Mar 22, 2018
Before you start, you should know that search engines use several hundred criteria to rank results. They are calculated by complex algorithms for which no one has yet found the perfect key. Here are some tips on how to improve your ranking. They are not miraculous and are not worth the work of a specialised agency. But they are easy to implement and will allow you to gain a few places without ruining yourself and without being an expert.
There are many clever techniques to increase your SEO. But don't forget the most important thing: having an interesting site! I can apply the best techniques on the planet, but if the content is uninteresting, boring or poorly written, my ranking will inevitably drop. Why would this happen? Well firstly, because without content, your website is an empty shell: useless and hollow! It will simply hurt your SEO because no one will want to visit your site. It will also increase your bounce rate. So no, we're not talking about basketballs or trampolines here.
Bounce rate is the percentage of readers who arrived on your site, took no action, and left. Maybe your title was poorly chosen, or the page took too long to load, was poorly written or had a stifling layout.
One thing is for sure, Google does not like sites with a high bounce rate. Read our article "Make your website easier to read" to discover 5 essential tips on writing for the web.
A clear title, easy-to-read text and a clear layout are the pillars of a pleasant site!
When you create a new page, it is a good idea to link from a well-known page. If you want to promote your "Day out" page for example, you can link from a popular page such as your "Day out diary" page.
To make the link even more effective, be careful to choose the word or expression to which the link is attached. It is better to write "Sortie journée Bretagne" (a meaningful link) than "cliquez ici" (a link that does not give any information about the page on which the Internet user will land).
This will increase your chances of appearing in Google's results if someone searches for "Day out in Brittany". Click here" and "Learn more" are much less effective for your SEO when you build a link.
Be precise in the texts of your links, it will please Google!
If you have partners in your contacts, don't hesitate to propose an exchange of good practices: you put a link to their site and they put a link to yours. This will benefit both sites. Indeed, the Google robot will say to itself "Look, this site has a link to this other site. But be careful not to offer this to just anyone. However, be careful not to offer this to just anyone. Such an arrangement with a harmful website will not increase your ranking, quite the contrary.
Good sites make good friends!
One step to make it easy for your future customers to find you is to create a google my business account. On the picture, the key information with the map is taken from our Google my business account. Given the visibility that this free tool brings, it would be a shame to do without it.
Moreover, the tool is also coupled with Google Maps, so you become immediately easier to find by your future customers. Finally, it will bring credibility to your structure.
A minimal investment of time for a quick gain in visibility!
Google search is not the only way to bring people to your site, quite the contrary. You can create a free Facebook page for your organisation. Do you want me to give you the tour? 22 million French people connect to Facebook every day. * That's about one third of the French population. A Facebook page with regular posts and a link to your website will bring you a real plus in terms of visitors.
But there are also 'offline' ways of promoting your site. For example, if you are handing out business cards or flyers, highlighting your website URL will encourage people to go there to find more information, or you can put your website URL on your answering machine. You can also put your website URL on your answering machine so that if you are unavailable, your website will take over the task of providing information to your future customers and increase traffic to your website.
Advertise your site so that it will advertise you too!
Some tools can help you evaluate your website according to several performance criteria. You will probably need a webmaster if you want to fix the problems detected, but at least you will know what is going on:
To find out if your website displays correctly on mobile, use Google test mobile friendly. It has become essential to have a responsive site (one that can be viewed on any type of screen). Google takes this into account for your position in the search results, as mobile phones outnumber computers by almost 50% in terms of daily usage.*
If you want to know if your site loads fast enough, there is GTmetrix. Know that if your loading time exceeds 4 seconds, you lose 25% of your readers! * Search engines know this, so they favour fast sites.
For a quick health check of your site, Zadroweb will give you several key indicators, easy to decipher.
Finally, if you're feeling computer-savvy, you can check out the Google SEO Guide.
We will soon be publishing an article on SEO for those who are a little more computer literate, so keep an eye on our blog!
