Winning the Search Engine Popularity Stakes

When it comes to rankings and search engine popularity, many of the strategies presented to business owners focused less on doing the right things and more on "not doing the wrong things".

That usually means spending time and money on cleaning up URLs, posting great content, speeding up page load times and targeting the right keywords.

What do you do when your search engine popularity doesn't equate to the investment you've made in your website?

The SEO Industry got Scared Off!

In the past, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was all about catching the search engines' eye, doing things that would impress.

Then new algorithms came in, and millions of sites were penalised for doing things now considered "spammy".

Since then, large sectors of the SEO industry started walking with their tails between their legs and began putting 'avoiding errors' above showing what is possible.

The effect of this is that people just starting with SEO have to first focus on building a site that won't offend the search engines. In doing this, they overlook the many of the qualities that increases a site's search engine popularity such as traffic, engagement and user experience.

If you've got your basics down, it's time to look around to see what else you can do.

Search Engine Popularity & Offline Marketing?

You might be working every possible angle online, but have you actually told another human being about your site?

Offline marketing is often disregarded because its link with digital isn't immediately obvious.

It can make a difference, however. Doing simple things like sponsoring a local primary school's fete can lead to a boost in your web traffic which will in turn affect your search rankings and search engine popularity.

Search Engine Popularity & Social Media Engagement

The power of social media is growing. There is evidence to suggest that social media channels are challenging search engines as a source of information on the web.

Even if that weren't entirely true, social media is a way for you to reach customers, directly, without a search engine between you.

By increasing the engagement of social media users with your site and your brand, you can drive up your search engine popularity both through an upward lift in traffic and a boost in chatter about you around the web generally.

Search Engine Popularity & User Experience

Search rankings and search engine popularity has been show to increase as a direct result of good user experience.

User experience influences rankings in two ways:

1. First, it is something that the search engines are looking for in a good site.
2. Second, it encourages people to stay on the site for longer.

This second point is important because it gives a clear signal to the search engines that the site really is what the searcher was looking for.

Search Engine Popularity & a Strong Brand

One of the best ways to naturally improve your rankings is to be better known around the net.

For this, you need to make sure your branding is consistent, and that you pursue it. Provide consistency across social media sites and align them to your main website.

Search engine rankings and search engine popularity has grown up. Creating information that visitors and prospects can actually use leads to increased engagement and increased engagement tend to rank higher.