Website Evaluation

Website security is something you need to take seriously, not just because it’s generally prudent, but because online security measures, or lack thereof, are monitored by Google and directly affect your SEO rankings.

1. HTTPS is a ranking signal. You must not only present users with relevant, authoritative content, your website must be safe to interact with. An unsecured website risks users’ online safety and will certainly throw a wrench in your SEO. All top websites use HTTPS now, and you risk looking outdated and unaware if you don’t. Thus, Google made HTTPS a ranking factor several years ago.

2. Beware of getting blacklisted. Because you have a website with poor security doesn’t mean you actually have any ill intent. However, your site’s lack of protection still puts you at great risk from hackers. If someone hacks your website for link building purposes, you can assume they’re linking to sites you would not want to be associated with. Search engines will discover this spam and may blacklist your site. Proper security measures protect the integrity of your website to avoid penalties because of hackers.

3. Users must believe your site is trustworthy. Many of the people who visit your site will likely be on the alert for security warnings. If they see your site isn't secure, they will leave immediately.

Blocked content, unresponsive pages, redirect loops, and errors will negatively affect your search engine rankings. We often find content inadvertently blocked by the robots.txt file, which makes pages, resources, sections, and in some cases, the entire website completely unavailable for indexing by search engines.

Google filters identical content, which has the same impact as a penalty – a loss of rankings for your web pages. Duplicate content confuses Google and forces the search engine to choose which of the identical pages it should rank. There is a high possibility the original page will not be the one chosen for the top search result. Google will split rankings of two very similar pages, again, harming your visibility.

What about grammar and spelling? Do typos and bad sentence structure really matter? The answer is yes! The best keyword-rich content quickly becomes the worst keyword-rich content when it’s filled with typos, bad grammar, and hard-to-read sentences. Why? Because users are human. 1. They’re quick to judge – typos and bad grammar mean low quality and unreliability. 2. They’re in a hurry – readers don’t want to work through clunky sentences to find what’s relevant. 3. And they’re fickle – once they leave your site, they will likely not come back.

Adding alternative "alt" text to your images provides both explicit and implicit SEO benefits while also improving the user experience. Search crawlers still can't "see" the images on a website like we can, so it's not wise to leave this attribute blank, as it's an opportunity to provide Google with more keyword context. Additionally, alt text is a tenet of accessible web design. Its purpose is to describe images to visitors who are unable to see them. This includes screen readers and browsers that block images, but it also includes users who are sight-impaired or unable to visually identify an image.

Large images take longer to load. Mobile website speed is one of the signals used by Google’s algorithm to rank pages, and impacts user experience. 

Mobile website speed is one of the signals used by Google’s algorithm to rank pages, and impacts user experience. A slow site reduces the number of pages search engines can crawl using their allocated crawl budget, which will negatively affect indexation. Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times also negatively affect conversions.

Nearly all of Google's page-one search results employ H1 headings. Surprisingly, most websites use them incorrectly. H1 headings must be unique, accurate, and concise. Google warns against improper implementation of heading tags. Sequential heading types should be applied in the proper order (H2, H3, H4…) when outlining content. Six levels of headings exist in HTML – H1 is the most important; H6 is the least significant.

SERP features are unique results on Google's search engine results pages (SERPs) outside of traditional organic listings, including elements like images/video, review stars, featured snippets, the People Also Ask component, and knowledge panels.

SERP features are designed to provide more relevant and useful information to users to enhance their search experience but provide tremendous opportunity for businesses to increase visibility.

Canonical tags are a way of telling search engines that a specified URL is the master copy of a page. A canonical link allows webmasters to prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the "canonical" or "preferred" version of a web page.

Understanding how to properly use canonicalization and set canonical URLs is essential knowledge for SEO, and incorrect implementation of these can cause widespread issues that negatively impact your site's performance.

Most websites use H2 Titles incorrectly. H2 headings should be unique, accurate, and concise. Google warns against improper implementation of heading tags. Sequential heading types should be applied in the proper order (H2, H3, H4…) when outlining content. Six levels of headings exist in HTML – H1 is the most important; H6 is the least significant.