For many people, SEO means “appearing on the first page of Google search.” And, as a website manager, that’s exactly what you want… to appear on the first search page! In fact, if we analyze some of the data, we see that around 80% of users don’t actually go beyond the first page!
Therefore, to gain notoriety, authority and receive more visits to your website, it is essential that your content appears in searches.
Do you know what the acronym SEO means?
You probably already recognize the term SEO. The acronym stands for “Search Engine Optimization” or, in Portuguese, “Optimization for Search Engines”.
SEO is a set of measures, methods and good conduct used to show search engines that your website has authority. It works, more or less, like this: Your website gains authority, this authority is reflected in trust and that trust translates into results. When it comes to trust, it is made up of two main factors:
- Authority – Google checks if you are an expert on a certain topic, if your business is credible or, for example, if your website has been around for a while, etc.
- Relevance – Google analyzes whether the search term is, in some way, “aligned” with your content or your business.
For example, imagine that I am a mechanic, and someone searches for “certified accountant”… obviously, even if my website is authoritative, it will not appear in searches, because it is not relevant.
Now imagine that someone searches for “mechanic in Lisbon”… if my website’s SEO is poorly optimized, it’s likely that it won’t appear in searches either. Google knows I’m a mechanic, but it doesn’t know my location. Again, my website does not appear in searches and, in this case, I have a lack of both Authority and relevance.
Therefore, the question that arises is “How do you build trust?”
10 factors that directly influence your SEO
There are some factors that, when correctly combined, allow you to create authority and relevance, and strengthen trust with Google.
1) The age of your website
The first relevant factor is the age of your website. If your website was created recently, it will not have enough authority to appear on the first search pages. Google analyzes this factor for certain reasons. One of the main ones is to avoid “sending” people to fraudulent websites. So, until your site can show that it has authority, Google will hold off on impressions on the first few search pages.
There are a few ways to deal with this factor:
- Implement a Content Marketing strategy, focused on distributing relevant, frequent, coherent and valuable content to your client type; ou
- Buy a domain with history, that already had a previous owner, that has expired or the previous owner wants to sell it. Try visiting https://auctions.godaddy.com/
2) The content of your website
Regardless of age, Google will always “look” at the content of your website to check whether it is recent or not. For example, if a website has existed since 2010, but your most recent article/page/content was published in January 2012, Google will probably not rank it relevantly. Create and publish regular content on your website.
3) Your website’s loading time
Google will analyze the speed of your website. In other words, the time it takes to load the content, from the moment a person accesses the page, until it is fully visible. It is almost impossible for your website to appear on the first pages of search results if your website is slow!
Do you want to test your website speed? It’s simple:
- Access the PageSpeed Insights page
- Insert your website link
- Click analyze
- A few moments later, you get your result
There are many factors that account for the slowness of a website. Some more technical, others within the reach of any user. For example:
- Image compression – make sure that all images on your website are compressed, complying with the recommended sizes and that their size does not exceed 300kb. In WordPress there are plugins that guarantee this treatment.
- CACHE – Make sure the CACHE for your website pages is active. Almost all CMS have an option to control CACHE. If you use WordPress, you have countless plugins to choose from.
4) Backlinks (external links to your website)
Backlinks are possibly the core of all SEO. And what are backlinks? Basically, it’s a link to your website that comes from another website or platform. For example, imagine that I go to your website and see that there is an interesting article on your blog, which I think will be useful for visitors to my website. Then I make a small summary of your article, and place it in mine, obviously with the respective link to your article! I just created a backlink to your website.
However, not all backlinks have the same credibility. The authority of the website, which references your website, also comes into the equation. In other words, the greater the notoriety of the originating website, the greater the notoriety it will create on your website. In fact, there is even a different treatment for backlinks coming from social media, but in the end it will all come down to the number of backlinks there are.
5) Social Media Activity
The fact that people interact with your content on Social Media also has an impact on the authority of your website. Google analyzes information from all traffic sources to your website. Because of this, regardless of the social network, Google will analyze engagement with your content.
Share content regularly, and interact with your network in a natural way. Your actions can create a reaction. That’s one of the best ways: staying active on social media.
6) Your website’s keywords (Keywords)
When performing a search, Google analyzes whether your website will be relevant to that search. To do this, Google uses what are called Keywords. There is the example identified previously: “If you are a mechanic and someone searches for “certified accountant”… obviously, even if your website is authoritative, it will not appear in searches, because it has no relevance.”
First of all, define the keywords that identify your business and, I am sure, you will see the number of visitors increasing gradually and consistently.
7) Traffic to your website
Do you know the story of the chicken and the egg… “Which came first, the egg or the chicken?!”
First, the fact that you receive a lot of visitors to your website shows that people trust it, and that its content is popular. And if people trust your website, Google will too.
However, we have a bit of a chicken and egg paradox. In other words, if your website doesn’t have visitors, it won’t gain authority, but if it doesn’t have authority, it won’t have visitors! And now?!
There are some techniques to overcome this situation (email marketing, online advertising, content distribution partnerships, influencer marketing, among others). When developing your Marketing strategy, you should consider all options for generating traffic (remember the methodology… the (A) is for Reach!
8) The security of your website
It all comes down to your website’s data transfer protocol. It is recommended that your website is presented via HTTPS (https://paipelaine.pt), instead of HTTP (http://paipelaine.pt). The “S” in HTTP stands for a secure website.
9) Direct searches for your website
Not so relevant, and something we don’t have much control over, are direct searches for your website. In other words, the fact that a person searches for the name of your business also influences the relevance and authority of your website.
10) Your website’s bounce rate (Bounce Rate)
Your website’s bounce rate is, essentially, an analysis of the number of people who enter your website and leave without viewing more pages. It all comes down to the number of times a given visitor interacts with your content. The more interaction there is on your website, the more authority it will have. In other words, Google will assume that you must have interesting content that answers the visitor’s questions.
Another article that, I am convinced, will help you optimize the visibility of your content. Take advantage of these tips to review and optimize your SEO and, if you have any questions, leave your comment or send us a message.