The first thing that affects Google ranking is content. Relevance, authority, and readability are three important factors in writing content that will rank on search engines.
Relevance means that you are talking about the service or product you provide. For example, if you are promoting yourself as a personal chef and you have a paragraph about driving stock cars on a dirt track, that is not relevant. Potential customers came to the site to learn about what you have to offer, not your other interests. The website content should be about the primary category of your business, although blogs can sometimes stray into other areas once you have established yourself as an authority on the topic through relevant blog posts.
This brings me to the next factor: authority. The content needs to make you seem like you know what you are doing. Your tone should be assertive, confident, and respectful of your audience. Prove that you know what you are talking about. However, don't use too much jargon or words that are difficult or obscure.
Which, of course, leads to the third factor, readability. The reading level should be fourth to eighth-grade level. Keep it conversational, friendly, and inviting. Add local keywords but use them in well-written sentences. No keyword loading, which means sticking strings of keywords in where they don't really make sense
Structure
The structure of your website is also important to keep people on the site longer and rank higher on Google.
Structure means how everything is laid out on the page. Potential customers should never have to look at a whole screen of text. Break it up with headings, pictures, and white space (or dark space.)
Headings are words, titles, or sentences that are in larger print, bold, and summarize what the following content is about. They attract the eye as customers scan the page. If your customers are not interested in the content at the top, they will scan headings to find content that might interest them more. Make it apparent what your paragraphs are about, and readers may skip to a lower section of the page. The deeper searchers go into your pages, the better your search ranking
Pictures also draw customers into the page and keep them there. As they scroll down the screen, they should always be able to see some text, at least one heading, and at least part of a picture. Putting text in one column and pictures in another or using a background picture can make this possible. Be sure your background picture does not negatively affect readability.
Break up your paragraphs. Most website users prefer to read their information in small bits. Some space between paragraphs relieves the eyes and keeps people reading. Paragraphs of three to five sentences hold the user's interest, and again, they will stay longer and go deeper.
Number of words. A homepage should have at least 1500 words, and the back pages should have at least 500. If the top competitor in your specific business category has more words than that on their pages, you want to beat them out by about 500 words.
Interlinks are another important factor in the structure of your page. Interlinks are connections to another page or spot on your website. If you have several services, each service should be mentioned on the home page and then linked to the specific page on which that service is described.
Check out how your site looks on Mobile Devices. Almost half of all searches today and carried out on mobile devices. If your website is not easily viewed on a mobile device, loads too slowly, or has images that don't fit you are losing business. Check the view on computers, tablets, and phones before you publish.
If all this sounds too complicated and time-consuming, we are here to help. We realize that small business owners want to do business, not spend all their time making and managing websites. We can take that worry off your plate and take you higher in the local search rankings. Our experienced content writers can deliver optimized content quickly and our designers understand the structure of a winning website.
