Let’s face it. Most companies have no clue what works and what doesn’t in the online space. They launch a website because their competitors are doing it. Then they hire an SEO expert to help them raise their search ranking.
But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. If your website is not getting you the desired results, you’re perhaps making some common website mistakes. Knowing where you’re going wrong is the first step to fixing it. For instance, if you are messing up your SEO, you may want to join an SEO training course.

In the previous article, we touched upon three most common website mistakes. Here are three more mistakes to watch out.

1. Lack of clarity

It’s easier said than done, but there’s no better way to win the trust of your visitors than by using clear, easy-to-digest web copies. Trying to be too clever with your copies can do more harm than good. For instance, some web copies do not include a clear call to action. As a result, visitors may get confused about what steps to take after reading the website.

2. Not including a picture of you

It may sound intriguing but the truth is; your visitors are human beings. They always like it when they can see a picture of the person they’re planning to do business with. Believe it or not, your photo speaks volumes about you. Your customers are more likely to trust you when they see a photo of you. It shows they are going to do business with a real human being as opposed to an invisible robot.

3. Not using long-form content

Surprising but true! A recent study found that websites with long-form content are more likely to rank higher in organic search results. Also, people prefer reading long content pieces because most of long copies usually go deep down to analyze a problem and provide solutions to that.

Do you often wonder why your competitor’s website attracts more traffic than yours when there’s seemingly not much difference between the two?

Well, maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye. Only a professional SEO consultant can point out the “invisible” mistakes in your website. But before you can hire professional SEO services, you can at least be aware of the common website mistakes SMBs often make. Here are the three most critical ones.

1. Not having a defined goal

Launching a website just because others are doing it is NOT a smart move. Yes…… businesses today should launch a website, but not until they know why they need one. Ideally, start by asking questions, such as, “Why do I need to lunch a website?” or “What am I trying to achieve with this?” It could be generating more leads, improving your online reputation, or maximizing your sales. Once you define your why, you can now create a content strategy or design plan for your website, with the end goals in mind.

2. Not making it mobile-friendly

Let’s face it! More and more people today are using their mobile phones for Google search. If you don’t optimize your website for Smartphone and other mobile devices, you’ll surely miss out a large part of the audience. Consider using responsive designs so your website can easily fit into the end-user’s device. You should also plan your SEO with the mobile users in mind.

3. Not considering load speed

Now that people are more used to getting things done in just one click, they hate waiting! If your website takes forever to load, guess what…… your potential visitors would dump you forever. The importance of ensuring fast website loading speed cannot be stressed enough. If possible, hire an experienced developer to take care of the load speed. Otherwise, you can consider opting for SSD web hosting, which skips certain steps to help find the requested data faster.

In a previous article, we touched upon some of the basic parameters set by Google for judging the quality of a webpage. You can always ask your SEO expert or join an SEO training course to know about these qualities in details. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at a few more things that make a webpage good quality according to Google.

1. Zero Technical Errors

Google always encourages quality control and rewards the websites that function well. For instance, the links should function properly, images should not consume too much time to load and the content should be duly updated over a period of time. The website audit tool should be used to perfection in order to ensure that the site is free from errors.

2. Superior Quality Page Design

The website you create should always be well organized and possess a layout that is functionally superior. The primary content should be showcased with clarity and should be designated clearly as the “main content”. Too many advertisements and secondary content bits should not distract the reader from the principal content. The page design should be organized well and functionality should never be compromised for aesthetics. Overall it should be easy and convenient to surf without any glitches.

3. Good Reputation

Google awards positive reputation. If the website is marred by a bad name, it can have a negative impact on the quality of the website. Google advises rating specialists to check BBB ratings, blog posts, news articles, magazine articles, and ratings provided by independent organizations for judging the reputation of a company. Websites should always tread that extra mile for protecting their reputation.

Every SEO training course of repute will guide you with regard to the qualities specified by Google for impressive search engine rankings. These should be referred to thoroughly for more visibility and impressive visitor inflow.

Google releases its own Search Quality Rating Guidelines and handbook which is indeed a very important document for any website creator. As any SEO consultant will tell you, this guidebook provides valuable tips on how to determine the relevance of a webpage to Google. The search giant specifies some important characteristics for determining the quality of a page. In this article, we’ll look at some of these qualities.

1. Content is King

A typical webpage is made up of three different sections, including the main content, the supplementary content and the ads. When we say “content is king” we mean the “main content” because this is what the page is about and this needs to be created with a great deal of finesse. How well the content has been created is one of the key determinants for search engine ratings.

2. Authority

Both the website and the creator of the web pages need to show some authority. Google sees some websites as an expert in their niche and it favors those sites. However, the point to note here is that not all of these sites are created by experts with a PHD certification. The website creator simply needs to show that he has enough experience on the concerned topic to provide valuable tips to others.

3. Trustworthiness

The website should appear trustworthy. It should not contain anything that shows it in a bad light. Make sure your webpage do not prompt the reader’s to provide their personal information, such as, social security number, bank account details, address and birth date. There should be no suspicious “phishing” like activities or download links which may contain malware.

You will need to engage expert SEO services for guiding you through this task of achieving impressive search engine rankings. We will look at a few more qualities in the second part of this article series.

In the first part of this article series, we touched upon SEO trends like voice search, link building and image-based search. Here are some more prominent SEO trends of 2018 that SEO services providers need to watch.

1. Mobile SEO

It comes as no surprise that almost 60 percent of internet searches today are carried out by mobile phones! And why not! Smartphones have become our all-time companions. For most of us, our phones are the first items we seek on waking up in the morning! This is why mobile SEO is likely to pick up pace in 2018. Effective strategies for mobile SEO include creating mobile-friendly websites, leveraging browser caching, boosting page speed and load times.

2. Artificial Intelligence

This might well be the year when artificial intelligence will be leveraged by prominent search engines. Google’s Rank brain, which is more like a robot than a search engine assistant, will help in better understanding of the data we publish on our websites and will possess the ability of better comprehension of user intent. Search engine optimization strategies will therefore need to be equipped with artificial intelligence, in order to keep pace.

3. User Experience

In 2018, user experience based SEO strategies would rule the roost. Giants like Google are concentrating a great deal on offering the best user experience. Important considerations should be site speed, readability, navigation structure and so on. As SEO consultants will advise, search engines today can take a closer look into the usage habits of users and tweak their services accordingly.

SEO strategies are all set to undergo radical transformations in the years to come. It is all about keeping pace and seeking the best outcomes from a transformed scenario.