Have you started blogging?
Great! It’s a fantastic approach to increasing traffic, gaining new clients, and raising brand exposure.
However, it is not as simple as it sounds.
You won’t advance too far if your articles aren’t doing well in Google searches. For your visitors to discover you, it is important to show up in the top results.
According to a recently released report, the first organic result in Google Search has an average click-through rate of 28.5%.
Additionally, the average CTR drastically declines after position one, with the second and third spots having click-through rates of 15% and 11%, respectively.
Therefore, to make your website presence stand out, you must understand SEO.
To help you with this, we have prepared a list of a few well-planned strategies to raise your Google rankings.
Are you ready? Let’s start!
Table of Contents
TOP TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR GOOGLE RANKINGS (EASY)
1. Find Relevant Keywords
When you are drafting your website content or blog posts, preparing a list of relevant keywords is a must.
There are two kinds of keywords on the basis of their length namely: long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords.
If you are a budding blogger then you must make use of the long-tail search terms as they have comparatively lesser competition and hence are easier to rank.
For instance: The keyword Best marketing strategies have a diffidently level of 32 while Best marketing strategies for 2022 have a difficulty level of 7 and therefore is easier to target.
Remember: Longer keyword gets fewer Google results and is, therefore, less competitive.
Now that you have keywords with you, you must be wondering where to place them?
- Put keywords in titles
- Subheads (H1-H6)
- When creating content, include keywords in the first 100 words
- Meta or Description Tags
- Link Text
- Image alt and title tags
While it is imperative to research the right keywords for your content, it’s crucial to remember that keyword stuffing will lower your ranks even if search engines use keywords to determine subjects and relevancy.
2. Optimize Your Website Performance
Let us start by sharing some statistics with you:
- According to recent Google research, 53% of mobile users bounce if a page doesn’t load in three seconds.
- On a 3G connection, sites typically load in 19 seconds, and in 14 seconds on a 4G connection.
- According to the study by “The Need for Mobile Speed,” mobile sites that loaded in less than five seconds outperformed those that took 19 seconds to load: The ad view-ability on websites that loaded in less than 5 seconds is 25% higher, the average session lengths are 70% longer, and bounce rates are 35% lower.
This is not it! Another important fact to consider is that Google uses page loading time as a ranking consideration.
This means, the better the page loading speed, the happier will be your visitors and Google.
Therefore, you want to ensure that your page loads as quickly as possible. Using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to examine your page speed is a smart way to start.
3. Enhance The Dwell Time
The amount of time between clicking a search result and returning to the SERPs ( Search Engine Result Page) is known as “dwell time”.
Given that Google considers dwelling time to be a significant ranking factor, this time range should be as broad as possible.
Here are a few methods to do it:
- Make sure your visitors have a rich multimedia experience by including a variety of content kinds in your blog posts, such as podcasts, videos, quizzes, games, and infographics.
- Hook your visitors in the opening paragraph. You can do this by making the introduction attractive, engaging, short, and to the point. Give a clear idea of what people can expect in the article and incentivize them to go to the end by highlighting the benefits.
- Make your content skimmable by adding distinctive subheadings (H1-H6). This will make your content more digestible and scannable at the same time.
4. Work On The URL
The URL is a little, often-overlooked component of SEO, yet it has a significant impact on how well your pages rank.
For SEO purposes, a URL should be brief and informative.
Consider the following examples:
Example 1: https://www.xyz.com/marketing/service/digital/seo/
Example 2: https://www.xyz..com/seo
Which of the two do you think is easier for Google to parse the page?
Clearly, the second one!
The second URL is also more specific and talks about SEO as it lacks any sub-folders.
Shorter URLs are more user-friendly and convenient for sharing.
As users help websites become popular by sharing them frequently, you should not undervalue the influence of popularity on rankings because search engines may display content based on user expectations.
5. Increase The Backlinks
If your friend advises you to invest in a few mutual funds hen, the first thing you will do is research more about it and then proceed further.
Google follows a similar procedure. It examines the websites linking to your content to check your brand popularity and vitality at the same time.
If there are more individuals who support your assertions by linking your content and the more credible those people are ( For Example Govt sites), then Google will regard your information as reliable.
Although Google’s algorithm is getting better at deciphering the meaning behind the text, backlinks are still one of the most significant ranking criteria.
6. Write elaborate Content
It’s no surprise that Google favors content with depth.
Although you’ve certainly heard that blog readers like concise material, the best-ranking articles in SEO are really lengthy.
An excellent example is the Google search for strength-training exercises. The top four results are all longer than 1,000 words, with a piece longer than 2,000 words taking the top spot.
You must be wondering- Why?
Whatever the subject, Google wants facts, proof, and substance from reliable sources. It turns out that longer content usually incorporates these components.
Therefore, long-form material performs better in organic search than short content.
As per a HubSpot study from 2021, the best blog post length for SEO should be 2,100–2,400 words.
7. Update Your Old Content
Google wants to provide its consumers with the most recent stuff available to reflect how quickly the world is changing.
This way, you should update your articles frequently to enhance your Google rankings.
It need not be a challenging procedure, simply make a few tweaks here and there and Google will pick up on the modifications.
If you go to Google results, you’ll immediately discover that the top results are typically ones that have been published recently (mostly).
So, if your blogs aren’t updated, you must start working on them ASAP!
You can follow a variety of tips to update your old content.
8. Optimize your Images
You can definitely increase the ranking of your content on Google by optimizing your website images.
To make your website Google savvy, working on your website content is not enough! You need to work on the images as well to boost your ranking score If you are guessing how then. Here are some tips to do so:
5 TIPS FOR IMAGE OPTIMIZATION
1. Work On Your Image File Name
The simplest and most frequently disregarded optimization strategy is the names of the image files themselves are one of Ideally, you must employ a few strategically picked keywords that the image could rank for and add this in the ‘Image File Name’.
2. Optimize The Alt and Title Tags
The next easiest settings are the image alt and title elements (of the <img> HTML tag), which not only boost image rankings in search results but also increase page relevancy and enhance the user experience, both of which are ultimately all ranking criteria. Make it short, add keywords and keep it relevant to the blog content.
3. Do not Put Bulky Images
If you add heavy images it will adversely affect the user experience and Google’s ability to rank your website. In fact, anything that brings down the user experience will result in hampering your Google rankings. Therefore, it is recommended to compress images under 1MB.
4. Make Images Responsive
Crawlers primarily examine a site’s mobile version first as Google’s algorithm uses mobile-first indexing.
As a result, your photographs ought to be compatible with mobile devices. How?
Although some website builders and layouts automatically scale photos, you can customize an image’s size based on the width of a device. Add some customized CSS code to your website to accomplish this.
5. Use Unique Visuals
Using stock photos is acceptable, but since many other websites probably do the same, they won’t necessarily improve your search ranks. Similar to how original textual content is better for SEO, it makes sense to upload original photos. This can actually be your USP. Imagine using hand-drawn images for each blog post, isn’t it unique?
9. Add a Site Map
Google defines a site map as “a file where you can list the web pages of your site” to inform Google and other search engines about how your site’s material is organized,
In other words, it’s a file that includes a map of your website content.
Site maps are a crucial component of SEO since they inform search engines about the pages and organizational structure of your website.
You must include them in your site map to make sure that all your visual content including memes, infographics, images, etc are seen by search engine crawlers.
Consider including the image title, image description, URL, caption, and license details for each image entry.
While including the title, description, location URL, thumbnail URL, and URL to the raw video file for video entries.
10. Post Shareable Content
Pick a format that will be most likely to generate links and shares.
According to research, certain blog post formats frequently receive more links and social shares. We are aware that both links and shares have a significant impact on rankings
According to studies from BuzzSumo and Moz, the content formats that typically tend to be most successful are “opinion-forming, reliable information on current issues or in-depth, fact-based content”.
List posts, descriptive posts, and “how to” posts typically perform the best in terms of blog posts, For Example, “Top 10 Ways To Get Your First Customer”.
11. Link Your Blogs
Building links to your blog post is the best way to rank in Google. While the majority of business owners invest time in building links to their home page and other high-value sites, however, they may neglect to develop links to particular blog posts.
It can be challenging to obtain these highly focused links unless your blog postings are particularly helpful, applicable, and/or original. However, your chances of naturally attracting links from other bloggers and journalists are better if you produce “link-worthy” content.
Other methods of obtaining these links include:
- Linking within your own website to your blog content.
- Whenever you make a guest post on another website, link back to your blog
12. Guest Blogging
You need to write guest blogs because of these two reasons:. One is the estimated number of people who will visit your website. The second is the backlinks you receive from the article or the author’s bio.
Do you know? These site visitors can turn out to be your devoted clients. Additionally, links can improve your SEO, helping your site rank higher with each article you publish.
Whatever you do, some of your posts will accumulate dust on someone’s website and eventually go into obscurity. However, I don’t necessarily view that as a failure. You continue to receive the link back from this reputable website.
This will boost your ranking when used in conjunction with other links.
13. Create Voice-optimized Content
Let us tell you an interesting insight from Google– “voice searches constitute 20% of the queries made on both the mobile app and Android devices”. This means, by optimizing your content for voice search, you can definitely target a wider audience.
There is no denying that the future is all about voice searches. Gone are days when voice searches were considered ‘fads’, they indeed have somewhere become a ‘necessity’ now.
Therefore, your content must be voice-optimized. Here are a few techniques:
- Understand your type of customers and their requirements
- Try to cover questions like “how-to” or “how many” questions.
- Build pages that answer the frequently asked questions or FAQs
- Optimize local search outcomes. A significant portion of Google searches is for directions or local places.
Go ahead, follow these tips, and don’t forget to thank us!
14. Track Your Progress
The only method to determine whether your efforts to rank higher on Google are successful is to use a link-tracking tool.
Even though Google searches can be done for free, they are typically unreliable. This is due to the possibility that variables like geography and search history could have an impact on page rankings. It is far more accurate to use a rank tracking tool like Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker.
Although this tool allows you to track 10,000 keywords, you often only need to track the primary keyword for each page.
Discover some more rank-tracking tools and see what fits your needs the best.
15. Work On Your Blog Design
Your SEO ranking will improve with good design, while it will suffer with poor design. It’s crucial to keep in mind, though, that this isn’t about only the search engine bots.
Search engine bots are attempting to simulate the experience of a human user. The same things that are terrible for human users are also bad for search engine bots.
Your human clients will depart if your website is hard to use and poorly designed. When users abandon your website in large numbers, search engines notice this and lower your rating appropriately.
Adopt great web design principles to retain both visitors and web crawlers on your site.
CONCLUSION
If you want to increase traffic on your website, you must also increase its ranking on Google. As it is a well-known fact that users only click through the first page results or in fact only the Top 5 results, it’s imperative to rank your website well.
We have put together a list of techniques above to help make this easier for you. For you to refresh your memory, let us summarise them below.
- Find Relevant Keywords
- Optimize Your Website Performance
- Enhance The Dwell Time
- Work On The URL
- Increase The Backlinks
- Write elaborate Content
- Update Your Old Content
- Optimize your Images
- Add a Site Map
- Post Shareable Content
- Link Your Blogs
- Guest Blogging
- Create Voice-optimized Content
- Track Your Progress
- Work On Your Blog Design
Follow these tips and tricks and let us know your progress!
Did you find this article helpful? Let us know if you have any suggestions or next-topic demands and we will serve you better! Stay tuned for more exciting content. See You!