01/05/2017
What does Google measure directly for SEO ?
1) Using images and video
A study by Backlinko shows that web pages with at least one image, or with videos tend to rank better than those without these obvious visual elements.
2) Site speed
If your site is slow then Google is likely to penalize it. The faster your site is, the better your user-experience will be the better your SEO will be.
You can improve your site speed in various ways, including:
- Ensuring you resize images to the correct size before putting them online. Many websites use html and CSS to resize images, this might mean that an image is 1000px x 1000px but only appears as 300px x 300px.Resizing images will vastly reduce download speed.
- Compressing images and CSS files.
- Removing unnecessary code.
- Not using too many adverts.
- Upgrading to a faster host.
3) Flash websites
Flash isn’t compatible with Apple mobile devices and is difficult for Google to index, therefore you’re best off avoiding Flash websites. If you wish to create similar effects, use JavaScript, HTML5 or animated GIFs instead.
4) A user-friendly link structure
Just as backlinks from other websites play a major role in SEO, internal links from your main menu or footer menu also help. It’s best not to think of your main landing pages as separate entities that only matter for SEO, but instead to also include them in your overall site template so that every page on your site links to your most important landing pages.
Google’s user guidelines also tell manual reviewers to rate sites more highly that have links to an ‘about us’ page and a ‘contact us’ page that are clearly visible.
5) Content ‘above the fold’
Google places more importance on content that is immediately visible when a site first loads (before scrolling down) and penalizes websites that have excessive adverts, particularly where the adverts are prioritized over other content (this is equally true even for sites using Google AdSense).
When Google switch to treating mobile versions as their primary index, it's likely that 'above the fold' will refer to content on mobile devices, not desktop devices, therefore check this on mobile too!
6) Hidden or hard to read text
Google expects texts on sites to be clearly visible and if you hide links or more than a few words of text by making it too small to read or hidden via any other means, you’re risking a Google penalty.
As Google Glass and other devices designed to view websites on the go develop and gain popularity, having a site that's easy to read will become more important still. To achieve this:
- Use at least 16px font size
- Use good contrast between the font color and background
- Use plenty of white space
7) Choice of color
Choose a color scheme that’s in keeping with the overall topic of your site:
is a relaxing and healing color and is good for health and nature focused sites.
is the color of community and trust, often used by banks, insurance companies and social media sites (there’s a reason why both Facebook and Twitter have a blue logo).
and are often used with energy and passion and are popular on bras and cars sites.
symbolizes purity and is also a good choice for image-rich sites where you want visitors to focus on the images, not the background.
8) International appeal
Most websites target an international audience and whether they originally intended to or not, many webmasters find that a remarkable percentage of their traffic comes from other countries.
When designing for an international audience, do your best to check whether the colors you’re using and the symbolism in your logo or header is appropriate for different countries.
9) Improve conversions when you improve design
Having quality written content and backlinks will always be essential for SEO, however having an inspirational web design will also help tremendously, not just to improve conversions once visitors arrive on your website, but also to increase your position with Google and other search engines before they even get there.
As Google gets smarter in 2017 and beyond, the advantages of an inspiring design will only increase; it’s therefore worth making the graphic design of your site a core part of your SEO strategy.