Website Elements That Kill Your Rankings on Google
Ranking your website on Google takes more than posting content and keywords. Numerous businesses will buy a new website but miss the technical things that search engines look for. These issues lead to lower visibility, lower traffic, and a poor user experience.
There are so many factors that can lead to poor performance for your website. Fixing these things can lead to your average web traffic and your business can make more sales. This article will go over some of the basic factors that can hurt the search performance of a website. Most likely, this performance is hurting your web presence. This article will help your website grow your business in Lagos, Nigeria.
The Importance of SEO on your Website
With a website that has good SEO, search engines can crawl and understand your webpages with ease. This helps improve the user experience (UX) on your website. Once a site is SEO optimized, users are more likely to stay and interact with the site.
When Google tries to rank your pages in a search result, it uses hundreds of different factors. Having good content is crucial to web traffic; less users means less traffic. However, good structural design and technical performance of the site is crucial.
-
Poor Loading Speed
Poor loading speeds is one of the top site performance factors. Users expect quick loading speeds and so does Google.
Some common issues affecting websites are:
- Large images that haven’t been optimized
- Too many plugins being used
- Low Quality Hosting
- CSS and Javascript Being Used that Aren’t Necessary
All of these issues also slow loading speeds. Slower speeds negatively impact a website’s google rankings. Loading speeds are a factor in user experience, and enhancing experience overall also makes a website more competitive and effective in a search.
-
Neglecting Mobile Experience
Most website browsing today is done on a mobile device. Not catering to this means users lose interest fast.
Some characteristics of mobile friendly websites are:
- Fast loading
- Simple, easy to read text
- Simple and easy to use navigations
- Buttons that are easy to click and properly spaced
Lagos businesses focusing on mobile use tend to have a measurable impact on search rankings.
-
Not Implementing the Basics of Technical SEO
Ignoring basic growth aspects of technical SEO means a website is destined to fail. Even content that is done well has a tough time ranking if search engines can’t find the pages.
Here are a few key focuses:
- Title tags and meta descriptions are unique and optimized
- All pages have H1 headings and a logical structure of H2 and H3
- Presence of an XML Sitemap and Robots.txt to convey to search engines indexed pages
- The best technical seo in Nigeria create a good base for long term growth.
-
Broken Links and Error Pages
Not focusing on broken links and errors gives a poor experience and wastes crawling budgets.
Here are some common problems that can happen to websites:
- 404 error pages
- Outdated internal links
- Incorrect redirects
- Missing images
Regular maintenance identifies these problems and fixes them so they don’t negatively impact your rankings.
-
Weak Internal Linking
Internal links help search engines and website visitors understand the structure of your website and where they can find valuable information.
Don’t leave your pages disconnected. Instead, link content that is related to one another. For example, The Adspire Digital can be found under our services.
Having an internal linking strategy is important so website visitors can navigate easily to your content and helps establish authority.
-
Thin or Duplicate Content
Google favors new and original content. Don’t create content that is:
- A digital copy of other website content
- The same content on multiple website pages
- Low value pages with no content
If you focus on creating content that is valuable and informative, you can show your expertise.
-
Improper Image Optimization
Images are great for user engagement and can hurt website speed if they are not optimized.
Some best practices are to:
- Make images smaller
- Use descriptive file names
- Use relevant alt text
- Use new image formats
When images are optimized, they help website speed and engagement.
-
Website Ease of Use
Website visitors should be able to find important information easily.
Some characteristics of a website that has good navigation is:
- Clear menus
- Structured pages
- Easy access to important services
- Consistent design across pages
Websites that help people in Nigeria should have the contact information easily accessible.
-
Performance Monitoring
SEO is not a one and done practice. You have to periodically check your website to see if you have issues.
Businesses should look into many things like:
- Traffic trends
- Keyword performance
- Crawl errors
- Page speed
- User behavior
Hiring Professional audit services can help businesses find technical issues that may be holding your website back.
-
No Ongoing Website Optimization
Search engines are always changing how they rank sites, meaning that sites also need to be updated to stay relevant and competitive.
Ways to optimize your sites include:
- Keeping content updated
- Loading your pages faster
- Fixing your sites technical issues
- Bettering User Experience
- Routine SEO checkups
A well-optimized website will have sustained rankings.
How to Fix Your Website’s SEO
Preventing website ranking issues can be a simple process, while fixing already dropped rankings can be a long process. Simple things you can do to prevent issues include:
- Routine website checkups/audits
- Keeping your sites software and plugins up to date
- Optimizing all pages
- Bettering how your webpages load
- Routine checks for website issues
- Keeping content relevant
- Structuring your website logically
The businesses in Lagos, Nigeria that take care of these regularly will have a much stronger and better website.
Want to Increase Your Website’s Ranking in Google?
Here at The Adspire Digital, we help businesses discover the issues with their online exposure and give great feedback on how they can better their online presence. Our services include a full audit of your website and how you can better your SEO and online visibility. Reach out to us to help your business with a website that is better/faster.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What mistakes do websites most often make with SEO?
Websites make many SEO mistakes like poor mobile optimization, slow loading pages, more broken links, duplicate content, and most importantly poor meta and internal links. Also, web pages that are SEO poor usually do not meet the technical standards, but all can be easily fixed. Web pages can easily gain more SEO with a little tweaking for Google visibility.
- Why are SEO Web pages improving ranks on Google?
SEO web pages make it easy for search engines to index and understand content, plus it improves the overall web page user experience. Web pages that load quicker, are mobile friendly, and are easy to navigate improve rankings on Google.
- How often do I need to complete an SEO Web page Assessment?
Web page SEO audits should be completed every 3 to 6 months. Frequent audits catch a multitude of issues that are impacting web page performance and ranking on searches. These can include broken links, poor page loading speeds, along with many more technical SEO issues.
- Does Technical SEO improve a web page ranking on Google?
Improving a web page ranking on Google is the core focus of Technical SEO. Web pages that improve structure, speed, and optimization for Search Engine crawlers and Index greatly impact positive visibility on searches for a web page. Technical SEO also requires incorporating web page quality content for sustained visibility.
