Everyone wants their websites to feature on page 1 for their desired search terms. This is understandable and is important in getting the very best from your website. Correct SEO can achieve this, based on practical and realistic keyword research and implementation.
But there are a few things that you should be checking to ensure your site is performing as well as it can – without SEO.
1. Check your site is Mobile Friendly.
OK, this is SEO in a way. From April 21st Google will start to penalise sites that are NOT mobile friendly when searched from a mobile device. This means a searcher using a smartphone or tablet (i.e. lots of searchers) will not see your website in search results.
Google want the mobile user experience to be the best it can be and it makes no sense in showing websites that are not easily viewable.
The amount of sites out there that are still not mobile friendly is amazing. One well know PR firm blogged about the importance of mobile friendly sites from their own site – which was not mobile friendly!
The impact here is huge, larger than the last two most important Google algorithm changes. Huge.
What can you do? Use this Mobile Friendly site checker from Google. It’s a simple yes / no. If no, talk to your web designer about getting the site upgraded (or talk to us, we produce sites that look beautiful on any device – desktop, smartphone or tablet).
2. Connect up Webmaster Tools
Google’s Webmaster tools offers stacks of info on your site and you should be checking in here to see exactly what can be done to assist your site. In some cases, Google will email your account detailing change suggestions.
Take a look at crawl errors and 404s and get them fixed. This helps both the user and search robot journey in your site.
The ‘Search Queries’ will also give you valuable information on search terms for your site, with number of impressions and positions in Google search. You can use this information as part of any keyword research you might want to do for SEO, once you have covered points 1 – 3 here!
3. Sort out your Backlinks
In the past, many SEO’s offered page 1 results guaranteed and by placing shed loads of links to your site from link directories, link farms and other low ranking sites, they achieved this.
It doesn’t take Google long to eradicate any ‘black hat’ SEO practices. The unnatural linking was tackled with the Penguin update. Now sites that have poor link profiles have been penalised in search. If your site dropped off search results from April 2012 onwards, it is likely to be a result of the Penguin.
In Webmaster tools you can check on links to your site. If you wish, we can supply a free backlink report detailing the good bad and ugly. If there are any links that need to be taken care of, we offer a ‘link removal service’ and would be happy to help.
Never forget SEO, you just cannot. But the above are things you should be doing today to assist any SEO you might be planning or to enhance the SEO you already have.
Failure to do the 3 tasks will most certainly hamper your position in search. For any assistance, give us a call – 02866 328248.