With more than 1.7 billion websites in the world, having a website is not enough: it has to be visible. For this to happen, you need to work on your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which will allow you to be better placed in the search engine results, and to attract users to your site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to all the techniques and methods used to improve the ranking of a site on search engines.
The importance of SEO
Google searches are your main source of traffic.
Search engines are now indispensable. Nearly 90% of all searches, in all fields, are made on the Internet. Google is the leading search engine, with over 700,000 queries made every second.
Thus, being able to appear among the first results of search engines is essential for your visibility. Indeed, 75% of users do not go beyond the first page of results, and only 9% go to the bottom of the first page.
To complete these figures, 60% of Internet users click on one of the first three results of their search. Being among the first is therefore a real challenge to attract people to your site!
A good positioning strengthens the credibility of your company
Optimising your natural referencing also gives your company more credibility, both in the eyes of Google and in the eyes of your customers.
Indeed, if you appear among the first, it means that you offer content that is very relevant to the user's query. This will strengthen your customers' trust in your site.
Being present on the first page of search results means that your content meets the expectations of Internet users. Indeed, Google's algorithm works in particular according to the relevance of your content to users' requests.
Good SEO also means a better user experience
SEO is very important in terms of customer experience, since the main issue is to get users to visit your site. Indeed, the customer experience brings together all the elements of interaction between the user and your company and its goods or services. A good customer experience includes a low loading time. Indeed, 53% of Internet users would leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. So make sure you optimise the technical aspect of your pages to reduce their loading time.
Optimising your site to make it user-friendly and enjoyable will increase your chances of getting visits to your site. Having a good SEO will allow you to appear among the first on search engines: your customers and prospects will easily find your site, and this will make their experience more pleasant.
Some SEO trends for 2021
Qualitative content
Content is an important part of your SEO strategy because Google values the relevance and quality of content above all else.
Your content should be of high quality and precisely targeted to meet the needs of your users. Your content should also be written in a simple and understandable way to make it easy for your visitors to read.
Quality content also means anticipating the questions that your customers or prospects might ask, in order to answer them in the most optimal way. Working on the content also involves impeccable HTML markup.
Mobile first website
In order to maximise your SEO, you must also take into account mobile visits. Your website must be optimised for mobile. Mobile users must find the same comfort as on a computer.
Indeed, Google now values sites offering an optimal experience on mobile, with mobile first indexing. This is simply the new way that bots index websites: Googlebot crawls the mobile version of websites first (before the desktop page), which could have an indirect impact on your ranking in search engine results.
Securing
Also very much linked to SEO, having a secure website is an essential element in optimising your ranking. Google takes into account the security of websites in its ranking. Therefore, having an unsecured site will cause you to lose places in the search results.
Similarly, if the user has any doubts about the security of your site, they will quickly leave it. So you need to have a secure site to encourage users to visit and stay on your site. Thus, you must have an HTTPS site to ensure the integrity and security of the data on your site.
Customer experience
New for 2021, Google has been implementing the Core Vitals Web since this summer, consisting of three new indicators to measure the user experience. Although the relevance and quality of content still take precedence over user experience, these indicators are no less important. Indeed, if two pages offer similar content, it is these new indicators that will decide the ranking between the pages.
The Core Vitals Web includes three indicators:
- LCP (Largest Contenful Paint): performance indicator, it measures the loading time of a page. Google recommends a loading time of less than 2.5 seconds to display the main information on a page, i.e. the title, the illustration and the contents.
- FID (First Input Delay): a reactivity indicator, it measures the reaction time for an action performed by a user. For example, the reaction time when a button is clicked. Google recommends a reaction time of 100ms.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): a stability indicator that measures the impact of updates to a page on a site. Google recommends a CLS of less than 0.1. The site should not contain any changes due to late loading of page elements that would shift the page blocks or its contents.
Thus, the implementation of a good SEO strategy is essential to be visible and to stand out in the competitive world of the internet. Don't underestimate the importance of SEO!
Our team puts its expertise in SEO at your disposal to accompany you and guide you in the optimisation of your site, do not hesitate to consult our service.