SEO activity is a long-term process that will bring results in a few months. It all depends, among other things, on the industry you are in, the competition in your market, the history and authority of your domain, or the design and scope of your website optimization.
Good SEO Starts with an Audit and a Strategy
An SEO audit is one of the most important starting points. In the first month, you need to check what has happened to your website so far and why you have not felt the clear results of these actions.
Based on a thorough analysis, an SEO agency will create a readable document containing the most important notes, tips, and a base of recommendations related to the positioning of your site. Then, an individual strategy will be planned to take into account your business. You can visit the site of this agency and look at examples. After the visit, this process will not seem so easy and fast.
The Age of the Site Matters
The domain age in SEO is crucial. Even if several sites have the same topic relevance, the search engine still prefers other resources and they are displayed higher in the SERP. This happens, among other things, because the ranking algorithm registers the age of the domain. Old sites that have been around for more than 1-3 years are more likely to be at the top than young resources. In Google, a special sandbox filter was created for the purpose.
Website Optimization
Neither a website nor an online store is perfect. Any flaws in the code, bad UX, and UI negatively affect the position of the site in the search engine. It's also common that one fix exposes 5 other bugs and that require IT and SEO specialists to spend hours.
Content Creation
Good content and metadata, as well as the right choice of keywords, means good and effective SEO website positioning. There is no magic way to quickly optimize your project's content and meta tags. It just needs to be clicked, corrected, or rewritten according to the principles of user-friendliness. Product and category descriptions, blog posts, e-books, manuals, and descriptions of all photos and graphics are months of work. However, they do produce certain effects.
At this stage, it is worth deciding which keywords and phrases you will be focusing on in the fight against your competitors. Customers come to each of your sites after entering certain queries into Google. The longer the list of these words, the longer the battle will last. To better understand what needs to be done, use the advice of an SEO specialist in the promotion. The more accurate and unique phrases you choose, the easier it will be to reach the top and attract potential buyers.
Link Building
In addition, there is also the acquisition of valuable inbound links from sites with high authority. Here, quality outweighs quantity. Google takes into account the domains from which links lead to the promoted resource, and how quickly this happens - both domains and links should increase proportionally. Bad link-building practices can make your situation much worse.
Google Needs to Notice You
It can sometimes take up to a few months to see the changes you make. That's why it's worth "getting noticed" - any corrections and optimizations for indexing are recommended to be submitted through Google Search Console.
Behavioral Factors
They are a set of indicators that characterize the behavior of users on your resource and their interest in its content, for example:
- average visit time;
- the number of pages viewed;
- bounce rate.
If your site is interesting to users, then its behavioral indicators will improve significantly, and positions in the SERP will begin to grow.
Commercial Factors
They are indicators of the reliability of an online seller for search engines and users. They influence rankings and purchasing decisions. The main commercial factors that Google takes into account when ranking:
- Assortment of goods and range of services. A wide assortment will help the visitor to choose the necessary product and will become an additional incentive for a repeat visit. Also, the assortment presented on the site should be relevant. If the site sells tea, the relevant assortment is brewing utensils, the irrelevant assortment is household chemicals or computer equipment.
- Methods of delivery and payment. A detailed section "Shipping and payment" increases the conversion and increases the level of trust. Give your customers a choice of multiple payment and shipping options so they can choose one of the most convenient.
- Contact page. It should also be as informative as possible - a map, how to get there, photos of the office, opening hours, contact methods, and official details. Offer customers alternative ways to communicate - be sure to have a phone and email.
- Usability. Ease of use of the site - simple site navigation, informative product cards, high-quality photos, information about the availability of goods (in or out of stock), filters and sorting in the catalog, the ability to compare products, a shopping cart, an online consultant, etc.
- Presence in social networks. Groups and pages in social networks are a channel for communication between a company and customers. The activity of the group and the number of live members tell about the company's reputation and customer loyalty.
Your corporate blog or online store is a long-term investment that will work for you in the coming decades. You just need to be consistent. Everything, in particular our shopping habits, is being digitized at a tremendous rate, and there is no sign that we will return to the offline world. That is why the promotion makes sense and it is worth waiting for its visible effect for several or even more months. First, you need to identify errors and shortcomings that may interfere with promotion. This requires a comprehensive audit. If you do not want to correct errors yourself or you do not have time, you can order improvements from SEO specialists.
