Google, in particular, constantly updates its algorithms to generate more accurate results. The algorithm updates are intended to improve the user experience, but even small changes can move your website from the first to the third position. 75% of searchers never scroll past the first page of results, so you need to be on that first page with paid ads to maximize organic results.
Google is transparent on what one should do if they are affected with Google core updates. By taking up basic steps, one might be able to overcome the fall in traffic. Some of them are as mentioned below –
Compare the pages that outranked your website. Analyze what they are doing different
Write content for the users after doing extensive research
You probably won’t compete with them if you do not have a shot at beating out your competitors in general keywords. You will need to either devote time and money to ranking on those popular keywords or target the less competitive ones specific to your region.
Search engine optimization strategies do not produce results overnight. Search engines take time to index a website’s content, so your website won’t rank on specific terms for days or weeks. It is an ongoing process where an SEO undertakes many activities to improve their website for users. Due to ever-changing Google algorithms, it is also required to adjust the activities from time to time.
Though SEO takes time and effort to be successful, it is definitely worth the investment in the long run. If you need traffic immediately, you may consider a different method. PPC campaigns come into play here, as paid ads follow you to the top of the results page once you invest in them.
Small businesses do have a significant disadvantage over large companies. Due to the high marketing budgets, large corporations could spend on all online marketing activities. Small firms could use SEO activities as tons of money is not required to do the activities. Creating engaging, informative, and entertaining content can keep visitors returning for more. Free social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter can drive traffic directly to your website by sharing exciting blogs or articles.
To grow your small business, SEO is a great strategy. The Search Engine Journal states that SEO leads can have a close rate of 14.6%, a much higher rate than email marketing or print advertising. Using geo-targeting methods, SEO can also drive attention to your business from local searches. 59% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses.
Search engine optimization is a digital marketing approach with a long-term impact. Paid search traffic disappears once you stop paying. Organic traffic does not. The results you have already received from organic traffic will continue to show even if you decide to spend less on your SEO services.
People use search engines to find specific solutions to immediate problems or needs. When people search for a service you offer, you want to appear among the first results/top 3. Paid ads always appear at the top of the results, but 70% to 80% of users ignore those paid ads and stick with organic results. You want to target and entice these searchers to your company.
Search engine optimization allows you to track the long-term results of your efforts. SEO software or tools like Google Analytics lets you see how much traffic your site receives, what keywords you rank on, and how long visitors spend on each page. It’s easy to determine if any keyword adjustments need to be made, which pages are improved, or where your traffic originates. Some of the primary measurable entities of SEO are –
Top ranking on search results pages will make consumers believe you’re the best choice. In search engine results lists, up to 40% of users click on the first results if they need a fast answer. Consumers won’t be aware of the SEO practices that elevated you to the top of the list, so they’ll rely on your reputation as an industry leader. Even if you lose your ranking position, this title will have a lasting impact. A few tips using which a website can rank on top are –
Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) is a free service from Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in its search results.
Use it to find and fix technical errors, submit sitemaps, see structured data issues, and more.
Bing and Yandex have their own versions, and so does Ahrefs. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that’ll help you improve your website’s SEO performance. It allows you to:
Monitor your website’s SEO health.
Check for 100+ SEO issues.
View all your backlinks.
See all the keywords you rank for.
Find out how much traffic your pages are receiving.
Find internal linking opportunities.
It’s our answer to the limitations of Google Search Console.
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test checks how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device. It also identifies specific mobile-usability issues like text that’s too small to read, the use of incompatible plugins, and so on.
The Mobile-Friendly Test shows what Google sees when it crawls the page. You can also use the Rich Results Test to see the content Google sees for desktop or mobile devices.
Chrome DevTools
Chrome DevTools is Chrome’s built-in webpage debugging tool. Use it to debug page speed issues, improve webpage rendering performance, and more.
From a technical SEO standpoint, it has endless uses.
Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar
Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free extension for Chrome and Firefox that provides useful SEO data about the pages and websites you visit.
Its free features are:
On-page SEO report
Redirect tracer with HTTP headers
Broken link checker
Link highlighter
SERP positions
In addition, as an Ahrefs user, you get:
SEO metrics for every site and page you visit and for Google search results
Keyword metrics, such as search volume and Keyword Difficulty, directly in the SERP
SERP results export
PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights analyzes the loading speed of your webpages. Alongside the performance score, it also shows actionable recommendations to make pages load faster.
The projects we’ll talk about in this chapter are all good things to focus on, but they may require more work and have less benefit than the “quick win” projects from the previous part. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them. This is just to help you get an idea of how to prioritize various projects.
Page experience signals
These are lesser ranking factors, but still things you want to look at for the sake of your users. They cover aspects of the website that impact user experience (UX).
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are the speed metrics that are part of Google’s Page Experience signals used to measure user experience. The metrics measure visual load with Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), visual stability with Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and interactivity with First Input Delay (FID).
HTTPS
HTTPS protects the communication between your browser and server from being intercepted and tampered with by attackers. This provides confidentiality, integrity, and authentication to the vast majority of today’s WWW traffic. You want your pages loaded over HTTPS and not HTTP.
Any website that shows a “lock” icon in the address bar is using HTTPS.
Mobile-friendliness
Simply put, this checks if webpages display properly and are easily used by people on mobile devices.
How do you know how mobile-friendly your site is? Check the “Mobile Usability” report in Google Search Console.
This report tells you if any of your pages have mobile-friendliness issues.
Interstitials
Interstitials block content from being seen. These are popups that cover the main content and that users may have to interact with before they go away.
Hreflang — For multiple languages
Hreflang is an HTML attribute used to specify the language and geographical targeting of a webpage. If you have multiple versions of the same page in different languages, you can use the hreflang tag to tell search engines like Google about these variations. This helps them to serve the correct version to their users.
General maintenance/website health
These tasks aren’t likely to have much impact on your rankings but are generally good things to fix for user experience.
Broken links
Broken links are links on your site that point to non-existent resources. These can be either internal (i.e., to other pages on your domain) or external (i.e., to pages on other domains).
You can find broken links on your website quickly with Site Audit in the Links report. It’s free in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.
Redirect chains
Redirect chains are a series of redirects that happen between the initial URL and the destination URL.
You can find redirect chains on your website quickly with Site Audit in the Redirects report. It’s free in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.
