Expanding Your Customer Base
How Search Engine Optimization Is Changing
Jorge Medina
For most organizations and individuals running websites, appearing in search results is a critical part of their efforts. Search engine optimization is a time-tested way to achieve this goal. However, SEO is an ever-evolving field, and you have to keep up with developments. You should be aware of these four ongoing changes.
Mobile Everything
When a search engine analyzes a user's request, it looks at many factors. One of the most basic ones is whether a particular page will look good on the user's device. If two roughly equal pages might be the engine's top result, it will usually favor the one that provides the best viewing experience for the user. With the advent of mobile devices, this means mobile becomes more important in SEO every year.
For an SEO consultant, responsive design is generally the preferred solution. A responsive page sizes content to whatever the width and height of the user's device might be. Consequently, the page will look good on mobile, and search indexing bots will pick up that fact.
Semantic Value
Early search systems focused on word frequency and density. However, this was an easy system to use because website operators could stuff pages with keywords and get traffic.
Once more, search engine services providers have sought to provide the best quality to people checking the web for answers. Latent semantic values have become dominant in assessing the quality of content. Rather than ranking a page by the specific words on it, the indexing bots will determine what the overall theme of the page is.
Someone running a car parts website, for example, may want to focus on blog posts that provide specific semantic values. A post might cover how to do an oil change so the site can sell oil and filters.
Content Quality
The quality of the content on the page is just as important for SEO purposes as the topics and semantics. If a page's writing is poor, the search indexing system will rank it lower versus equally topical pages. You will want to avoid creating content littered with typos and major grammatical issues.
Page Load Time
Finally, search engines don't want users to wait when they click on pages. You will want to have fast-loading pages using lean code. Likewise, your web server should respond quickly to requests and load images rapidly. Not only will this impress the search engines, but users will appreciate it, too.
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Over three years ago, I impulsively quit my job in order to start my own business. I was tired of working for other people who didn’t always have my best interests in mind when making executive decisions. After launching my home-based business, I set up my first social media page. I was amazed at how quickly new businesses could expand their customer bases through social media outlets. I was also astonished at how easy developing a page on a social media site was. On this blog, I hope you will discover smart tips to enhance your business through social media outlets. Enjoy!