When we want to position our website at the top of Google, we have to learn to think only and exclusively about SEO and Optimization of the most significant online asset, our Website. The great internet search engines do not miss a single point of chance for content creators and webmasters.

Optimizing for SEO is not the only thing to do!

Interestingly, before we start listing the practices necessary for 100% optimization of a site for SEO, keep in mind that not everything is SEO. Users have gained the utmost priority. Search engines have kept people before them.

SEO is one more tool to drive traffic to a website where SEO services play a vital role in accelerating your business gains, only if done right, at the right time and the right place. This does not mean that SEO is left aside, but that you know how to choose the time you invest in your SEO optimization strategies.

With all that said, let’s take a rundown at the essentials of website optimization in 2020 to be in the good eyes of users as well as the SERPs.

Considerable Factors for Website Optimization in 2020

#Mobile Optimization

Mobility has been accelerated to a great extent where a user can’t keep its mobile device far off an arm’s distance. Masses today are active on the Web almost day and night with the accessible power of a smartphone.

Taking this into account, no marketer can afford to miss mobile optimization for SEO. At least you won’t give a chance to Google for pointing you out for its Mobile-First Indexing. Right?

It simply means, the overlord looks for the mobile version of your webpage for indexing and crawling your web pages in spite of the desktop versions. Out of the desktop and mobile versions, it opts to rank your mobile version.

What to ensure as per Google Standards?

• Optimized images/videos
• Clickable and workable links
• Faster load time
• Enhanced appearance
• Better Navigation
• Appropriate site structure

#Content Marketing

“Content is a crucial facet of a Website! Despite being well-optimized, if it fails to deliver quality and relevancy as per the user searches it won’t ever be tagged No1.”

Google and its algorithms work simply to provide value to users. If your content doesn’t possess Quality, Relevancy, Knowledge, and Engagement then there is a need to enhance the website quality by focussing on these few essentials.

Long-Form Content?

Search Engines have set a minimum standard for the content’s length (300 words on a page) and have put no restrictions on the extent you can go on writing. Nevertheless, 3000-4000 words on a piece of content won’t make a difference if it doesn’t fulfill its intent.

“The average Google’s First Page Content possesses 1890 words.”

Easy to Read?

“Write for the audience, Not for Sales or Yourself!”

Readability matters, especially when you are writing for web page content as there you need to show your dexterity, highlighting the maximum in a minimum of words. Reading content by others must not be made tedious.

Keyword Density?

No exact number defines a perfect density of Keyword usage on web pages or the content, search engines advice only to be natural as you could be at your best.

On-Page SEO?

Website pages with just content won’t create an impact on SEO. It’s the art of writing content that Google favors.  All the details mentioned help you to get indexed high.

• Website’s Structure
• Content Structure
• Internal/External Links
• Images and Videos
• Navigation
• Metadata

Align all these requisites adequately for all your posts and pages.

[Prefer Reading: “How to Write Content that Ranks Top on Google?”]

#User Experience & User Intent

User experience is to let a user acquire a meaningful interaction with your website, not solely this, but with every aspect of your web asset (i.e.your website).

You must apply tactics to attract, delight, and engage your website visitors, and make them returning users. Remove all the hurdles on your site which creates trouble for a user while searching for its intent.

• Ease the website’s navigation
• Design and navigation must not overlap each other, rather run smoothly, simultaneously
• Give your content/write-ups a public access
• Website content must clarify, satisfy and convince your users
• Render value to visitors in terms of overall website experience
• Be trustworthy, to gain users’ vote of trust

Next, capture the user’s intent!

Search engines today have explored a user’s overall history, behavior, search patterns, and various other demographics and have reached the next level in displaying the most relevant information, refining its algorithms and working principles.

Empowered by the technologies of AI and ML, Rank Brain changes the ranking rules. Its says:

“Do more for users, and we’ll do more for you.”

It simply implies that marketers must work for impressing the valuable users, not the search engines, and must change their obsolete working ways to get good user results.

• Refine your buyer’s journey to understand them well
• Focus on user conceptualization and personalization
• Apply contextual marketing
• Segment users as per their locale, language, interest, age, etc. and customize as per their needs. (kind of Divide and Rule principle)

#Website & Page Speed

Relate realistically.

You have a quest of searching for a query. You started your hunt on Google, found a relevant website link, and clicked on it @ a breakneck speed. The website link disappoints you by taking loads of seconds to load itself where it was allowed to take less than 3 seconds to display information.

The Consequence?

You hit the back to Google and that particular website lost a potential user. What if the scenario occurs with your own website? No, off course you can’t afford it.

Optimizing your website asks you to optimize it holistically including each and every web page. People have a very short attention span today where the percentage of people who admit that they would abandon a website for taking longer than 2-3s for loading, accounted for 53%.

Thus, pay heed to the below-mentioned notables for page and website optimization for SEO:

• Improve server response time
• Reduce/compress files’ sizes
• Enable browser caching
• Load CSS and JavaScript parallelly
• Make less use of plugins
• Embed images with perfect sizes as per the web page
• Execute compression audit
• Minify/erase unnecessary data/test/images/videos/files/sections

Prefer Reading: “5 Simple Steps to a First Page Ranking.”

#Link Building

“Ranking Without Links is a Hard Nut to Crack!”

This is what Google believes and has confirmed that links contribute to one of the crucial factors in ranking your pages and websites. Relevant Links and backlinks signal the SERPs that your website or content is authoritative and is trustworthy

“Aherfs asserts, after analyzing 1 Billion Website Pages, that 90.63% of pages get zero traffic from Google!”

If you think there is a deep pond of strategies and techniques to apply for link building, then you’re absolutely wrong. The phenomenon revolves around only two major aspects:

• Worth Linking and Relevant Websites/Outlets
• Worth Linking Content

Your search for finding valuable sites and crafting valuable content has to be more extensive and broad gauge.

Learn from Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique to amplify your website’s search traffic, leveraging Link Building. 

I hope I was successful in guiding you with the preferred practices to optimize your valuable website for possessing a top rank on the search engines. If you want to share anything new and relevant with the readers, feel free to post it in our comments section.

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