How to Increase Visibility on Search Engines
How to Increase Visibility on Search Engines
Holiday season is fast approaching! And when doing business in this day and age, optimizing your website will always be a good idea.
The benefits of increasing visibility on search engines
In short, SEO will enhance your online visibility – it’s in the name, after all! But why exactly should you care enough to delve into it? There are reasons people are competing for Google’s favor so fiercely, and some are better hidden than others. So let us briefly glance through them.
#1 More traffic
First, the most self-evident benefit of increased visibility is, of course, more traffic. That’s a given; to become more visible is to attract a new audience. But did you know how much you can make this new traffic work for you?
Why, yes you can. Apart from improving your site overall, SEO offers many ways for this newfound traffic to attract more traffic. Are your audiences leaving comments? Those add to your word count and give your content value. Are they satisfied enough to share your content? That nets you more traffic, and even enhances your Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA). SEO cares for these metrics; in fact, they directly increase visibility on search engines.
#2 More engagement
Speaking of engagement, great, SEO-friendly content will have audiences engage with your pages more. Think of such metrics as time on page and pages per session. Such metrics show Google your site offers value to visitors – which, you guessed it, boosts your SEO score. Google really, really cares about delivering relevant, reliable information in Search. So if your engagement metrics prove your website does so, you’ll be one step closer to ranking higher.
#3 More sales
Finally, what does all this engagement yield, if not more sales? A few other things, yes, but sales you likely care for more – especially during COVID. But it’s not just sales; consider the steps you’ll be taking to ensure sales:
● Content marketing – crafting and distributing your content.
● Matching the user search intent – delivering exactly what audiences are looking for.
● Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Landing Page Optimization (LPO) – convincing those audiences to convert.
What do all of these have in common? Yes, they all will enhance your SEO. Thus, more traffic, more engagement, even more sales. It’s a never-ending circle! How to increase visibility on search engines.
Now, all that said, how exactly can you increase visibility on search engines? Through SEO – but what
exactly is SEO?
SEO is such a vast topic that it’d take many, many articles to properly cover. Simply google it, and see how many vastly different results you get; it’s that vast, and that important.
In brief, SEO polishes websites, content, and even off-page and technical endeavors for search engines. To do so, it follows Google’s 200+ ranking factors. But again, these are far too many to properly cover in a single article. So here, we’ll instead focus on the 5 most crucial elements of SEO.
#1 Target proper keywords
First and foremost, what are you building content around? Keywords. That’s what your search engine visibility hinges on. Keyword research is, by far, the most fundamental step to content creation.
Here, consider the fundamentals of keyword research:
● Get a keyword research tool. If you’re not using one, these can make a world of difference all by themselves. Consider Ahrefs, SEMrush, HubSpot, or any other SEO tool superstars. Any one of them will give you a solid understanding of your optimal keywords to target.
● Target long-tail keywords. Then, many of these will rank keywords by difficulty. Why? Because everyone targets, say, “shoes”, but few target “white women’s running shoes”. Those are long-tail keywords – and very, very often, they’ll be a better goal to strive for.
● Target local keywords. Finally, never forget your local audiences. This is so important that a whole SEO subset, dubbed “local SEO”, has sprung up around it. Consider “near me” searches, or “best [product] in [location]” searches; those are extremely lucrative searches to rank for.
What’s more, those both increase your local authority and attract more engaged, ready-to-buy audiences.
#2 Match your users’ search intent
All that said, keywords are only half the battle to increase visibility on search engines. That’s the half that asks “what are people searching for?”. The other half is intent, or “why are people searching for this?”.
This too is a very vast topic, so let us summarize it. SearchEngineJournal identifies 3 types of searches:
● “Know” – searches with informational intent. Users want information.
● “Do” – searches with, typically, transactional intent. Users intend to take a specific action, usually a conversion.
● “Go” – searches with navigational intent. Users want to find a physical store; local SEO falls here.
Now, this may sound a bit daunting, but Google really cares about this factor. Both Backlinko and SearchEngineJournal agree on this, and they’re not alone in this belief. So, the next step is to examine top-ranking content and decipher what people actually want. Once you do, you can craft content around their intent, and watch your SEO score soar.
#3 Get backlinks
Next come backlinks, and those too are extremely important. In brief, backlinks are inbound links to your pages from other sites. Those come in 2 primary forms:
● Follow backlinks, which add to your PA. Those are the most valuable backlinks, and usually the harder ones to get.
● NoFollow backlinks. Those don’t add to your PA, but they still generate referral traffic. Then, backlinks serve a few different functions:
● They produce traffic and attract engaged audiences, which convert more easily.
● Follow backlinks boost your PA, and thus your SEO score.
● Their anchor text helps Google understand the subject of your content.
That’s all fine and good, but how can you get backlinks? Well, there are 2 main ways:
1. Spontaneous backlinks. Write good enough content, and other sites will link to it by themselves.
2. Contribution backlinks. Reach out to webmasters with your backlink-backed content, and they might publish it.
You can’t do much about the former, save for doing your best. You can, however, actively work toward the latter. Grab a backlink-focused SEO tool, like Ubersuggest, and use it to identify backlink opportunities. For reference, Neil Patel, the creator of Ubersuggest, magnificently explains the process in this article.
#4 Mind your website’s loading speed
Now, let’s return to your website. If you’ve read through Backlinko’s ranking factors article above, you already know your website’s loading speed is up there.
The main reason for this is that Google finds that slow loading speeds diminish the visitor’s User Experience (UX). In turn, if your website offers a poor experience, it shouldn’t rank as high. But even SEO aside, Google finds that slow loading speeds will directly increase your bounce rates. So, the more users bounce, the less you’ll see conversions. We can’t have that, can we?
To start working on your website’s loading speed, consider the following:
● Your hosting. Evaluate how much your hosting affects your loading speeds, and consider upgrading if you see fit.
● JavaScript and HTTP requests. Clean up your code whenever possible, and consider minifying your JavaScript to decrease response times.
● Images. Finally, compress your images to under 100kB, and consider using CSS sprites wherever possible.
Other solutions might extend to cleaning up CMS plugins and themes, opting for a CDN, and so forth –
but let’s not get too technical here.
#5 Keep your website mobile-friendly
Finally, ensuring mobile-friendliness is among the best ways to increase visibility on search engines. Not only does Google love it, but your audiences love it too. And considering more than half of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices, you can’t afford to overlook it. Mobile-friendliness hinges on such factors as:
● Loading speed. Mobile users are particularly hasty, so de-clutter your pages to ensure pages load fast for them.
● Responsiveness. Similarly, your pages should be immediately responsive. Monitor your pages’ input delays and adjust them accordingly.
● Mobile-first design. Finally, consider such design choices as drop-down navigation bars and smaller fonts. Mobile devices have less screen real estate, so your design should address that for a better UX.
Thankfully, while Google isn’t terribly clear about SEO factors, it is about mobile-friendliness. You may use their mobile-friendly test tool to adjust your efforts – plus, it’s free and easy to use!
Conclusion
So there you have it. To increase visibility on search engines, you’ll need to delve into the basics of SEO and work your way up. The 5 factors above are our picks for the most important ones to get started.
What do you think? Let us know below!