If you make them happy you’re doing something right. Although, over the last year they’ve made a couple of big changes by removing search terms from Google Analytics and introducing Hummingbird. I’m sure this change has passed some of you by whilst others have been tearing their hair out.

First, for those of you that don’t know let me explain what has happened…

The removal of search terms from Google Analytics quite simply means that Google don’t want to show you what search terms people are using to get to your site anymore.

Hummingbird is Google’s new search algorithm. Which as far as I can tell so far, is not a bad thing. It answers questions you ask instead of just looking for key words and is thought to give SMEs a bigger chance of moving up the search results.

What do these changes mean to your SEO rankings?

There are loads of things you can do to get yourselves up the rankings, but I’ve narrowed it down 4 key areas…

Content

Search engines are the only sites that want to reduce the length of time you spend on their sites. Think about how people are thinking and searching for your products or services, rather than stuffing your site with key words. Google doesn’t want this, it wants you to answer questions that the searcher is inevitably asking. Try focusing on the following 4 factors when thinking about content:

• Product or service
• Customer support
• Company information
• Educate

Performance

What’s the average loading time of your pages? If you don’t know just google it, there are loads of free tools that will tell you. This plays a key role in how useful your site is deemed to be. If you’re using our eCommerce solution the average loading time of pages is only 2.5 seconds so you have nothing to worry about.

Authority

The more you can link back to your site and get others to do this the more likely Google is to think you’re site has good, reliable content. Social media is also a really easy way of doing this. Make your content good, share it and get others to talk about it as well.

User experience

This one is easy, all pages on your site should only ever be 4 clicks or less from the home page. It might seem like a challenge, but with a good structure and site that is easy to navigate you’ll probably be surprised by how easy it is.

There you have it, 4 things you should definitely spend your time on. There’s still loads more. Try reducing the number of 404 errors (missing pages), adding canonical tags and dynamic page titles.

If you’re using ProspectSoft eCommerce and want to find out about making your site SEO compliant we’ve got a helpful guide you can use, just ask.

We know that making your site SEO compliant can be difficult and confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t want the hassle of doing it yourself why not let us implement this for you? Until 5pm today we’re offering this for half the usual price (only valid for existing eCommerce customers).

Let our eCommerce expert help out and take us up on this offer. This offer is only valid until 5pm today so act now.