People who create websites want them to be popular. This basically goes without saying. But the things that can affect your website’s popularity is definitely worth highlighting. Especially when there are a lot of factors you may not have even considered. Here are some of the strangest things that can affect your website’s popularity!
How long you’ve owned that domain
This is one of the most underrated factors when it comes to website development. Sure, a domain that was created a year ago won’t have automatic precedence over a six-month-old domain. But how long you’ve owned the domain isn’t necessarily how old the domain is. If there have been previous owners, then this can definitely result in changes to search engine rankings. Google isn’t too keen on a domain that has been “passed around” a lot.
Photo credit Medith IT
Of course, a change in domain ownership isn’t always going to negatively affect your popularity. Someone looking for the website that used that domain in the past will come across your website – that’s technically a free visitor!
HTML
You may not think that the HTML skeleton of your website would matter all that much. Of course, you know that it is important because it’s part of what dictates what appears on your website.
But clean, clear HTML and messy, undetailed HTML can produce the same front-end website. What your website code looks like won’t affect the visitor’s enjoyment much. But it will affect how well search engines can read your website! It’s vital that you understand exactly how HTML and search engines interact.
The location of your business or web host
Wait, what do web users care where you’re actually based? As long as it works the same way, people wouldn’t care all that much if the Facebook offices moved from, say, California to Fort Payne.
But, yet again, it’s not the front-end visitors you have to worry about. It’s the search engines! Your precise location in a city is relevant. Your proximity to other businesses is relevant. Where the searcher is in relation to where you are will also be taken into account. Google Possum, a recent update to its algorithms, have made it easier for smaller businesses in this regard.
Photo credit Tammy Strobel
Content length
A lot of people are under the impression that really short videos and articles is the key to success. After all, don’t we live in a time where everyone has a really bad attention span? Well, actually, this isn’t really true. Both people and search engines have shown a preference for longer content as opposed to micro-content. Videos and articles that take around four to seven minutes to read or watch seem to be the most popular.
Spelling and grammar
Exactly how important this is is often disputed. It’s fair to say that not every website with atrocious spelling and grammar is severely penalized when it comes to popularity. But search engines aren’t particularly fond of it, and will take it into consideration if you don’t meet other quality criteria. Plus, people who are actually looking at your website are bound to be a little annoyed if you fail in this area!