks.
You should monitor, and change, those that don’t help with your site quality. These will only decrease your ranking.
Availing of a professional Link Building service goes even further. Linkdoctor.io/blogger-outreach-services is one example of such. They analyze trends like the pandemic and make sure that only relevant links are used.
- Get Creative with Evergreen Content
While it’s great to create content for the trends, it would do you a lot of good to publish some long-term stuff as well.
Essentially, this type of content won’t run with the trends. Their purpose is for long-lasting organic traffic. This means that their topics are those that should stay interesting.
Think of the election period. Publishing articles about the candidates and winners might get you traffic. The traffic generated may even exceed your expectations.
That won’t last forever. Eventually, people will get tired of talking about the elections. As a result, what you had been relying on for traffic will suddenly lose its value.
Marie Haynes Consulting showed sites with insights from experts showed signs of traffic increase. This was seen after Google’s core update.
With that in mind, try to publish something you’re knowledgeable about. Examples of evergreen content are those “How-tos” or Industry Resources. Just make sure you publish quality content.
Evergreen content will give your leads something to look at when those trends are done. Get a read on your audience and find out what they might be interested in.
- Make the Most of Your Online Ads
The crisis has demanded for social-distancing. Because of this, a lot more buying and selling are happening online.
Make sure that whatever ads you have take into account what’s happening now.
Cleaning up your ad service will help your website stay visible where it matters. You’ll want to make sure that your ads are placed where they’d count.
Understandably, the crisis has seen a decrease in ad spending. With this in mind, ad spaces have adjusted their prices.
Wall Street Journal for one, found that Facebook has decreased the rates of their ad service. This is due to many businesses pulling a lot of their ads out as early as March.
Previous subscribers to Google’s ad service get a boost as well. Small and medium businesses can avail of ad credit to help their pages reach a wide audience.The credit is meant to help these businesses continue with their online advertising.
- Utilize Google’s Services
Google provides a host of applications and services for business owners.
Create or update your Google My Business to help your page stay visible. Google Analytics is a free service that helps site owners monitor insights. Creating posts that adhere to Discover’s conditions provide a wider spread.
There are a lot of avenues to explore. Many of them are free and easily accessible. With the May core update, users report higher rankings for smaller sites.This could be great news for those businesses.
Utilizing Google My Business for your local business will also ensure you show up when localized queries are entered.
Some Google services that businesses will want to check out:
- Google Sheets (free)
- Google Forms (free)
- Google My Business (free)
- Google Ads (Payment plan options)
- Google Analytics (freemium)
- Google Trends (free)
Don’t miss out on the advantages of these services. SEO is a data-driven process. Enabling yourself to make use of this data allows you greater control over your business.
- Don’t Be Afraid of a Site Overhaul
That might be an exaggeration but get ready for a little refreshing. Your webpage will have to adapt to the climate of the crisis.
What if one of your previous posts has its use during the pandemic?
You’ll want to make sure that people know. Updating your site’s titles and tags will help your page’s visibility. You can base these off trending searches.
Get to the nitty-gritty of your page and look for inconsistencies that may affect your rank. With the May core update, some things will weigh more than others. Some items you might wanna check on are:
- Relevant keywords – Search terms associated with your site.
- “Thin” pages – Pages of text that barely even have information.
- “Dead” or bad links – These could either lead to a non-existent page or spam content.
- Presentation of content – How the content is presented affects how people perceive them.
- Quality of content – Quality content will create better impressions of your business.
The images you use will have an impact as well. Make sure that they are compressed appropriately. This means that while they look good, they won’t increase the loading time of your site.
- Make Space for a Blog
Yup, blogs are still in. With the increase in-home internet usage, business owners will want to take advantage of this. This is because hosting a blog page allows you to offer more on your site.
Publishing blogs at a regular interval lets people know that your site is constantly updated. You can imagine how visiting a site with obsolete content can turn a visitor away.
Additionally, it also offers the advantage of internal linking. That’s when a page includes a link to another page in the same website. That’s one way of improving your SEO
In Conclusion
Business owners are surely feeling frustrated with the pandemic. Despite that, getting your website “out there” shouldn’t be as difficult as some people say. At the end of the day, it’s how you treat your page and your visitors.
With proper maintenance, a website should do what you need it to do. Your job is to make sure that people find it first.
All stock images are from Pexels.com
