With Google being the biggest and most widely used search engine in the world, you’d certainly want your website to be optimised for Google. But as a small business owner, how do you make sure that your website is Google-friendly?
According to Aleh Barysevich, CMO and co-founder at Link-Assistant.com, there are many factors you should consider, but there are important things you should know about creating an SEO and Google-friendly website to ensure that it will benefit you and your visitors. Discussed below are some of them.
- Make sure your site is optimised for mobile devices
These days, having a mobile-responsive website is very important, even more so if you are running a small, local business. According to studies, 50% of consumers who perform a local search on mobile devices visit a store within a day of their search. It also revealed that 78% of mobile searchers lead to offline purchases. Therefore, if you want to boost your sales, make sure that your site has a mobile-friendly web design.
- Always include written content
While it is true that a picture can paint a thousand words, it is still important to make sure that your site is not entirely made up of images. Otherwise, Google and other search engines won’t be able to crawl your site and rank it properly. According to Aleh, you must include text on every page of your website. Whether it’s a short product description or a transcript of a video you post, see to it that Google’s search spiders have text they can crawl on your site.
- Optimise your images
Optimising your images for search engines can benefit your site in two ways. First, it allows you to further optimise your product page for a specific keyword. Second, it gives your photos the opportunity to appear on Google image search results, giving your site more exposure. You can optimise your images for Google by including keywords in your image’s file name or using HTML attributes when inserting them.
- Create a clear, text-based navigation structure
According to Google Webmaster Guidelines, your site should have “a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.” That being said, you should plan your link structure carefully. Make it easier for your web visitors to find what they are looking for. And more importantly, you should let them get on the page they want to view without requiring them to click on numerous links.
