With billions of blog pages, organizations must do their best to rank high on Google to attain more visibility in search engine results pages (SERP). Consequently, ranking high in SERP will likely increase website traffic and improve conversion rates. Companies may even successfully grab their competitor’s customers. Hence, Google is still a powerful force in today’s modern world. Despite the popularity of social media apps and other channels like Amazon, Google remains the number one option when people search for information.
That’s why organizations and their marketers must continue to prioritize Google rankings. But doing so is easier said than done, especially when many other companies are vying to do the same thing and achieve the same goals. Making a brand stand out from the crowd and rank high is a big challenge, especially since Google’s algorithms constantly change. To crack the code on ranking higher and getting a good spot on search results, check out these five best practices and make appropriate changes where necessary to succeed.
Work on On-Page SEO
One of the best and fastest ways to boost ranking is to tweak on-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO. As the name suggests, this refers to optimizing elements on the website versus focusing on external links or off-site aspects to get a good rank. Look at these three effective on-page SEO tactics:
- Frontloading: It’s essential to implement this tactic, which entails putting keywords at the start of the title tag. For example, if the target keyword is coursework writing services, these words must appear early in the title. The title tag could be: “Coursework Writing Services: Reliable Writing You Can Count On.” Remember that Google puts a bit more emphasis on the words that show up earlier in the title.
- Word count: Aim for at least 1,800 words for articles because experts attest that those on the first pages of SERP for any keyword contain about 1,500 words. Long-form content tends to earn higher in SERP, especially for categories that make sense, like a comprehensive how-to or a manual. Aim to publish long content when possible.
- Primary Keywords: Keyword stuffing is a thing of the past. Those who want to rank higher must incorporate primary KWs twice or thrice on a page. Adding relevant terms tells Google that this search query is crucial, which can result in good rankings. Sprinkling KWs a few times on a page in areas where they make sense is the key to excellent results.
- LSI Keywords: Latent semantic indexing or LSI keywords are a more advanced optimization technique. These are words or phrases related to the page’s topic. For instance, LSI KWs for credit cards are interest rate, money, credit score, cash, and credit limit. All these words are semantically relevant to the primary keyword, confirming with Google that the content is accurate.
Pay Attention to Technical SEO
It’s easy for marketing experts to focus on content and forget about the website’s back end. To earn a top spot on SERP, Google must be able to crawl and index the site easily. Therefore, the website must be designed appropriately to make it easy for search engines to do their job. Content may be king, but marketing efforts go down the drain if search engines find it tough to crawl and index pages. Technical SEO means taking care of the following aspects:
- Ensuring all pages are secure
- Working hard to make the site optimized for mobile
- No similar content or plagiarized content as this pulls down rankings
- Pages must be able to load quickly, including images
- All links on the site must be in proper working order
It must be easy for search engines and potential users to find their way around the website. Pages with good technical SEO are simple to navigate and secure, so they naturally garner good ranking results.
Prioritize Matching Search Intent
It’s vital to match search intent because this shows that the brand is familiar with what the topic the target audience is searching for. Google rewards websites with good ranking when they have content that matches the search intent of their customers.
Marketers must analyze what their customers usually write in the search bar. This can be done by doing a quick search and checking the content on the first page of the SERP. Next, they have to ensure that they have articles that cover that. If not, it’s time to create new content or repurpose old ones to make something customers seek.
Aim to Get Backlinks
These backlinks are links posted by a third-party website that connects to a brand’s page. Having a lot of backlinks from other parties influence rankings because it shows authority. When people share links on social media or create backlinks in their articles, this tells Google that the content is beneficial and the original person who wrote it is knowledgeable. The more backlinks there are, the better the chances of getting a good rank because they tell Google that the content is high quality and, therefore, highly credible and shareable.
Hence, marketers must do their best to create high-quality, relevant content that people will feel inclined to share. On top of that, they should actively work with complementary brands and websites to share their posts. Getting precious backlinks will also boost the site’s domain authority score. But again, this will only work if the content is well-written, relatable, and engaging.
Create Internal Links
Finally, apart from focusing on backlinks from other brands, marketers must create internal links on their pages. This hyperlink redirects the reader to another page within the same domain or website. Doing so is crucial because they help Google crawl and index web pages. One of the primary perks of using internal links is that the highlighted anchor text can match the content.
Internal links are simple to create with no need for third-party help. Everything is already on the website. For the best results, prioritize putting the internal link initially, as this helps mitigate bounce rates (or the number of site visitors who veer away from the site after viewing only one page).
Final Thoughts
As marketers, the goal is to drive traffic to the site and keep visitors glued to the page. Check out these suggestions and incorporate some much-needed changes. They show Google that the website can be trusted and worthy of a high rank.
