How Does Your Website Rank?

SEO is a huge objective for marketers, both B2B and B2C, and for good reason. After all, Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80 percent of B2B sales interactions will occur online. And those interactions quite often begin with a search.

Will your company’s website top the page when potential customers start their research?

In order to do so, it needs to check a number of boxes, which are outlined in the infographic below by Red Website Design.

Is their first factor in ranking a surprise? It shouldn’t be, especially if you’ve read this blog before. High quality content is an absolute must. That’s why we’ve dedicated a number of posts and resources to helping marketers, writers and designers understand what “high quality content” means. Check these out for more:

• Successful Marketing Relies on Great Content

• Why Creating Great Content Matters

• A Start-to-Finish Checklist for Writing Website Copy

• Content Quality Report Card (free download)

Of course, quality content alone won’t be enough if you don’t pay attention to the other details outlined in the infographic below. Keep reading.

Is your website mobile-first and adaptable? It is essential to ranking and to providing a positive experience for the more than 60 percent of searches conducted on mobile devices. (Source)

About that user experience? Consider everything from readability of the text to page load speeds, security, site architecture and navigation. If readers have to wait too long, can’t intuitively find the pages they are looking for or don’t trust your site security, they bounce. And the faster the bounce, the greater penalty your page pays in ranking.

Once you’ve made the site user-friendly, consider what those searchers will see when you do appear in the search results. There will likely be pages and pages of options for them to click, and while the top three listing get the lion’s share of the clicks, you still need to provide them with a reason to do so.

That is where metadata, schema and rich snippets come in. Completing these elements with care will ensure that your website’s appearance in the search rankings provides easy access to information that encourages readers to choose your site, especially featured snippets which extract content from your page to show at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

Red Website Design discusses additional factors that play a role in your website’s search ranking, including local data, which is especially important for B2C entities or B2B enterprises serving specific geographic areas.

How does your website rank? If it is time to rethink it, for both SEO and effectiveness in meeting those expectations cited above about completing B2B transactions and interactions online, start with an objective review of what you are already doing well and where there is room for improvement.

Read this post and then download our free Website Audit Template for a guide to evaluating your current site and laying plans for improvement. If you’d like to chat about the possibilities of partnering with JONES to prepare your website for the future of online interaction, schedule a time on my calendar for a no-obligation consultation. I’d love to talk SEO, content, and all things marketing.