Website Optimisation Essentials in 2020

It is no secret that online marketplaces are now more competitive than they have ever been. This means that if you want to establish your brand as an authoritative figure within your niche, you really do need a strong digital strategy with a robust website at its heart.

A decade ago, Google used approximately 200 different ranking factors when determining the order of search engine results pages (SERPs). So many things have evolved since then, but the good news is that in 2020, you still don’t need to give equal amounts of attention to every possible ranking factor.

Why? Because certain ranking factors carry significantly more weight and deserve more attention than others.

So, if you want to learn more about the optimisation steps you should be taking in 2020 to ensure your website is primed to be a success, keep reading.

The Importance of Mobile-First

In March 2018, Google officially started to roll out its much-anticipated mobile-first index. The smartest marketers started to adopt a mobile-first mindset long before, which helped their clients to drive success as soon as the switch was made.

If you haven’t adopted a mobile-first approach with your website, here are some of the basics you need to cover:

•Ensure your website is adaptable to all devices, including tablet, mobile and desktop
•Use a responsive design to scale imagery, which will ensure its functionality on any device
•Create shorter meta titles, which are much easier to read on tablet and mobile devices
•Ensure pop-ups don’t conceal important content
•Mobile is not an excuse to use cloaking strategies because both search engines and users need to be able to see the same content

Getting Technical

Although the concept of technical SEO might seem overwhelming, performing a comprehensive SEO audit doesn’t need to feel like an impossible task. The most important aspect of technical SEO involves ensuring that you are interpreting the data correctly and using it to make key enhancements to your website.

To give you an idea of what this process might entail, here are some key considerations you will need to look at:

•Ensure your site is fully functional and mobile-friendly
•Check your robot.txt for errors and make changes if necessary
•Look for status code errors and make appropriate corrections as needed
•Address duplicate title tags and meta descriptions
•Use Google Search Console to check your site indexing
•Review your on-site content, looking at Google Analytics to examine traffic and other key metrics
•Address broken links

Metrics for a Healthy Website

Your site needs to deliver a seamless and consistent user experience. In 2021, Google will integrate a Page Experience Signal into its algorithm. Google has stated that interactivity, visual stability, and loading experience will form the foundation of what it is calling its 2020 Core Web Vitals and these metrics will:

•Focus on a particular element of user experience
•Be quantifiable and measurable for a specific objective

Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse are tools that will be particularly useful for measuring the Core Web Vitals of your site.

With so much marketing information being shared on a daily basis, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Avoiding analysis paralysis is key to ensuring important optimisation tasks are completed.

Focusing on the essentials will help you drive success throughout 2020 and beyond.