“Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!”
Everyone that knows Christmas is about Santa and his reindeer. He doesn’t just have one pulling his sleigh, but an entire team. Only when all of his reindeer are together can his sleigh be ready to take off to deliver Christmas cheer across the whole world.
This can be said about your website as well. When it comes to internal SEO for your website there are a lot of factors that pull it towards higher rankings on the search engine result page, and they all need to be there to get your website where you want it to be. Here are a few (in no particular order) of these factors based off of Santa’s reindeer.
The Eight SEO Reindeer
Dasher – A Dashing Design
A dashing design will stimulate and encourage users to want to use your website. The design needs to be clean and easy to understand for your target demographic to make a right impact.
Dancer – Easy User Interface
When a user is able to easily dance around your website’s interface, they will spend more time on it. If it is too hard to find what they are looking for or to use a feature on the site, they will get frustrated and leave. This includes having a responsive mobile layout for phone and tablet users.
Prancer – Compelling Call-to-Action
To really capture your user and turning them into a conversion, you need to have a concise call-to-action. Encourage the user to prance towards your contact form, cart checkout or whatever your goal of your website is.
Vixen – Targeted Keywords
The content that you write needs to match what people are searching for. If people are searching for “winter holiday treats” more than “Christmas treats,” then you should try to use the more highly desired keywords to bring more users to your site.
Comet – Valuable Content
Make sure to write valuable appealing content that answers any questions a user has, and then some. In the end, the website is for the user so if the user gets what they want from the website, then your website will do well in both rankings and conversions.
Cupid – Integrate User Interaction (Social Media)
Social Media is key in helping to create business, consumer interaction beyond the sales pitch and purchase. People love to share and interact with things they like, including your company. Give them content they will want to share and reply to them when they post to you or about you.
Donner – Strong Page Structure
Using proper page structure will keep you off of search engine’s naughty list. Using a proper hierarchy for navigation, a proper heading structure on individual pages and using html code the way it was intended will keep you on the nice list.
Blitzen – Website Loading Speed
It only takes a few seconds for a user to lose interest in your website when they first arrive. Having a blazing fast loading speed or a stylish loading message could make the difference of the user staying or leaving.
The Whole Team Together
Having all of these factors, and others that I haven’t mentioned will help bring your website to new heights. However, there is one thing that we are forgetting… the most important reindeer of them all…
Rudolph, the Analytical Data Reindeer
Had a very shiny report…
Even with a full team of reindeer, Santa was unable to take off on one foggy Christmas Eve. Only with Rudolph lighting his path was he able to see where he was going and make his deliveries before Christmas morning.
When it comes to SEO, not tracking users on your website and receiving analytical data will leave you flying blind on a foggy night. Only when you use this data and make reports can you truly gauge how your website is doing, where your website is going and how you can improve it to reach your online goals.