Referring to the position of your website in the search engine results pages (or SERPs), search engine position is essential for achieving the type of online visibility your brand needs in order to be successful, and is something that should never be overlooked by website owners and designers.
In essence, the higher your website ranks, the more visible it is, and the more visible it is, the greater the chance of improved traffic generation.
As you might expect, an increase in traffic typically leads to more success for that business as visitors become customers, and effective methods such as SEO – but only good Surrey SEO, bad SEO can be very harmful – can help you improve your website’s search engine position.
Here’s how search engines go about ranking websites:
Complex algorithms are used to help search engines determine which order websites should appear in the SERPs. After evaluating a range of factors, including site structure, keyword relevance and user engagement, the algorithms decide which of the sites listed are best matched for the query of the user.
Once you understand these factors, it becomes easier to improve the search engine position of your website.
What to avoid when trying to improve search engine position
The easiest way to avoid the following potential pitfalls when improving your website’s search engine position, is to work with an experienced web design and SEO company. But if you want to give it a go yourself, here are some mistakes to avoid:
- Black hat SEO
Although they may give swift results, Black hat SEO techniques can be very harmful to your website over time. Such tactics typically incur search engine penalties, which can actually lower your rankings, or even remove your site from the results pages altogether.
- Keyword stuffing
Using too many keywords in your site’s content usually doesn’t read well, and while those who use this technique believe it encourages search engines to rank sites higher, algorithms can now spot this tactic easily, and such behavior often leads to penalties. Always try to use keywords in a natural, contextual way.
- Link farming
When a lot of backlinks that are low quality and from websites that are unrelated, are acquired, this is referred to as link farming. Aimed at artificially boosting the authority of a site, this can lead to penalties and a poor reputation. In terms of backlinks, search engines place their priority on quality, not quantity, so try to establish relationships with reputable sites that are genuine, to gain backlinks of a higher quality.
- Poor website design
Users frustrated by a website that’s been poorly designed, will not hang around to explore more, and certainly won’t come back again. Work with an experienced web designer to achieve a website that’s highly intuitive, and visually engaging; this will almost certainly help improve your search engine position.
- No mobile optimization
Your website simply must be mobile responsive if it’s to meet user demand nowadays, and prioritizing this – with professional help, ideally – you can reach a far wider audience and more importantly, improve your position in the search engine pages.
By implementing these strategies, or simply working with SEO services in Surrey who will do it all for you with ease and skill, you can work on optimizing the individual pages of your website. This will lead to enhanced visibility, and ultimately, higher rates of conversion. For lasting success, however, it’s important to maintain these efforts consistently for an edge over your competitors and growth that’s sustainable.