Search Engine: What You Need To Know To Rank On SERP - Essay Sample

Introduction

A search engine is online software that searches web databases to respond to search queries and then display the result in a line of results, usually called Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The search result must match search queries and do this, search engines sorts understands, and organizes the search result in order of relevance. To appear in the SERP, a web page or its content must be visible to the search engine and if it to appear on the first page, meet the various aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), an approach through which search engines operate (Ledford, 2015).

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Though there are several differences in how a search engine operates, crawling, indexing, and ranking are the main fundamentals for their working. Crawling entails scouring the internet through spiders or crawlers to find new and updated information. The content can be in the form of webpages, PDF, video, or image, but they are discovered through links. To do this, search engine fetches some web pages and then uses links obtained from the webpages to obtain new or updated URLs. Once the URLs are found, its content is added to an index from where they are retrieved from when searched. The index serves as the store for web contents, and in case of a search, the result deemed good enough is displayed by ranking (Drai et al., 2019). Through classification, the search engine aims to provide the result that best answer searchers quest and to facilitate this, results are ranked from the most relevant downwards.

Bad/Good Design Choices When Building a Website, From the Perspective of Search Engine Optimization

When building a website, its recommended to create it with the perspective of SEO in mind. This way, the website will require less work in the future and if not figured from the very start, restructuring the website for SEO will call for more time and energy (Wilde et al., 2012). SEO strategies are also crucial for success in the current digital world as it contributes to good search ranking, webpage speed, layout, formatting, etc.

Some of the best design choices that will be in line with SEO requirement are: marking up the website with structured data to boost its machine readability, creating device-specific experiences using dynamic serving techniques or a responsive design, internal linking and architectural design that is accessible to search engine crawlers, and technical areas, for instance, using HTTP instead of HTTPS, unique URLs, region and language-specific domains for effective targeting, among others.

As there are excellent design choices for building a website in consideration of SEO, there are also numerous design choices that can be bad for a website. If used, the website may rank poorly in search engine ranking, and also have slow speed and poor page layout, which in turn could lead to negative reviews from audiences and search engine. Some of these choices are structured page structure that keeps pages very deep from the homepage and thereby requiring numerous clicks for users and search engines to access some of the website content, unstructured data which is complicated to be read, unresponsive webpage designs that limit some devices such as mobile phones from accessing them, etc.

Steps To Ensure Search Engine Optimization for an Online Type of Business (Home Depot as the Case Scenario)

Right SEO strategies are the key to increased activities for an online type of business. Trough effective SEO strategies, a website will rank highly and appear on the first pages of search result. This is important for increased traffic as most shoppers tend to check the first page. Actually, less than 10% of search engine users go beyond the first page of the search result. Therefore, an online business that ranks poorly on search engines is equivalent to a non-existing one. It has to optimize its online website to rank well in search results through the following steps:

Step 1: Make a List of Topics You Would Associate With Home Depot

Search engines displays result that match searchers query the best. In this regard, your website must contain frequently searched topics and keywords. Also, make the topics and keywords more relevant by using them in your blogs, and social media accounts as this improve traffic and ranking. You can include topics such as; Why Behr for painting is the best for your buildings, why you should consider Martha living for kitchen cabinet, Best indoor garden in the U.S., Home Depot products and services, Top electrical for your home, among others.

Step 2: Optimize the Keywords

Keywords determine how websites rank in the SERPS. To rank highly, thorough keyword research is necessary, and your buyers` persona should inform it, and to some extent, those used by competitors (Park et al., 2015). Start by identifying the ones you want to rank for your blog post, product page, and homepage. After you determine them, refactor them considering search ranking difficulty, volume, and relevancy. For instance, though home appliances, electrical, plumbing tools, garden supplies, and kitchen cabinets are the most searched globally, Home Depot should consider local search patterns relevant to its business such as garden supplies, Behr for painting, Home Depot products and services, Martha living for kitchen cabinet, Cree for lighting, indoor garden, outdoor garden, etc.

Step 3: Conduct an On-Page SEO

On-page SEO helps in targeted traffics. Through this, most people visiting a website are mostly high-quality prospects. To ensure this is the case, the keywords are incorporated at strategic positions, for instance, in the page title, URL, product description, subheadings, image file name and alt tag, etc. It can also be achieved through web design choices such as flat architecture, anchor text choices, and the right internal linking tactics.

Step 4: Make the Website Responsive To Mobile Devices

Search engine algorithm rank mobile-friendly sites highly. Also, according to research, the majority of website access is through mobile devices. Therefore, online business websites must be optimized for fast and reliable mobile user experience and to do this, minify code and leverage browsing caches for improved speed, used appropriate fonts, optimize images, and apply design friendly to mobile users.

Step 4: Do Some Google Shopping

Through google shopping, your items get the upper hand in the eyes of potential buyers as it allows images of listed items to appear on top of the first search result page. The chance is paid for and to reap big from it, ensure that the product image is of high quality and also optimize data feed by including as much data as possible on the product.

References

Ledford, J. L. (2015). Search engine optimization bible (Vol. 584). John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2Gz-CAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR16&dq=Ledford,+J.+L.+(2015).+Search+engine+optimization+bible+(Vol.+584).+John+Wiley+%26+Sons.&ots=vHOEWqd--z&sig=cjysZuE5teYqjVUpxR7DzbMNB8E

Drai, D., Trugman, U., & Zehavi, R. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,346,483. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Park, L. S., Yu, J., Yu, S., & Liao, L. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,116,994. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Wilde, T., Morton, K. D., Lobacheva, Y., Zinovieva, N., & Meteer, M. (2012). U.S. Patent No. 8,312,022. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.