Helping online businesses improve their customer service is the main objective behind programming algorithms for internet search engines. Any business that uses the internet as an aspect of its storefront wants its name ranked at the top of every search engine (SE) list. A number of factors (signals) influence how highly ranked a company website will be. Consistent review of those signals, and the websites’ response to them, will make it more likely that the corporate face will rise up, and stay near the top of that list. Here are a few factors that make up the art and science of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Hosts and language
Google’s search engines read HTML, the primary programming language, so every website should use HTML as much as possible. Majority of web developers know this and intentionally create their client pages using HTML as the primary code. The web presence of a company using the services of a non-HTML host may not be found by the Google SE at all.
When there is non-HTML content on the web page, such as images, flash or videos, creating an HTML tag relating to that content will allow Google to find and rank that data. These alternative entries (‘alt’ tags) also explain the non-HTML data for website visitors who can’t access that content. (For those who can’t open JPG files, for example, the ‘alt’ tag will explain the content of the image).
Usually, when you have a shared hosting service for your website, your website IP address is shared with a lot of other users from the same server. When you have many websites on one IP address, you run a risk. Why? If that IP address is seen as being spamming by Google it is not only one website that suffers – all of the websites that use the same IP may also have a negative effect. That is especially true if you have a lot of websites on the same hosting account. That is why you should consider SEO hosting options, which can have a lot of different dedicated IP’s in our server.
Keywords, site and page titles
Using specific words and phrases throughout the site – in the site title, page titles and content – can move that site up the rankings. Each of those words/phrases acts as a separate signal to Google’s engine. The more signals Google can read, the more it will be able to ascertain what the site is about. Google has an ‘Adwords Keyword Planner’ (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) that helps users to select significant SEO words for their sites that will attract and engage their target visitors.
Linking and social media
Engines also look for web page links in other areas of the internet. When a happy customer shares their good opinion on Twitter or Facebook, Google’s search engine will consider that a positive signal for ranking purposes. Other websites that refer and link to the companies’ site are also positive signals and they actually carry far more weight than social media shares.
Mobile friendly
As of April 21, 2015, Google will be changing its’ algorithms to optimize signals from websites that are mobile friendly. Companies that have not already added mobility formats will probably watch their website ranking fall. The change is driven by the reality that mobile devices are used for as much as 50% of online business these days. Corporate websites should be optimized to do business with those alternative formats.
Enterprises that keep the satisfaction of their target market population as their websites’ primary focus are already raising their ranking on Google’s search engines. Understanding and responding to Google’s search engine algorithms will take them even higher.
Featured image credit: ShutterStock
