Whether you are a business or an entrepreneur, your digital presence is a must, especially, if you want to move ahead of your competition. Google has been at the top of the search engine game for quite a while now. And, if you are not optimizing your website to improve & monitor search engine rankings, you are missing out on a lot of potential business conversions.
The higher you are on the search page, the better your chances to get customers. When you improve the Google ranking of your website, you put yourself in the limelight.
The phenomenon where you improve Google ranking of your website is broadly called SEO (search engine optimization)
We will discuss the 10 ways through which you can improve Google ranking.
On-page search engine optimization refers to the things you do on your website’s pages to rank them in Google. Whereas, off-page SEO is everything you do off your site to get it ranked.
There are a few things that you can do on and off your site to get it ranked in Google.
Let’s dive into the details.
Keyword Optimization
The content you put on your home, services, or blog pages determine whether your website is relevant to what the user on Google is searching for.
If you have the keywords/key phrases in your content, Google bots take your content as relevant to that specific keyword, which tends to improve & Monitor Search Engine Rankings over time.
But, first, you need to find the relevant keywords. Google Keyword Planner is one of the tools you can effectively use for that purpose.
Don’t go overboard though; repeating your keyword too many times in your content can backfire as Google is very smart. Avoid keyword stuffing and use around 6 keywords per 3000 words of your content (rough idea).
Speed Optimization
Go to gtmetrix.com and check your website’s performance first. The tool by Google shows you everything you need to improve to make your website more desirable for the end-user.
Optimizing your images i.e. reducing their size so that your page loads fast will make your website more user-friendly.
The higher the size of the images on your page, the longer it will take to load. You don’t want the visitor to bounce back due to slow loading. Nobody wants to wait, right?
Plus, add an alt tag in your image so that Google knows what the image is about. Search engines can’t recognize your images without an alt tag.
You should also make your site fast by using cache plugins (if you are using WordPress) or minimize bloat (blocks of unnecessary code) to make your website load fast.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO isn’t that technical. Everyone can do it effectively. It’s helping Google index, crawl, and rank your website pages.
To let that happen, you need to submit the sitemap of your website to Google Search Console. Google bots will crawl your website, which helps in Monitor Search Engine Rankings.
Plus, make sure you are using HTTPS, not HTTP. The SSL (secure socket layer) adds security to your website. This mainly helps to develop the credibility of your site but can also be a ranking factor.
Mobile SEO
Your website needs to be responsive too: This means the website should adapt to the device your user is using and provide the best user experience.
Because of the ease of use, most of your target customers are surfing, reading, or communicating on their smartphones.
So, a mobile user goes on Google and searches for your service. You have everything covered except mobile-friendliness. The user clicks on your link and bounces back because it isn’t showing the way it should on their mobile phone.
By neglecting mobile SEO, you can lose a lot of your potential customers. So, make sure your websites are responsive and provide the best user experience on mobile, tablet, and laptop.
Write SEO Friendly Content
SEO friendly doesn’t only mean incorporating your keywords; for Google to consider your content worthwhile, make it high-value and relevant.
Use short paragraphs and simple wordings; you are writing for a layman who is looking for some information online. If you use difficult words, chances are they will bounce back and open another source that’s talking in plain English.
The more time a reader spends on your website, the better the chances that your article is going to rank higher.
For that reason, avoid writing fluff or any sentences just for the sake of completing a specific word count.
And, write unique content, which doesn’t only mean that you rephrase what’s already present on the internet, provide something new to the reader.
Put a new tip or technique in front of them. Your content should also encourage the participation of the reader; you can maybe prompt the user to leave a comment about what they think of the topic.
Increasing CTR
Click-through rate is the number of visitors who click on your page on Google search results. Impressions are the number of times users have seen your link on Google but didn’t click on it.
You can increase your click-through rate by doing a few simple things.
Write a compelling title. Your title should be attractive and urge the searcher to visit your website. Keep it as short as possible otherwise it may not be fully visible to the user.
Optimize your meta description with the keyword your target audience is searching for. So, when your website is shown in the SERPs, the searcher finds that keyword in your meta description, improving the chances that they will click on your link.
Plus, your keyword research game should be up to the mark if you are to gain a maximum click-through rate from Google SERPs. So, when the exact term they used to search something appears on your page, it’s highly unlikely that they won’t open your link.
Decreasing Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the number of visitors that bounce back after clicking on your website. To retain the visitor, your website speed needs to be fast.
There are so many options these days; your visitor won’t wait for your website to load to get the information.
They will prefer going to another place than to wait for even a single minute. So, optimizing your website for speed loading is necessary to minimize the bounce rate.
Why is bounce rate important for Google ranking? Well, if a user isn’t staying on your website for long, Google takes it as a negative signal. Contrarily, the longer the time your visitors spend on the website, the better it is for your Google ranking.
Internal Linking
Internal linking is the idea of linking from one page to another on your website. For instance, providing a link to the article you are writing on dog food to explain a concept in detail.
Google takes internal links as a factor for ranking your content. It gives Google a site architecture, which the Google bots can easily crawl and make sense of.
Build Backlinks
Backlinks are the links to your website from other websites. The impact of a backlink depends on the quality of the link; the quality can be measured from the domain authority of the page that has given you a backlink.
A backlink tells Google that your content is considered valuable by other sources. When someone puts a link to your website in their content, they are signaling Google that your website has relevant and quality content.
But, building backlinks is like a marathon. You just need to provide value; when people feel your content is worth mentioning, you will get the traffic you deserve.
Use H1 and H2 in Your Articles
Your blog posts are very important for ranking your website on page 1 of Google. In addition to optimizing your content with relevant keywords, your blog structure plays an important role.
Make sure you put your headings and subheadings in H1 and H2 tags, respectively. This way, not only the human readability is improved, but search engines like Google also can easily crawl and index your content.
H1 is the most important heading tag in your content. Wrap your article’s heading in H1 and any other headings in H2.
You can go up to H6, but the most important heading tags are the H1, H2, and to some extent H3.
Final Thoughts
Gone are the days when billboards used to be looked at. They were an effective marketing platform then.
In addition to a major shift towards digital in marketing, people also don’t rely on ads now. They go out and search for their needs and wants on Google.
Google has been there and will be here for a long time. As long as our need to find products, services, and relevant information is there, search engines will play an important role in our lives.
So, improve & Monitor Search Engine Rankings to make sure you are visible to your target audience. This will not only build brand awareness but will also send relevant traffic to your website, improving the chances of making new customers.