There are many digital elements that determine whether or not a website is successful. We spoke recently about how responsiveness is a deeply important aspect to have. A user must be able to access your website, no matter what device they choose to view it on. However, this is only a positive if people are able to find your website. Search engines are one of the most widely used methods to do this. As such, there needs to be a certain level of search engine friendliness. The following are some principal components to adhere to when attempting to reach optimal search engine friendliness.

Title Tag Optimisation

The name of the pages on your website not only effects the user experience but also alters how search engines view the pages. The title element must be concise and accurate. Search engines will only display the first 65-75 words in the results, the rest will be cut off and unseen. Furthermore, placing keywords closer to the front of the title tag allows for better ranking. Keywords are a vital piece of the search engine friendliness puzzle.

Keyword Usage

The search process of Google and other search engines are based largely on keywords. When these engines go over the various pages of your website, they are looking for keywords to latch onto and rank for. Multiple uses of a certain word as well as designating the keyword of a page, helps search engines identify what you want a page to rank for. For example, if you want a page on your website to show up in searches for “video-games”, you will need to make sure this word is an important element on the particular page. Beyond all this, the usage of certain words can be a deciding factor on whether a user clicks on your search engine link.

Meta description Efficiency

A meta description tag acts as a short description that briefly covers the content of a page on a website. This is the snippet that appears below the title in a search engines results. Its purpose is to act as a piece of copy that entices a user to click through to the website. Writing a meta description that is carefully crafted to appeal to an audience with certain keywords will emphatically increase the click-through ratio of searchers visiting your website. Meta descriptions can be any length; however search engines will generally cut them off if they go beyond 160 characters. When created properly, this is a vital facet of a website.

These are just a few of the elements to address when attempting to optimise a websites search engine friendliness. Test your search engine friendliness today by using our FREE Website Health Check Tool.