What is Search Engine Optimization ?
When people are looking for any product or service on the internet that you — as a business owner provide, then, it becomes important to ensure that your brand pops up before your competitors Think about when you search for something on google or any other search engine for that matter. How many times do you scroll down to the fifth or the sixth link on that page? Rarely.
That is why it is absolutely crucial for businesses to be able to rank at least in the top four results, if not the first one. Google is in the business of providing people with the best answers about what they are looking for and it gives some of the best of the best results that are credible, and authentic. If you want your website ranking to be placed higher, you have to optimize your content for search engines like google. Which is what search engine optimization is.
How does google SEO work?
Suppose you want a nice velvet suit for an upcoming event. So naturally you’d go on google and type something like — velvet suit or velvet suit designs or velvet suits in Mumbai, etc.
In the content marketing world, we call these phrases ‘keywords’. Keywords like these are integrated in the content on the pages of your website or blog which tells google, what the page is about.
So how would the suit seller tell google about his pages?
He will think about what people will type in the search bar while looking for what he sells. As mentioned above in his case it could be words and phrases like velvet suit or velvet suit designs or velvet suits in Mumbai, etc. So all the pages on his website which are related to velvet suit, he will integrate these keywords on those pages so that google can match the result with the query someone has put it. We will tell you how you can do that in the later section of the blog.
Why is design important for higher search ranking?
Ranking higher up in the Google search results is something that every business desires, and hence people go more on the lines of getting the right keywords, the right headlines but what is most likely ignored is the design. Has it ever happened to you? You search what you want, you get it and then you look at it realizing Ugh!! this is just way too much to understand and therefore you end up coming back to the same results page that you are looking for, This action is commonly referred to as bouncing which also speaks to Google saying that this page didn’t have the appropriate solution to answer the users question.
As we all love Google so much we surely know that it picks up on these behavioral insights and then arranges it accordingly, so that the user asking the question gets the best results. While we spend so much time getting the right words for our so called SEO we have to realize that the experience is a basic fundamental part of driving the content forward.
Haven’t you heard the saying “A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter” Thank you Sir Lois McMaster Bujold truly, a lovely quote. This is where Design comes into play.
How can you optimize?
Whatever you do, whether you sell products on a website or you write blogs, you’d want to be the first one to pop up on google, above all the other brands (your competition) who sell similar products when someone searches for a product you sell.
There are two ways you can optimize your website and your blog.
1. On page optimization
2. Off page optimization
Although both of these are quite connected and you got to have both done on your website to be effective, we will only cover On page optimization in this blog. Because you have 100% control on on-page optimization, which design is a big part of.
How can startups rank higher on google?
The Internet is cluttered with hundreds of companies ranging from big fortune 500 companies to small startups. Big companies have deep pockets and can afford to buy keywords through which they can put their brand before anyone else in the form of ‘pay per click’ ad.
For startups it is difficult to buy keywords and pay for them since they are low on resources, so we’d suggest organically lifting up your rankings to the top. Now this may take some time, about 1–3 months organically if you do it right, but it is definitely worth it and it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
So, yes, it is definitely possible for startups to rank higher on Google — here’s how
1. Storytelling
We cant explain the importance of this topic enough, since storytelling is a proven way to engage visitors towards your website or blogs. Use images and illustrations to tell beautiful stories on your website.
2. User experience and Internal Linking
Make sure your pages are well connected with each other. The navigation on your website should be top notch. If you sell 20 products on your website, as a visitor one should be able to navigate through all of them quickly, and buy what they want without any hindrance.
Make sure the pages on your site or different articles on your blogs are linked to each other so that visitors can navigate with ease. Design plays an important role in guiding visitors where to look for what.
3. Content tagging
First things first, the content you write has to be outstanding. When people copy-paste content from blogs or article that are doing well, google can figure that out. Plagiarising content will lead you to be ranked lower by Google, therefore it is important to create content that no one has written before, share personal experiences which will make your articles and website different from others, that’s how you will stand out.
Tagging text or hierarchy
In any form of article just like the one you are reading there is a hierarchy in the elements. The article has a heading, sub headings, captions, quotes, etc. So how does google know which is the most important out of all? For that, you need to tag these elements using the standard H1, H2, ….H6 tags. The most important element (headings) should be tagged H1, then sub headings — H2 and so on. Ask your developer to tag these text elements in the code so google knows what’s important.
Meta tags and descriptions
What is Meta tag they are basically things that describe what the page and the content is about but they are not integrated in the content itself, they are put inside of the page. Google’s crawlers can identify on the basis of these tags as to what the content is about. So it is absolutely critical to put these meta tags in the code of the page if you want to rank higher. When you write quality content, pick out words and phrases from the text that describe what the article or the pages is about. These phrases and keywords needs to be integrated in page titles and sub-heading.
Image descriptions
When Google’s bots come across an image, they can’t tell what the image contains. That’s where the image name and description comes into play. Make sure all your images are named properly, if the image is of a velvet suit it should have the name velvetsuit.jpeg before uploading it on your website. This way you can also rank higher for image results.
4. Value addition
Always aim towards adding value to people’s life. Whenever someone comes to your website or blog they should feel that they learned something new or something interesting. Make sure you are the best or the unique one in your field, if not the best at least be different than other companies in your space.
5. Responsive design
Thanks to internet accessibility everywhere these days, people browse on their phones all the time. When they browse your website or blog on mobile, and it is not designed for that screen size, people won’t stay there for long. Your prospective customers should have the same experience on a mobile and desktop.
Conclusion
If you are running a startup and you want to get leads organically, if you want people to find you organically you should make sure all the above mentioned points are implemented on your website. SEO is a cumulative long term effort wherein lots of variables come in play and result in making your website rank higher.
We hope you see some amazing results in your rankings within a few weeks. Let us know through the comments or by liking if this was helpful. If you want to receive more informative content like this every week, make sure to drop your email in the box below. We will update you as soon as we release fresher more informative content.
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