Web design and digital marketing can be overwhelming for most small business owners.
We would like to help.
Let us simplify things by giving you the top 5 things that determine why a website is not ranking.
5 web design secrets that consistently result in top search rankings
Secret #1 Ensure your site has a responsive design
What is responsive design?
A mobile-ready website will display beautifully on any device, without the need to scroll, or elements appearing in wrong places.
Action Items
- responsivetool.com
- Check that your website loads properly on every device
Responsive Design Stats
Responsive design has become a CRUCIAL factor in search engine ranking over the past years. The following statistics show why.
- Nearly 60% of all searches are now done on mobile devices
- On average, 8 of 10 users will leave a site if content doesn’t display properly on their device.
- 48% consider companies uncaring if their sites are not mobile-friendly
- 13% of adults exclusively use mobile to access the internet
- 2 of 3 minutes spent online is through mobile devices
Secret #2 Be original, check that your content is unique
Secret #3 Speed up if you want to win the race
Site Speed Breakdown
The speed of your website is CRUCIAL for ranking due to several factors:
- Site speed is a well-documented ranking factor for most search algorithms
- Slow page speed can limit the number of pages on your website that are indexed
- Visitors will leave a slow website
Action Items
- gtmetrix.com
- Invest in premium hosting and optimize your website for speed
Website Speed Stats
The following statistics show clearly why page speed is such an important factor.
- 39% of the people across the world will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load
- Web pages that load in 2.4 seconds had a bounce rate of 12.8%, whereas the pages that loaded in 3.3 seconds experienced a bounce rate of 20%
- A single second of added page load speed can cause sales to drop by 27%
- 47% of consumers expect webpage load speeds of under 2 seconds
- A 100-millisecond delay in load time can cause conversion rates to drop by 7%
- Sites that load in 5 sec. (compared to 19 sec.) see 70% longer average sessions
Secret #4 Move into the right neighborhood
What is a Good Neighborhood?
Websites containing terms like “gambling”, “casino”, “pornography” or “Viagra” are classified as Bad Neighbors. Sharing hosting with such sites puts your rankings at risk.
Action Items
- viewdns.info/reverseip (example below)
- Find out where your site is hosted. Is it a cheap, shared server?
- Invest in premium hosting to avoid being penalized
Secret #5 Get your website SSL secured
What does SSL secured mean?
SSL certificates ensure data transmitted between your website and visitors is private and secure, deterring hackers.
An SSL certificate adds HTTPS to your URL.
What is SSL important? üWebsite security is rewarded by Google üSSL websites are prioritized in search results
Action Items
- Check your site’s URL, it should start https://…
- Contact your hosting provider if it isn’t
