Improve Your Ranking: Proven Methods to Optimize Your Website On Google

 

Yay! You’ve decided to start writing blogs – welcome! Blogging isn’t easy, and neither is building your online audience. Unless your articles are ranking stellar in a Google search, you’re not going to make much progress (boo!) in building a following. Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is critical to making your website presence stand out.
In order to make your website stand out from all of the rest, you need to implement some proven methods to boost your Google ranking.

Here’s our guide to optimizing your website:

Keywords, keywords, keywords.
The first – and most critical part of your SEO strategy is choosing the right keywords.
To get this correct, you need to understand what keywords are best for you, your audience, and your website. It is highly recommended to do some research before writing each article – keywords are everything.

 

Include the keyword in your title.
Use that keyword! Make sure to include it in your title, keeping in mind that the closer you place it to the beginning of the heading, the more likely it is to rank high in Google’s results.

 

Repeat.
Make sure to use the keyword multiple times in your article, but make sure not to overdo it.

 

Content is king.
Algorithms are constantly changing, even for Google. Google will always rank longer articles that deliver quality content to its readers over content that is just babble.

 

Increase length.
Duh – Google favors in-depth content over fluff. Yes, readers want quick information, but the best-ranking articles on Google are always long.

 

Improve readability.
Make sure your content is easy to read – Google ranks on the readability of your website.

 

Don’t forget to update.
Google wants to present users with the most updated content possible, period. Updating articles frequently improves your results in Google.

 

Make your URL keyword-rich and readable.
Make your URLs stand out by including the keyword. Google will notice the changes, too.

 

Make your meta description stand out.
If you don’t provide a description, Google will show a snippet of your article – usually the first sentence of the article.  Making a meta description is creating a custom phrase that shows up in the results under the article’s title.

 

Optimize your images
Just like the website’s URL, you can change the information for each image included in your article.

 

Promote your content for backlinks.
Another great way to get higher search engine rankings is to acquire a number of backlinks from trusted sources. Including links to other websites in your articles is a great way to achieve this. When you include these external links, personally let the site know that you mentioned them! Not only will this improve your relationships with other site owners, but it can lead to natural backlinks in the future.

 

Link it back internally.
Internal linking is one of the easiest (and best) ways to increase your Google rankings. Doing so not only promotes your own content, but is also keeps users active on your page (double Google win).

 

Find and fix those broken links.
While internal and external links are great and boost your Google rankings, broken links do exactly the opposite. If you have links that used to point to a website, and that website no longer exists, you should fix those broken links as soon as possible.

 

Improve your anchor text.
Having keyword-rich anchor text is a huge advantage with Google. Instead having text like “this article” or “click here,” use phrases that include your keyword, and make that the clickable link.

 

Layout is the new ranking.
Even if your articles have tons of value, your content could still not be ranking because of your site’s layout. Make your website’s layout as easy as possible for viewers to navigate and explore.

 

Make it mobile-friendly.
Google is starting to make the mobile version of your site one of its primary ranking factors. A bad mobile experience will hurt your Google rankings, even if your desktop version works seamlessly. It’s a good idea to make sure your desktop and mobile sites are at peak performance in order to get the best rankings for your articles.

 

Make it swift.
Even a fraction of a second counts – seriously. The slower your site loads, the less likely it is to appear in Google’s results.

 

Get social.
Social media is everything nowadays, and more and more people want to be able to share your content with their friends on their Facebook or Pinterest. Adding social media sharing is easier than ever today with loads of plugins as options to choose from. It’s time to have social sharing available on every page.

 

Voice searching is the future.
One of the newest trends in Google searching is using voice search. Common conversational keywords and phrases used in voice search, such as “how do I” and “near me” should be used in your keyword tagging.
It’ll take some diligent work to make your blog articles to rank higher in Google. These proven strategies are sure to improve your rankings, and increase the amount of visitors to your website. Happy optimizing!