The importance of a business ranking higher than its competitors on search engine result pages cannot be understated. Higher rankings translate to better visibility and business awareness, leading to raised chances of converting potential customers. If your SEO efforts are not proving to be effective enough, it might be time to rethink your overall approach.

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Emphasising on keywords is quite important, but several other factors determine the results of SEO today. The focus is shifting towards usability and user experience with every major Google update. Algorithms now rate pages (and websites) with other factors like page views, inbound links, outbound links, broken links and bounce rates. Simply speaking, the overall quality of a website and its pages matter. 

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Usability is perhaps the biggest factor in determining how well your web page will do. Is the site navigable? Does it have readable content and fast loading times? These are the things digital marketing professionals should be concerned about, to obtain high ranks for client websites. Regardless of what device or platform a visitor is using, the usability and overall experience should be equally smooth. 

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Usability Factors That Affect Website Rankings 
 
• Relevance - Your web page should contain information relevant to its main and related keywords. Potential customers should find the information they clicked your link for. If the content is unclear or indirect, they can lose interest and bounce out pretty quick. This has to be avoided. 
• Usefulness - User experience can depend greatly on the usefulness of a web page. Visitors should have access to clearly laid out information. Site owners can consider hiring content writing professionals to improve page content quality if needed. Visitors should not have to look around your web page trying to find the information they came for. 
• Errors - Error messages like ‘404 Page Not Found’ can make visitors bounce away instantly, as you are wasting their time. The same goes for irrelevant redirects that misguide users. These things must be avoided if you want to preserve your ranking. 
• Navigation ease - The navigational ease of a website has an impact on its usability. Content must be readable on all devices. Also, the menus and call to actions should be clear and accessible. Web design elements must lend to the website being user-friendly. 
 
So, what steps can you take to improve the SEO ranking of your website?

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Proven Tips for Improving SEO Ranking Results 
 
1. Enhance page load speed - Page loading speed is a crucial factor considered by major search engines to rank a website. The emphasis on mobile SEO has risen since it has overtaken desktop as the most widely-used platform globally. You might lose many visitors completely if your page takes a few extra seconds to load. Ways of optimising load speed include reducing plugins, reducing image sizes and having clean code. 

2. Create high-quality content - Your service pages and blogger outreach should be centred around engaging and relevant content to increase the time spent by visitors. The average time spent by visitors is considered by the algorithms of Google and Bing. High-quality long content of more than 2000 words can keep visitors engaged for longer. You can incorporate useful outbound links and add relevant keywords to improve the experience. 

3. Optimise headers - Clear and precise header tags should exist on each page of your website for better SEO credibility. Make sure to create crisp and direct headers that immediately grab the attention of audiences. No one likes being faced with an unstructured and messy body of content. Appropriate header and subheader tags help you section your content for easy reading. 

4. Optimise on-site images - SEO professionals must pay close attention to the quality, size and tags of images. Images should be in widely used formats, and they have to offer considerable quality along with reasonable file size. Including relevant keywords in image titles, alt tags, image file names and captions make them search engine friendly. Image optimisation can have a strong impact on the SEO ranks. 

5. Try new multimedia forms - Optimised text content works reasonably well in terms of obtaining ranking. But you can boost your chances of SEO success with the introduction of media like images, infographics, video, audio and slides. Videos, in particular, are quite potent in grabbing audience attention, irrespective of digital marketing approaches. A well-made video can keep visitors on your pages for longer durations. 

6. Page format and layout - A user-friendly page layout and attractive formatting are vital prerequisites for websites seeking better rank. Website pages must have clear and bold fonts that are easily understandable. Keep the paragraphs short, dissect content into a bulleted list format, and use cutting-edge web design elements that aid accessibility. Taking these steps can boost your potential for higher search engine ranking. 

7. Optimising for mobile platforms - Many businesses still treat the growth of mobile platforms as the elephant in the room. This hurts their chances of even getting a foothold in the competitive online marketplaces of today. If you are serious about eventually outranking your competitors, website mobile optimisation is the only way forward. Mobile conversions will come only if the mobile version of your site offers a great experience. Without it, your rankings can falter. 

8. Sharing across social media - Social media’s influence on the online business sphere has  been considerably high. Search engines consider the social media presence of a business as a factor for ranking. Website pages should have social sharing buttons for effortless sharing, which can also result in raised engagement and conversions. You can drive up your visitor count and rank with social media.  

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These are some key tips to help you enhance the SEO ranking of your web page. Whether its high-quality content writing, multimedia elements or improving a site’s overall usability, improving the user experience is quite essential. Approach a renowned SEO company if you are a business owner seeking better rankings for your pages.

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