Google is on a massive mission to give it’s users the best, most accurate search results they can provide. They are constantly updating their search algorithm to seek out broken links, missing meta tags, website speed, mobile view etc. etc. Unfortunately, this means a lot more thought has to go into the site you are building and maintaining if you want to keep your rankings where they are – or better – in Google (and Yahoo & Bing for that matter). To put this into perspective, the first ranking position in the search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic, the second position receives 11.94%, and third position on the first page obtains 8.47%. And it just goes down from there with results on any page past 1 getting less than 1% of clicks.
So why are you being penalized? Here are the top 5 reasons why you are being penalized – and deservedly so:
- Broken Links & 404 errors. Google wants to know that you maintaining and updating your content and finding any errors that may be buried. If you’re delivering broken links or 404 errors within you site, it’s a sure fire signal that your users aren’t getting the information they ask for. This goes for external links as well – links embedded on your site. Take the time to sift through less and trash the ones that don’t resolve anymore.
- Missing meta description tags. Meta description tags are crucial for quality SEO. This is element that describes your page to search engines and without it, your site will not pull into relevant search results.
- Images with missing alt tags. This is one that people often miss. Search engines “read” images by their alt tags (a text alternative for an image on your site). Image alt tags are a great way to improve your site’s placement in search engine result pages because it allows the images on your pages to rank in image search results.
- Mobile-Friendliness or poorly designed mobile websites. We at Charternet have addressed this topic time and time again, and we cannot stress it enough. And it’s official – more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Google is invested in providing users a great mobile experience. It is no wonder that Google is penalizing site that aren’t mobile friendly.
- Slow Page Loading. At Google, they are on the record stating they are obsessed with speed. As part of that effort, today they are including a new signal in their search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests. Google uses a variety of sources to determine the speed of a site relative to other sites. Unfortunately, they don’t specify an “ideal speed” (as it’s ever changing), but just assume faster is better.
At Charternet Web Solutions, we will show you the number of broken links, images with no ALT text, pages with no meta description tags, not having an unique meta description, having too long title, and much more.
Contact us today for a free, no obligation audit of your site. Together we can pull up your Google rankings and start reeling in more site traffic!
Charternet Web Solutions
Dedicated to Keeping You on the Water
www.charternetwebsolutions.com
844.866.9283
