Is your good intention for 2017 to rank higher in Google? Then keep in mind the most important Google ranking factors. In 2017, mobile devices will have an even greater function in the search engine optimization process. For example, is your website mobile-friendly?
A good position in Google is the opening to many visitors. No matter how good your website is, without many visitors you will achieve little. Therefore, make sure your basis for your ranking is at least in order. The most important tips can be found in this article.
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. This is becoming increasingly important as smartphone use continues to grow persistently. Meanwhile, smartphones can already be found in over 73% of Dutch households. Although the desktop has lost a lot of ground in recent years, tablets and smartphones are actually advancing.
A "mobile-friendly" website meets at least the following criteria:
Google has a separate page to check if your website is mobile-friendly, the Mobile Friendly Test:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?hl=nl
Users want a good experience and so does Google. Google strives to give its users results that are relevant and of high quality. In doing so, they expect websites to be fast, secure and, above all, not pretend to be anything other than what you are.
Google says:
"Unique, relevant content. Clear menu structure and navigation. A website is user-friendly and exudes confidence."
Therefore, put your visitors first at all times. Ask yourself whether your visitors will appreciate it, not whether it's good for your Google ranking. Over 66% of visitors are annoyed by websites that are not responsive or slow to load images. Putting your visitors first will definitely improve the findability of your website.
Need help creating the right content? Then please contact with our content marketers!
Google provides useful tools to aid the search optimization process. For example, everyone no doubt uses Google Analytics to analyze visits to your website. Google Analytics is a handy tool provided by Google to collect and display detailed statistics of a website. The purpose of this service is to give the website administrator a clear picture of visitor flow and page views, among other things. In addition, Google Search Console gives you insights to improve findability in Google.
Google AdWords allows businesses to advertise on Google websites. The ads are based on keywords defined by the advertiser. The advertiser pays only when the ad is actually clicked. So for additional customers you can advertise on Google for a fixed amount per day.
Our advertising specialists can help you with this! Read here how we used Google Adwords for Womanizer.nl.
Secure websites will become even more important for ranking in 2017. Secure websites will get an edge in search results over unsecure websites. Currently, all HTTP websites are still marked as neutral, but going forward, Google will mark these websites as insecure.
To avoid this, it is important to get your SSL certificate so that your website is marked as secure!
Want to know more about this? Then read our blog Google Chrome marks http websites as not secure.
The number of mobile searches continues to grow and this will continue for the foreseeable future, so it is not surprising that the number of voice searches is growing rapidly. With virtual assistants such as Apple Siri, Google Now and Microsoft Cortana, this is becoming more common. Voice search on smartphones will change the way we search. Where you used to write down as short a text as possible, speaking will make you use a different search term. As a result, less frequent search terms are increasing. Where before you would type "Mac Donalds Amsterdam," now you are more likely to say, "Where is the nearest Mac Donalds?"
Wanting to be high in the rankings means keeping up with developments. Many companies do not yet take website speed into account. Optimizing your website for speed will quickly give you a big advantage over your competitors.
Google's AMP platform is designed specifically for this. Again, it is important to consider a "smartphone friendly" website. A "smartphone friendly," fast website is necessary to attract as many visitors as possible.
Read more about this in our blog"Google's AMP technology loads mobile websites in seconds."
With a dedicated image search engine, images turn out to be very important to Google. Well-optimized images keep visitors on the website longer. Therefore, it is important to at least provide your images with an ALT-tech with the most important keyword in it.
Do you need help achieving higher rankings in Google? Then please contact our advertising specialists. They will be happy to help you reach a top position!
