Whether you manage your own website or you have hired a web development agency to take control in helping your business grow online, it's important to understand a few key factors that could be hurting your search engine rankings.
SEO-Unfriendly CMS
CMS stands for content management system, the main platform a website is developed on. A CMS should be built with all current Web technologies, which of course includes the tools that will help optimize your website. What should an SEO friendly CMS include?
- Search Engine Friendly URL Structures: Google loves content and even more so, content that is categorized. Poor URL structures (www.baddomain.com/QRT7/) do not reflect the content of a website page. Optimized URL structures (www.gooddomain.com/seo-blunders.htm) help Google make the connection between URL structure, page content and furthermore, the meta data (explained below).
- Meta Data Tools: Meta data is one of the most important elements of a website page. Meta data should be easily updated in the back-end of your CMS, so that you can insert the proper title tag name, description and keywords. Meta data for each page should include the important keywords and location of your business.
Outdated CMS
Everything on the Internet changes constantly, therefore, your content management system should be easily updated for current technologies to avoid any complications or penalizations from search engines. Google penalizes older systems since they open up the possibility for malware and hacking. So for the sake of the security of your site and its SEO ranking, make sure you're running on a current system or check with your website partner for possible upgrades.
Flash-laden Website
Sure it looks good and if you're Jim Carey you can have all of the flash you like, because who cares about SEO; however, SEO is the very basis of survival for websites' search engine rankings. Flash presents a slew of issues for web users. Flash does not interact with the Internet the same way as HTML, insofar that Flash sites are often indexed as one page because the pages are build into one file. In addition, flash sites are not compatible with browsers if the user does not have it installed; likewise, flash is not friendly across all mobile phones. If you're looking for flashy without jeopardizing your SEO, JavaScript and HTML5 have similar capabilities.
Canonicalization Issues
Canonical issues stem from websites that have more than one domain name listing the same content. To capitalize on keyword rich domain names, businesses will often purchased multiple domain names. Google sees this as duplicate content - essentially, you're diluting the SEO power to the website and confusing Google. A common and easy fix is a simple 301 redirect. Redirects allow you to choose a preferred canonical destination, sending all traffic (no matter which URL they type) to one place.
Not Having a Sitemap
Sitemaps are not only SEO-friendly, but they are user-friendly as well. Think of sitemaps as the road map that helps users to navigate your site. Sure, they can click around and find everything eventually, but with a map of all your site's pages, the user is easily taken to the page they need. In terms of SEO, a sitemap allows search engine crawlers to easily read the structure of a site. Additionally, when you make changes to your site, the sitemap will change, allowing search engines to notice the change quicker than if you did not have a sitemap.
Duplicate Content
As discussed above with canonicalization issues, duplicate content is a sure way to hurt your SEO rankings. Google‘s algorithm constantly changes to provide the best search experience for the user. To stray away from showing duplicate content on a search result page, sites like Google will choose the most relevant content based on past search queries, choosing only one of the two. You can play your odds and hope for the best, or make sure that you are using unique content and that all canonical issues are eliminated.
Being Anti-Social
It almost seems as if Facebook Fan pages are the new websites and Twitter handles (@hudsonhorizons) are the new preferred method of contacting someone via the Internet. Social has grown exponentially over the past couple of years and while websites are still the focal points of business, Facebook and its similar counterparts are becoming more and more influential for driving business back to a website. No matter how established your business may be, having a social presence on the Web is crucial nowadays. Drive more traffic back to your website through social conversations and use Facebook and Twitter as extensions of your website, where you highlight services, products or special features of your website directly through a social channel. Google has noticed the phenomenon that is social media and has even developed social analytics, allowing businesses to quantify their social media efforts!
Little to No Knowledge of SEO
SEO is important for your business and even if you've hired an agency to manage your SEO campaign, it's important to be aware of some of the basic elements that are helping your business' website climb to the top of Google. At the end of the day, you know your business the best and working directly or one-on-one with professional assistance to increase traffic on and offline will ultimately help you reach your business goals. A constant effort towards proper SEO practices is your best move forward!
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