How Well Does Your Website Rank Compared to the Competition?

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How Well Does Your Website Rank Compared to the Competition?

With so many websites competing for your audience’s attention, how will you stand out among the crowd? What is it that will draw visitors to your site rather than to a competitor’s site? How are these visitors going to find you in the first place?

As you set up and design your website, be sure to ask yourself these questions. Your business needs a website that is optimized for search engines and that will keep customers on your pages rather than switch to another site.

To do this, you need to follow basic patterns for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), especially when it comes to web design and SEO factors. Sites with these features are the ones that rise above the competition.

Design Elements

Keeping customers on your site first begins with quality design. Think about sites you’ve been to where pages look poorly created or out-of-date. You’re less likely to stay on that site for very long.

The same goes for your website. Create something that looks polished, professional, and engaging. The following elements will help make your site one that offers value to your visitors:

Contact Information

Don’t make it hard for your customers to communicate with you. On your homepage, have your phone number listed and links to your social media accounts. Customers who don’t want to call or message you on social media might prefer an email address or a contact form. Your goal should be to make yourself accessible to the customer through whichever form of communication they prefer.

Balanced Layout

Too much content on a page is not visually appealing, and it may drive customers away rather than persuade them to consider your offer. Include areas of negative space on each page where the visitor’s eye can rest. This will ensure that the content you do provide only includes the most valuable pieces of information, rather than fluff attempting to fill empty space.

Testimonials

Customers need to trust you before they’ll consider any offer you have. One of the best ways to build that trust is through customer reviews or testimonials. Most customers use online reviews to influence their decision for whether or not to purchase from a brand.

Ask your customers to rate their experience with you, and provide a portfolio of examples so leads can see your work in action. If you’re looking to update your reviews even further, Skoshe offers reputation management services to give your brand the online reputation it deserves.

Clear CTA

Your call-to-action (CTA) needs to be apparent from the moment your customers land on your site. This could mean including a CTA button in your top navigation bar or right at the top of your homepage. The entire design of your page should be centered around your CTA. It’s the whole purpose of your website, to drive leads into conversions. Cut to the chase and let customers know what you have to offer and how to get it.

Responsive Design

There’s no denying it; markets are going mobile-first. Close to 35% of online purchases are made on a mobile device. If your site doesn’t respond well on a mobile device, then you could be losing out on a lot of potential clients and customers.

Mobile-friendliness is a must. Skoshe can also help you design or update a website, so it has that mobile responsive design. Check out how else Skoshe can optimize your web design and online marketing for improved sales and search listings.

Remember that the better design you create, the longer your customers will remain on your site. The longer they stay on your site, the better ranking your site receives. Search engines like Google take note of those people who stay on one site rather than seek information elsewhere. They reward sites that provide valuable content by giving them higher rankings on search results. If you want to beat the competition, you need to rank as high as you can. Shoppers will usually click on the first few results from their search query. If you’re not up there, no matter how good your offer, you may be passed over for someone else’s brand.

Good design isn’t all you can do to make a site more discoverable on search listings. It’s just one factor that boosts your site’s SEO.

More SEO Factors to Consider

The algorithm for search rankings changes every year. But some factors remain constant in improving a site’s SEO. Along with good design, these elements will also improve your ranking and help make certain that your brand isn’t left in the dust.

Keywords

Use keywords in your content that your audience will likely search for in their queries. Tools like Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner let you browse through popular keywords to find which words and phrases will bring you the best return-on-investment (ROI).

Expert marketer Neil Patel says that beyond this basic search, you should do competitive keyword analysis. Find out what keywords your competition uses and how well they work for these brands. You may find hidden keyword opportunities that they are missing, but only if you do your research first.

Backlinks

For better SEO, inbound links or backlinks continue to dominate how you rank. A backlink is a link on someone else’s site that directs a user back to your site. To Google, the more that other sites refer back to your site, the more credible you are.

Your ranking will suffer, though, if backlinks to your site are not from sites with relevant content to yours. Quality matters over quantity here; however, the more backlinks you can have the better. Getting those backlinks can be difficult, but having a blog with valuable, original, and shareable content will be your biggest tool here.

Page Speed

If your pages take longer than 2 seconds to load, you may be hurting your SEO. Sites with slow page speeds have lower rankings and higher bounce rates. Use a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to see if any changes need to be made on your site for a shorter page load time.

Final Thoughts

How well your site ranks next to competitors will be determined by how well you use the above elements on your pages. With these features, your site has the potential to reach your desired audience before your competitors can.

So again, ask yourself some questions: Does your site have good SEO? Is its design one that invites visitors to learn more and engage with your brand? Does it include elements like relevant keywords and backlinks that optimize your pages for search queries?

SEO is just the start of making your brand more discoverable online. There’s always room to grow. But when you implement these suggestions, you’re well on your way.