Include Relevant Words & Phrases
Use Compelling Content
Answer Site Visitor’s Questions
Ensure your site is Indexed by Search Engines
Include Content on Pages, not in PDFs
Easy to Find
Compelling content that answers your site visitors’ questions, has the most relevant information, and can be indexed by search engines ensures your site content is easy to find.
Your website won’t achieve the results you want if no one can find it! Most people use either search engines or a website’s search bar to find the information they’re looking for. To ensure your information shows up when searched for, follow these STAR Standard content guidelines for Search-ability:
Include Relevant Words & Phrases
Relevant words and phrases are the words people are typing into search engines or your site’s search bar to find the information they need to complete their desired task. Once you have a good understanding of what questions your site visitors have and what tasks they are trying to complete, the next step is to determine what words they are using to find that information.
Use Compelling Content
There isn’t a magic trick to improve your searchability and it can be a lot easier than you might think. Compelling content is action-oriented content that helps site visitors easily and effectively complete desired tasks.
The easiest way to make sure your content is compelling is to write content for people.
A few easy ways to start:
Remove Outdated Content
More isn’t always better, remove extra pages to make it easier for visitors find what they are looking for
Break Up Large Blocks of Dense Text
Trim pages down to the basics to avoid information overload
Make Your Content Easy to Scan by Using Headings & Paragraph Breaks
Most visitors won’t read every word on a page, they will scroll through the page scanning for what they need
Include Information on Webpages Instead of Uploading PDFs
PDFs can be hard to scan and scroll through on mobile devices
Break Up Large Blocks of Dense Text
Most visitors will be on your site to complete a task, how can you help them complete their tasks in as few clicks as possible?
Informative But Hard To Use
Compelling Content
Answer Site Visitors’ Questions
Do you know the top 5 things your site visitors are looking for when they visit your website?
How many times will they have to click to gather the needed information to complete their task?
To answer your site visitors’ questions, you need to have a good understanding of the specific needs of your customers.
One of the best ways to get to know your site visitors’ needs is to talk to them. Completing a UX analysis can help you better understand and serve your site visitors; the formality of this process is up to you and can vary from customer surveys to heat map analysis to recorded user testing.
Utilizing website analytics is a great way to find out what site visitors are looking for, as well as reviewing your site search history. Additionally, talking to customer facing team members and discovering what questions they are most commonly asked can help you get one step ahead when it comes to building content for your website.
Ensure Your Site is Indexed by Search Engines
When looking for information, most people will use search engines or the search bar on your site. If a search engine can’t find the information, people won’t be able to find the information either.
When your site is indexed by search engines it has been discovered by search engines and added to their index. When searchers enter words or phrases into the search engine, it will pull the most relevant content from its index to serve up to the searcher, including your site.
Follow these easy tips to improve your site search-ability:
Have intuitive navigation and ensure all pages are linked in a menu
Make mobile navigation the same as desktop navigation
Include descriptive alt text on all images
Don’t display text using images
Include relevant information from PDFs in the site text
Include Content on Pages, not in PDFs
PDFs can be difficult to find because search engines or your site’s internal search won’t index information contained in the document. They can also be more difficult to read on mobile devices with smaller screens as people will have to pinch and zoom as well as scroll to view content. People with slow internet connections can also find downloading PDFs difficult and time consuming.
However, PDFs can make it easier to print information for people who prefer to read offline. But, it is possible to create easily printable webpages that are easier to use than PDF and will increase your site’s accessibility. Check out how to create webpages optimized for printing.
Want to Learn More?
There is a lot that goes into to making your site searchable, and this is only the start. To find out more about improving the searchability of your site, sign up for our free guide The STAR Standard.
