Now that you have built your website, you find out that just having a website does not automatically guarantee visitors. You are not alone, you are in the same boat as many other small business owners. It takes a lot of smart planning to get your website found and ranked higher in Google search. Ranking higher on Google helps you get more traffic to your site and build your business’s credibility.
Money alone is not enough to buy a Google rank. You can improve your position on the search engine results page without spending a dime. It takes a lot of hard work and strategy to reach the top 10 SERPs in less than a year. If you want to increase sales and conversions by getting your website to the top of search-engine results, follow these tips to improve your website’s ranking on Google search.
1. Improve Your On-Page SEO
One of the fastest ways to improve your rankings is on-page SEO. The reason it came out first on my list is because it is the bread and butter of ranking high on the search engines. In short, it’s all the things you can change on your website, like headlines, page titles, and images. It only takes a few minutes to optimize your pages, and when you are done, you will see a ranking boost within days. It is essential to understand how your site should be optimized for your target keywords. Here are some of the best practices for on-page SEO:
- To start, make sure that you front-load your keyword by inserting it towards the beginning of your title tag. This is important because Google places a greater emphasis on terms that appear earlier in your title tag. And they place less emphasis on keywords that appear later in the text.
- Second, make sure you create a content of AT LEAST 1800 words. According to Google’s key ranking factors, the average Google first page result contains 1,447 words. From my experience, longer content tends to rank better in search engines. For an ecommerce category page, you may not need long-form content. Eventually, publishing long content will benefit your On-page SEO.
- Finally, make sure to add your keyword two to three times per page. Avoid keyword stuffing or anything similar, as it may lead to the opposite result. Instead, when you add terms to your page, Google sees them as search queries, which can help you get a nice ranking boost.
2. Write relevant content that is SEO-friendly
Writing good relevant content is one of the best ways to increase traffic and improve your search rank. When it comes to doing SEO marketing, this is especially true.
Indeed, Google itself stated in a blog post on page experience that having great, relevant content on a page is more important for ranking than page experience. High-quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance.
The key is to ensure that your content is mistake-free, keyword-rich, mobile-optimized, written to address the specific needs of your target audience. Be sure to include valuable links to additional internal and external content. In addition to this, you will not only elevate your web writing skills, but also show that you are an expert on the topic you are writing about.
Factors to consider when writing quality content
Keyword
Choose a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Consider how your reader might search for that specific page with search terms such as:
- What is the distinction between engineering and engineering technology?
- How to apply for a scholarship?
- Online Master’s in Database Management
- What is Database Management System
Multiple Keyword Phrases
A webpage cannot achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases unless they are very similar. Both “database management jobs” and “database management careers” can be ranked on a single page. Another example is that it is unlikely that a single page will rank for “student affairs” and “dean of students” or “gender discrimination” or “violence reporting procedures.”
To rank for more than one keyword phrase with your website, you will need to make a separate page for each one.
Placing the right Keywords
When choosing a keyword phrase for a given page, consider the following questions:
- Would it be possible to include part or all of the keyword phrase in the page URL (by using keywords in folders)?
- Should the page title contain a part or all of the keyword phrase?
- Are there any restrictions on the use of the keyword phrase in page headings and subheadings?
The answer to all of those questions is yes. Agreeing to all of those questions will help improve your search engine ranking. However, the key is to be natural and user-friendly. For example, you don’t want the word “engineering” to appear three or more times in the URL or have the phrase “database” repeated in the page title and also every heading. The readability and usability are still more important than search engine optimization.
Content
Content is more significant than page URL, title, and headings for search engine rankings. In order to achieve a high ranking on Google, you should repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page, once or twice in the opening and closing paragraphs, and two to four times throughout the remaining content. One more thing to keep in mind is the use of backlinks in your content. Adding backlinks to relevant sources and additional information from both your organization’s broad website and other websites will be helpful.
Another way to show off these keyword phrases is to use bold, italic, heading tags (especially an H1), and other emphasis tags, but don’t use too many of them. The reason is that you still want your language and writing style to be natural, and this is why you should never sacrifice good writing for SEO. It is the user’s experience that makes the best pages.
Your primary goal should be to encourage visitors to share your posts on social media. And visitors won’t do that unless you post relevant content regularly.
3. Increase the number of backlinks
It’s great to be able to publish great content, but people need to see it to get links. Content marketing is not something that can be done simply by taking a publishing and praying approach and hoping that people link to you or share it. That’s because there is so much content out there that it’s hard to get noticed. The lesson here is that if you want people to link to your site, you need to promote your content. Instead, you should contact other websites and brands to see if they are interested in publishing a guest post you wrote. This is where the idea of a backlink comes in.
Backlinks, which are links posted on a third-party website that link back to your website, play a considerable role in the algorithm of the search engines. It is one of the most important ranking factors for Google. Linking to your website content from high-authority domains shows your site’s authority, brings in traffic, and later improves your search ranking.
Backlinks not only show that users find your content useful, but they also show that you are knowledgeable about your field. The more people who link to your content, the more Google knows that your content is credible and can be shared. This way, you can add your backlinks to content on your website that is relevant to them.
Moreover, if you get authoritative websites to link back to your website, it will boost your domain authority score. Again, this strategy will only work if you create good, relevant content. Make sure to avoid appearing too spammy, something that is a common trap when writing guest posts.
Generally speaking, nowadays, the focus is more on high-quality, relevant content than the number of keywords a page has. We previously mentioned that you should aim for at least 1,800 words, but posts that are longer than 3,000 words are even better for creating links. The quality of your content is what keeps readers coming back to your page. The best way to get to the top is to write clearly.
4. Create and improve internal links
We’ve talked a lot about how important backlinks are, but you should also focus on making internal links. An internal link is a link to another page on the same website. The truth is that they help Google find and index your pages.
Using internal links has the advantage of matching the content with the anchor text. You don’t have to rely on other third-party websites to create them, they’re pretty straightforward. To improve your bounce rate, you should place internal links at the beginning of the web page.
Make sure that your website’s links are placed in the right places, and that they are working properly. Here are a few ways to improve your link building.
Link Architecture
A common efficiency hack that people often forget is that the page depth of your site should not exceed three clicks.
The best pages will appear on the first level if you have a proper internal linking strategy.
To achieve this, you could create a home page section that links directly to your ‘Best-Selling Products’ or ‘Top Categories.’
Fix broken links and duplicate content
I have noticed that some website owners ignore broken links because they don’t realize the impact of the poor user experience it will create.
With tools like Sitebulb , you can easily find broken links like 404 errors and fix them quickly!
Getting notified for site mentions
Set up a Google Alert to keep track of your brand’s mentions on the internet. If any of the mentions come without being linked back to your site, let the webmaster know and ask for a link back.
5. Improve the user experience on your website
Page experience is defined by Google as a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its mere information value. This applies to both mobile and desktop devices.
According to data obtained from a study conducted by SEMrush, the top four ranking factors are website visits, time on site, pages per session, and bounce rate. It is interesting to note that four of those are directly related to your website’s content and user experience, which Google recently emphasized with its Page Experience update.
Getting more visitors is simple if your website is easy to use and offers valuable information. You will improve your search ranking if visitors stay on your site for longer and visit more pages.
6. Use LSI Keywords to enhance your page
LSI keywords, or latent semantic indexing, are an advanced on-page SEO tactic that search engines can use to gain a more in-depth understanding of a page’s content. To simplify the process, LSI keywords are words and phrases that are closely related to the topic of your page.
For example, if your main keyword is digital advertising, LSI keywords can include words and phrases like digital marketing, advertising platforms, search engines, marketing, customers, social, etc. These LSI keywords indicate to Google that your content is actually about that topic. Additionally, Google will also look for other LSI keywords. And, as it turns out, if you cover an entire topic on a single page, you’ll rank high on Google. I hope you get the point.
Also, you can use synonyms, but you’ll need to use LSI keywords too. This is because search engines have evolved over the years. Since Google knows what your page is about, you no longer need to worry about keyword density.
It’s not enough to just optimize your content for a few keywords any more. Rather, Google is looking to understand what your page is about in general. These types of keywords will be used to make sure that your content is about the topic.
Furthermore, using LSI keywords helps to improve your topical depth, which in turn helps with relevancy. The preference for long-form content will increase in 2023, as topical depth will become more important. You should also include other related keywords and subtopics in your content.
There are free online tools that will do this research for you, so it’s no excuse not to put in an extra effort. You might want to check out tools like LSI Graph or Key Search to identify relevant LSI keywords.
7. Include relevant visuals and optimize them
Adding relevant images to your page can help it rank higher in a few ways:
- It creates content that is more engaging and keeps people on the page for longer.
- Search results are becoming more visual, so more images are needed.
- This will give your images a chance to rank in the image results.
Stock images and empty graphics aren’t going to cut it for those blog posts that you want to rank higher. You require images that are relevant to the topic, add value, and match the purpose of the keyword.
Another issue to address is the issue of optimizing images. Optimizing your images will help your site load faster and make it easier for Google to identify the images on your web pages. To achieve a better result, ensure that all your website images are compressed, have descriptive file names, and include alt text.
When creating content for a keyword, it is important to Google it and get a feel for how important visuals are, as well as which visuals are showing. This allows you to align with searchers expectations.
8. Ensure that your content matches the search intent
Do you have an idea of what your target audience is looking for in the search bar? Are they looking for how-to guides, real-life examples, or tips for beginners? Search intent comes in when your target audience searches for answers on the internet.
The term Search Intent is the new buzzword in the world of SEO because it enables Google to now determine if your site is a good fit for a specific keyword. How people interact with your website is something that Google pays attention to. The primary goal of Google is to reward websites that share content that people are searching for most often.
One way to ensure that your content matches search intent is to look for content that ranks on the first page. And if people are generally satisfied with your page, you can expect your rankings to improve. If your content doesn’t match what people are searching for, then your site will be lower in the search results.
The key to this step is to ensure that your page provides exactly what the searcher is looking for.
9. Keep updating your content
Google is simply concerned with the content of your website. Keep your content fresh because regularly updated content is one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy.
The best way to keep your website up to date is to write additional blog posts with keyword-rich content. This will have a significant impact on your search engine ranking. Even shorter blog posts can be used to address the specific topics you are targeting that match Google search intent. Make sure that your content is updated on a regular schedule so that it can improve your Google ranking.
10. Make use of Videos
I’ve talked a lot about content and keywords, so now I’ll talk a little bit about how videos can help you rank higher on Google. Content can be in the form of video.
Today, you are more likely to see videos in the search results than you were in the past. Keep in mind that Google not only offers text results, but also video, images, and news articles to help create a better user experience.
Additionally, you may want to consider creating your own YouTube videos and embedding them on your web pages as a method of supporting the content on your website. Text and video can have a significant impact on your ranking on the search engine. It not only attracts attention from Google, but it also helps to keep visitors on your site for longer, which helps to signal to the search engines that your website matches search intent.
11. Set up a Google My Business profile
Increasingly, people are using their smartphones to search for businesses near them. If you have a business, you can also improve your Google ranking by creating a Google My Business profile.
If you want to improve your local search engine optimization, make sure you claim your Google My Business listing. Not only will this help you get your business listed in local directories, but it will also improve your online reputation once you start getting online reviews.
The benefit of using a Google My Business profile is that you can control how your business appears across Google products such as Search and Maps.
If the content on your Google My Business profile matches what your target audience usually searches for, Google will find it easier to match your profile to the right search terms. Having more Google reviews can help you rank higher in the search results, as I mentioned earlier.
Conclusion
Whichever of the options works best for you, ranking higher on search engines such as Google is the only way you can achieve your desired objectives. Even though some techniques may take some time, I can assure you that the results exceed the wait. I sincerely hope you enjoyed my step-by-step guide on how to improve your website ranking on Google.
I am Richard Inegbedion Jr. and, as always, it’s my opinion with facts.
Sources: Influencer Marketing Hub, Backlinko
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
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