The easiest SEO trick for your business

Last week I talked about a change in search that might have indicated the upcoming Penguin update was starting. It turned out that it was simply a change in local searches, which caused sites to move up and down in the rankings. Keep an eye out for that happening on your sites.

If you’re considering moving your site to a faster hosting company, you might want to make some changes to your site first. The reason your site isn’t fast enough might be the fault of your site, not the basic speed your host offers. Once you tweak your site to speed it up, if you still feel a need to move you’ll get an even bigger bump in rankings than you would have without fixing the site. I’ve been watching one client’s rankings before and after doing some simple fixes and we’ve seen that a 400-500 millisecond decrease in loading time can almost double your site’s traffic. That’s the difference that rankings can make to your bottom line.

There are three simple items you can do that will give you significant results. First, optimise your database. Whether you’re on WordPress, Drupal, or any other platform, look for trash and get rid of it. Old blog posts you no longer need, drafts, deleted spam, or anything else you don’t want published. Get rid of it.

Second, add a cache system to your site. This allows a user’s computer to view your site again and again without reloading your pages every time. This speeds up load time significantly.

Finally, look for any plugins or modules that you’re no longer using. These are a huge drain on your resources. Get rid of all these site additions.

When you streamline your site by removing junk and allowing it to load faster, Google loves it even more and rewards it with better rankings.

For more information, visit the StewArt Media website.

Jim Stewart is a leading expert in search engine optimisation. His business  StewArt Media  has worked with clients including Mars, M2 and the City of Melbourne.