Most businesses enter into the digital marketplace hoping to build a website that grows their company and positively impacts their bottom-line. However, a profitable website is is difficult. The complexities of selling on the Internet leave a steep learning curve for businesses making their first foray onto the web.
Buzzword tactics like “inbound marketing,” “content development strategy,” and “search engine optimization” have become staples for any business seeking digital success. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of practices and strategies that websites can employ to improve their visibility in organic search engine results. Following SEO best practices is an excellent way to consistently drive relevant traffic to your website.
Google and other search engines have come forward with a list of factors and characteristics that they ask websites to follow in order to provide the best search results for users. The more precisely a website understands and applies these factors, the better their chances of online success.
Many people discover the importance of title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags and other important on-page SEO factors, but there are some which are useful that are frequently missing from websites. Today, we’re going to briefly discuss three of the most commonly overlooked factors and how they should be handled.
H1 tags – This specific HTML attribute affects how search engines classify the content on your website’s pages. H1 tags often look like section headers, denoting the content in the following paragraph. Search engines use H1 attributes to help determine how specific paragraphs on a web page are classified. Often, I see websites that are employing other SEO factors but have neglected to use H1 tags when categorizing their content for search engines. Creating optimized H1 tags is simple – it requires two things: an understanding of the keywords you intend to target, and a paragraph of content relevant to those keywords. An H1 tag is no more complex than a precise paragraph title. Once you’ve determined the focus of the content, the H1 tag should adequately reflect it for search engines and visitors.
Click-to-Call Phone Numbers – This often overlooked necessity is one of the smallest but most valuable changes you can make to your website. Google analytics data strongly supports the assertion that a clickable phone number will increase your conversion rates on mobile devices. If people are visiting your website from a smartphone and need to get in contact with you, a clickable phone number is often the easiest and most accessible means. Ensuring this simple conversion point is available on your website is not only a great way to increase your conversion rate for smartphones and tablets, but it will also better align you with Google’s SEO best practices.
Meta Keywords – This is one thing that should be long-forgotten, yet I still find them on over half of the sites I review. Meta Keywords were phased out due to abuse by spammers. In 2009, Google formally announced that meta keywords are not an SEO ranking factor but I still see many websites that are using them (and badly) in hope that it will earn them some extra attention from search engines. Unfortunately, thanks to spammers, this tag has lost all usefulness and is frequently frowned upon by search engines in today’s digital marketing environment. Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag because it was so often abused that it became entirely unreliable. If your website is using meta keywords, or if you’ve hired a marketing agency who advocates for their use, it should be considered a red flag and changes should be made.
These three SEO factors are not the most important ones for your website. How you follow SEO best practices is up to you, ultimately. Websites that apply search engine optimization best practices see improved ROI, increased website traffic, heightened brand awareness, and improved search engine visibility.
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