You invested months and tens of thousands of dollars for a beautiful and the most helpful website you could possibly imagine. You've set the date of launch and, in fact, you've created a Zoom event around it. The afternoon of the event is finally here. Your customers are excited to experience the unveiling and even your vendors have chipped in by investing in your success.
They refresh their screens to experience it for the first time and...
It takes what feels like an eternity to load. Some customers using their cell phones can see it all. Oh wait, they can, but only if they turn their phone to the side to portrait mode. Ugh, this is getting bad, but it gets worse..
The bad user experience at the website launch party sent signals to the Google algorithm, and not the good kind of signals. The people that couldn't get the site to load quickly on their devices didn't stick around and increased the "Bounce Rate" which Google interprets as a negative sign and lowers your rankings, and therefore the ability to show up on future search results.
All of this could have been prevented had the company invested in proper technical SEO consulting.
Do all of your webpages have title tags? How long are they? Are there duplicate title tags being shared by other pages within your site? There are so many technical variables that could be wrong with an otherwise beautiful and helpful website. It should be your priority to seek out the best SEO consultants you can find to walk you through the demanding world of technical SEO.
It's not enough to run a diagnostic SEO check up on your website. Implementing the changes with thoughtful and helpful content that resonates with your audience is just as important. Creating great content is a big commitment because it must be done regularly. How often? At least once a week. If you're struggling with finding topics to write about, ask me about it here (scroll to the second section and ask your question): seo-audit.app
Google controls over 90% of all search engine traffic. Keep in mind, Google owns YouTube. In fact, I tell my customers to consider YouTube the second biggest search engine in the world. Google is the gatekeeper to your audience. In fact, Google and YouTube need you to create content, but not just any content. It has to be the best and most helpful content you can deliver.
And when you do create it, it must be displayed in the most SEO technically sound method possible. You wouldn't create content without proper punctuation, would you? No, so also has requirements that it asks of us. To display the content in the most technically sound way we can. We don't have to guess, either. Some of us have created diagnostic tools to help demystify technical SEO.
Several years ago, Google placed emphasis on user experience when searchers used their cell phones to ask Google questions. This had such a profound impact on the website building community because building one version of a website wasn't good enough anymore.
Mobile-first indexing means that first technical SEO signal Google interprets regarding your website is by judging how great of a user experience they have on the MOBILE VERSION (not the desktop version) of your website. This means that Google will not show your great and helpful articles to the people searching for it unless you've created a responsive website. Often times, there are certain design choices you made while creating your website that don't look good on smaller screens. The ideal way to fix this is to create a different version of that section (that isn't scaling down well into smaller screens) for cell phones. It does require more work. But the hard work pays off.
When was the last time you visited your own website using your mobile device? How did your website perform? Did it lag, or did it load quickly? By quickly, I mean 2 to 3 seconds.
About the great pictures that look amazing when your website is viewed on a 4K monitor... As your website scales down to smaller screens, you have to have smaller images uploaded to show up on the correct sized device. 4K image scaled down to be visible on mobile is the biggest reason for a slow experience on mobile. Fix this by creating, at the very least, 4 sizes for your images.
Even if you have a B2B model, your customers are conducting business around the clock. In their efforts to be more productive, they will use their mobile device to accomplish more away from their office or home office. How your website performs on mobile devices matters now more than ever.
This is my nice way of saying some people lose the passion they once had when blessed with success. The question I get asked the most is:
Technical SEO is never finished. It's a matter of time until your competitors launch aggressive efforts to improve their rankings. Don't underestimate the new kid on the block that is hungrier than you currently are. They might not have the money, but they have the time and passion to be a true contender to learn what is necessary to succeed at technical SEO.
Improving technical SEO is a constant variable. You can measure it, but you have to make it part of your company's priority. Don't bank on yesterday's success. Ensure future growth by sending the correct and positive technical SEO signals to Google through the user experience your website visitors have with both your mobile versions of your website as well as the desktop versions of your website.
If you are not sure about the mobile version of your website or have any other questions about SEO or content marketing, please contact us directly or ask us your question publicly our home page "Submit Your Question" section.
Thank you for reading my quick article on Technical SEO. I wish you great success on your business.
