Where should your priorities lie when you\u2019re trying to optimize the search performance of your website? You won\u2019t have the time or resources need to cover every aspect in great detail, so you need to narrow things down and determine the most cost-effective way to proceed \u2014 today, though, there\u2019s enough of an overlap that it\u2019s also damaging to be myopic.<\/p>\n
Imagine that you focus on technical SEO, looking to polish the mechanical functions of your website at a fundamental level \u2014 it might work for search crawlers, but will it satisfy visitors? And what of the opposite approach? A commitment to smoothing out your UX will delight website users, but won\u2019t overcome structural problems.<\/p>\n
To thrive in such a competitive online environment, you need your store to pair a firm technical foundation with an appealing design. Let\u2019s take a closer look at precisely why you need both <\/em>of these two elements, and review some tips to keep in mind.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t all that long ago that Google took the meta keywords field into consideration when ranking a website, making it possible to get a page to a leading position by stuffing that field with hundreds of vaguely-related keywords. Since then, though, we\u2019ve seen remarkable progress, and with every passing year the Google algorithm factors in yet more factors.<\/p>\n Page speed is now a ranking factor on mobile sites<\/a>, and since Google is steadily moving to a mobile-first indexing model, this will be a factor for every <\/em>site soon enough. Then there\u2019s the matter of SSL certification: fail to secure your website on HTTPS and it will be marked as \u201cnot secure\u201d in SERPs.<\/p>\n How long will it be before Google\u2019s search results for everyone roll in elements pertaining to mobile-responsiveness or data privacy track records? Keeping up with technical SEO isn\u2019t just about getting a slight ranking bump \u2014 it\u2019s about protecting your site from being severely penalized or even hidden from view entirely.<\/p>\n Voice search has risen to prominence since Amazon\u2019s Alexa hit the mainstream<\/a>, bolstered by Google\u2019s Home system, Apple\u2019s Siri (preceding them both), and other comparable devices. But do you know how your website comes across to a voice search assistant? How are the sections likely to be interpreted and parsed?<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the matter of featured snippets. With Google now taking information directly from webpages and making that information accessible in SERPs, website creators must worry about more than how their content comes across to visitors. Is it deeply frustrating to have a click stolen through seeing your content shown in SERPs? Yes, of course \u2014 but there\u2019s no realistic alternative to this (Google will do it regardless, and has unassailable power for the moment) so it\u2019s best to roll with the punches.<\/p>\n If you want your website to work well with voice assistants, and your content to be selected for feature snippets, you need your technical SEO to be in good shape. Read up on best practices and format everything (including microdata where necessary<\/a>) to achieve maximum clarity.<\/p>\n Back when internet connections were slow and computers were incapable of the creative web designs we see today, there was less pressure on sites to reach for high aesthetic standards. Indeed, there was less they could do to stand out: they couldn\u2019t polish their UX designs because the available features were limited, and they couldn\u2019t engage in rich personalization because the systems weren\u2019t there to track or process that kind of data.<\/p>\n Now, though, the average smartphone (in the Western world, at least) is more powerful than many desktop computers were just a decade ago, and massive improvements in software and <\/em>hardware have left designers with so many options for getting creative. They can create rich targeted user sequences, integrate with external systems, and use rich media (audio, animations, video) at their leisure.<\/p>\n The baseline, however, hasn\u2019t changed much. The prominence of rapid-fire store-building tools<\/a> may have boosted standards to some extent, but the difference between a templated site and a custom-built one will be vast \u2014 so much bigger than ever before. With this disparity comes pressure to keep up.<\/p>\n If someone is looking for something and searches for it online, they\u2019re likely to get a lot of results \u2014 hundreds, perhaps even thousands \u2014 with each result having a fairly similar value proposition. This applies whether they\u2019re hunting for a product, a service, or some other type of resource. And because they have the power to flit between sites rapidly, they have no particular reason to stay on one in particular.<\/p>\n In this time of consumers essentially being mercenaries, unattached to specific brands or sites, it\u2019s more valuable than ever to win some kind of loyalty. After all, personal recommendations hold an incredible amount of weight. Because there are so many opinions available online, the average consumer will place less significance on any given opinion, but they\u2019ll still trust their friends to steer them in the right directions.<\/p>\n And you aren\u2019t going to win the kind of loyalty that produces those all-important recommendations unless your web design goes above and beyond what is required. You must not only meet expectations but hugely exceed them <\/em>to impress someone enough that they will commit some time out of their day to extolling your virtues. Even if great technical SEO could win you a good ranking by itself, it wouldn\u2019t matter if visitors didn\u2019t like your site. If you\u2019ve worked hard to attract new people<\/a>, do you really want to waste that traffic?<\/p>\n Want to turn your website into a search powerhouse that brings in relevant visits on a consistent basis? You can only achieve this by finding a way to serve your two masters: search algorithms, and your target audience. Start by getting your technical SEO into good shape, then work on your UX to ensure that you\u2019re ready to impress. Keep looking towards the future and you\u2019ll have a good chance of adapting to any changes.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a business owner looking for DIY SEO tips and tutorials, be our guest. We regularly publish detailed tutorials on all things SEO. However, if you feel you simply don\u2019t have the time to take care of your SEO, leave it to us. We\u2019re Canada\u2019s largest\u00a0SEO company<\/a>\u00a0offering full stack digital marketing services.\u00a0Book a free consultation today<\/a>\u00a0and learn how we can help with your business.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where should your priorities lie when you\u2019re trying to optimize the search performance of your website? You won\u2019t have the time or resources need to cover every aspect in great detail, so you need to narrow things down and determine the most cost-effective way to proceed \u2014 today, though, there\u2019s enough of an overlap that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-search-engine-optimization"],"yoast_head":"\nGoogle\u2019s website standards keep escalating<\/h2>\n
New search methods warrant consideration<\/h2>\n
Devices are more powerful than ever before<\/h2>\n
Personal recommendations are vitally important<\/h2>\n