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Staying up to date and relevant is crucial if you're single or a website owner. Either way, this article should tickle your fancy. SEO rankings, customer experience and valuable information are all a bi-product of regular updates.
The robots are watching us...
Yes, that's right. Google uses crawlers to go through your website and map out all of your content. When you launch a website Google will detect it eventually and start sending robots to see if you have any relevant information to offer.
This needs to be done to offer users relevant information when they search on Google (or Bing, you weirdo). Websites need to fulfil certain requirements in order to be indexed, such as structure, language and load speed to name just a few. A seasoned developer incorporates these nuances in his build from the very start.
H1, H2, H4, H5...
Do you know what those mean? Well, if you do, you noticed that I skipped H3 and that's not cool. Text size and style need to be consistent in your website, meaning that we can't have 15 different fonts and text colors on our website. This will result in penalisation from Google, lowering your ranking in the search results. Having a style sheet is crucial before starting. This allows you to set classes and styles before you start building. This means:
- You have a consistent design
- Your text is formatted correctly from the start
- You have classes and styles assigned
Another important factor is load speed. Google wants users to have a good experience on the web and having fast load speeds is a part of that equation.
"Well, what affects my load speed?"
Great question grasshopper, let me tell you. Large, bulky image files can be a burden to load along with bulky, sometimes unused javascript. We are talking about seconds if not less, but these are an important factor in the ranking system.
Accessibility
Nowadays, everyone is on the internet and we have to guarantee everyone a good experience when visiting our websites. The visually impaired will use voiceover to navigate websites and this works really well with simple text. Images are where things can become a little tricky. To aid in this process developers add alt text to their images. Alt-text is an HTML property and all it does is display text if a website cannot load properly or if voiceover features are being used. Google will rank your website higher if your alt text and images make sense.
Why should I care or even invest?
If you've read SEJ’s SEO 101 "Learn The Basics of Search Engine Optimization", then you know that the top 3 results on Google for a given keyword get 71% more clicks than the results below and that the number 1 result gets 31% of that 71%. Or then you haven't read that book, in which case I saved you 324 pages of reading. But small business owners should be using these tools to their advantage. If you purchase an SEO audit on your page for a couple of hundred euros, this comes out cheaper than Google or Facebook ads on a monthly basis.
In addition to this, organic results often result in more conversions.
Rank high, be social
The more you stand out, the better it is. Just like back in your single days, image is everything. SEO goes beyond just Google rankings. Are you signed up for Google Business, and are you visible on the Google Maps Platform? Social media, such as Facebook and Instagram are free platforms for you to show off who you are.
Also, you can link YouTube videos of cute cats on your business's social media to gain more attention. Except don't, that's weird. Instead, build backlinks by linking your website. Show Google that your website is relevant and attracts visitors.
In conclusion...
SEO can be very complex depending on the things you are striving to achieve. However, there isn't a business on this planet that doesn't have an interest in this topic. And I digress, you do not have to be number one, it's really okay to be in the top 3.
SEO is not a trend, it is a way to gain new customers on a regular basis.
