In this article I will discuss some factors that are important for your website if you want to be found by Google and therefore your audience. It is far from complete, but there are a few things that can make the difference. We take care of the technical SEO, but you can also do something yourself. Make sure your images are the correct size. There is no point in uploading a billboard format if the image on the website is only the size of a business card. It is equally pointless to fill your site with information that no one wants to know.
Mobile friendliness
Websites that are not yet mobile-friendly are more than five years behind. In 2015, Google made this a ranking factor and then introduced the mobile-first ranking in 2017. This shows how important Google considers a mobile-friendly website.
The number of people searching via a desktop has decreased in recent years, while the number of people searching via a mobile phone is increasing. More than half of the data traffic comes from mobile phones. So that means if your website isn't mobile friendly, you may not be reaching half of your potential audience. A website with a high 'bounce' rate because it does not load well on a mobile device has a negative effect on the ranking.
Easy to read design
The design of a website is more important than some think. If the readers cannot quickly find what they are looking for, they will drop out. A page with text blocks in odd places and a mass of hyperlinks that serve no clear purpose scare away the readers you managed to bring to your site. Texts that are too large or too small, too little contrast with the background or have an illegible fancy font will not help you rank higher.
Speed of the website
The speed of the website is one of the most important aspects of technical SEO. It is therefore important to pay extra attention to this. Statistics show that half of the visitors will drop out if the site is not loaded in 3 seconds. For mobile device users, speed is even more important as they seem to have even less patience. The speed of the website also affects Google's ability to "crawl" your pages. Some important factors that negatively affect speed are large images, unused plugins and the lack of browser caching.
Sitemaps
Web design can help search engines crawl your site efficiently. The sitemap provides search engines with a directory of all the pages and content on your website. In addition to the benefit for the search engines, it also helps the visitors to find what they are looking for more easily. Sitemaps also contain important metadata about the web pages to give them a better chance of ranking high.
Content
Creating engaging and useful content is likely to affect your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users recognize good content when they see it and are likely to want to refer other users to it. This can be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or in other ways. Know what your readers want (and give it to them)
Think about the words a user can search for to find some of your content. Anticipating search behavior and taking it into account while writing your content (using a good mix of keyword phrases) can yield positive results.