How Chicago SEO Best Practices Can Help Your Business Bounce Back

Chicago SEO is critical if your site traffic has tanked since Google's latest algorithm update. A Chicago SEO consultant would know what to look for under the hood, and a site that's not getting enough click-throughs is in dire need of a comprehensive site audit. Suppose you haven't been updating the latest development in SEO this year. In that case, there are plenty of changes, and Google has made good on its promise to prioritize users (and user experience) over everything else.

Google wants businesses to make their sites useful content-wise and enjoyable and engaging to use.

Unfortunately, that is a tall order for many companies who haven't worked with professional Chicago SEO consulting before. There are many steps in order of importance you can start to better prepare for a more successful 2022.

Bloggers and harried businesses on Twitter love to predict stuff, using their best deductive reasoning, on what we may expect from Google's algorithm upgrades at the start of every year. Of course, these arguments are sound and valuable (and no one can stop people from theorizing what happens next). Still, it's more important that we calibrate our SEO strategies instead of fearing change.

Initiate a conversation with a business owner or a marketing specialist and inquire about search engine optimization (SEO). You might get a positive assessment of how fantastic SEO was for their brand. That depends on the context and the experiences of the people involved. However, you can also get a questioning look or even a rebuke for your method.

The wide range of perspectives on SEO is that various people have had unique views and experiences managing campaigns.

Although several anecdotal examples of businesses built their whole marketing strategy around SEO and thrived, millions of people have had their SEO campaigns fail. Well, no one wants that. No one wants to fail SEO once they tap this marketing channel.

(Also, this year might be a good idea to start working with a Chicago SEO expert if you want to start scaling.)

And so we're here, making sure that we learn from all the changes in preparation for the coming months.

Two significant Google SEO changes caught us off guard in July 2021. Let's look at the new information and what we may all learn from it this Q4.

Yes, It's All About User Experience

Google has spent years emphasizing the importance of user experience. However, this year's improvements seemed to underscore this notion. The importance of satisfying the reader is now evident.

However, "user experience" is a broad concept. Some firms, for example, create their websites to improve the user experience by upgrading the menu structure and page design. In addition, today's marketing methods include NAP audits (name, address, phone number) and branding consistency.

When it comes to pleasing frequent customers, user experience ultimately boils down to one thing: site speed. The most critical things to optimize right now are a website's page loading speed and anything that happens during loadings, like animations and pop-ups. See what you can do to enhance speed if you're searching for a tremendous Q4 priority.

As you work with a new SEO consultant Chicago, here are a few modifications that can help speed up your site:

Image Optimization

Image optimization lowers image sizes to no more than what is required, assures the best file format, and compresses them for the web.

Add a Caching Plug-In to the Formula

Many companies use page builders to create their websites. Installing a cache plugin converts a design's dynamic pa

rts into static information on the website, much like an HTML site.

Rely on YouTube Videos Instead of Video Banners

While engaging videos might increase conversions, they can also significantly slow down a website. However, you don't have to avoid adding videos to your homepage and landing pages altogether. Rather than using video banners, embed YouTube videos instead.

Boost Server Performance

Even if increasing server speed and response time only helps up to a degree, it is still beneficial. To improve, locate and resolve any server bottlenecks, as well as boost server memory.

Simplify Your Site

Modern website design is cleaner and less cluttered, which helps load times. For example, reduce the number of embedded videos, graphics, and photos on your page. You can also declutter the backend by utilizing fewer plugins and removing outdated and rarely used ones.

Knock, Knock – It's Google's Mobile-First Preference

Google has discussed the importance of mobile-first sites for at least five years now, which is an entirely logical step because 80% of Google's traffic comes from mobile devices.

Since Google's introduction of mobile-first indexing, focusing on a site's mobile readiness is just a smart thing to do. But, sorry, it's not just bright - it's crucial in terms of indexing.

So, the question now is how mobile-friendly your site is? You can do a quick test on any Apple or Android device to see how responsive and easy to use your site is. Can you navigate to any part of the site easily? Does the navigation make sense? Do animations work well? Do the pages load quickly? Examine your site as a consumer to see what needs to be changed.

Ensure That Your Content Is Visible and Crawlable

Make sure your content is not blocked or any disavow URLs. Also all meta tags should be optimized for both mobile and desktop devices.

Maintaining Desktop and Mobile Consistency

Consider making your mobile site and desktop site almost identical in terms of features and navigation. If your mobile site has hidden content, for example, make that content available on desktop (and vice-versa). Make sure the tagged headers are consistent between the two versions of your site, too.

Focus on Best Practices

On both mobile and desktop, the quality of the content should be super good. It's possible that using bad thumbnails on mobile is considered low-quality. Furthermore, proper attribution and assignment of identical URLs for photographs and videos might aid mobile-first indexing, too.