Are you struggling to rank your business on Google?
Millions of Google searches are happening as you read this sentence. Of those, 40% click the top search result. SEO is constantly evolving, however, if you manage to stay on top of it, your business can bring in tremendous results!
Before we get into the tips: Remember this, Google wants to serve their clients the most relevant content and search results.
There is a lot going on in the Algorithm but one thing I've always used as a benchmark is. When someone clicks your link, does it satisfy their search intent? If google serves up your page to someone, they click and leave, it signals to the good that this page is not relevant. Conversely, if someone clicks your link on google,
then stays on your site or even uses your site to navigate further, this sends an excellent signal to good.
1) Speed up your site!
There is a 50% chance site visitors will bounce if your website takes longer than five seconds to load.
Pages that load slowly on mobile devices could also be downgraded due to Google's speed update.
To Speed up Website USE:
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Speed plug-in (like WP Rocket)
A couple of milliseconds aren’t going to make a huge difference, but if your site speed starts to impact user experience, they will leave, and you will be ranked poorly
2) Avoid pogo sticking- Keep Users Engaged
When a user clicks your website and then bounces back to another search result, it is called pogo-sticking. When this happens too often Google assumes your site doesn't have the best answer and it will downrank you. How do you avoid this? By keeping users engaged for longer. How do you do this? Make content scannable and visually interesting.
Use Formatting to Improve readability!
· bullets
· headings
· subheadings
· break up the text blocks.
This way you master search intent to give readers exactly what they want.
3) Keyword placement
Not only is adding keywords to your content important but where you place them is equally, if not more, important.
Your target keywords, such as your page title, or H1, need to be in the URL, the first 100 words of your content, as well as your H2 headings.
4) Semantic Keywords
Google is getting smarter, so your keyword semantics needs to as well. You can’t just place random keywords on a page; if you want to rank on Google and have a robust article, then related keywords integrated into your page topic and page as a whole must be added to your content. This enables the algorithm to reward your content.
Surfer SEO is a useful tool to get this going.
5) Add text to your visual content
One area Google is not so smart (yet) is understanding traffic and backlinks from podcasts, videos, and infographics. By adding text to these you allow search engines to understand what your content is about. It's all in the Metadata!
6) Rank your content in featured Snippets.
Here’s where a FAQ section in your content benefits you. By adding this you can rank in the featured Snippets of your search results pages and start appearing in the search results under your result as well as in some of the people who also ask similar questions.
7) Update old/low-traffic content
It’s important to keep blog posts updated to ensure high traffic and that they stay relevant and matched to your branding and messaging. This can be done by updating the design, changing the content or the text, getting a new title or meta description, updating your keyword targeting, adding external links, and organising content into sections so that it is easier to follow.
8) Delete dead pages
Pages that don't bring any traffic anymore must be deleted to allow other pages to rank higher. By doing this you also ensure that internal links stay clean. Google will also thank you by preferring one stronger page over many smaller pages.
9) Blanket topics in your niche
High-quality content is important for SEO, but your niche may not be that exciting to read or write about. One way to get around this and still produce good regular content is by writing high-quality content around closely related topics. This blanks at your niche and gets you more traffic.
10) Long-Tail Keywords
Long-Tail Keywords can be extremely powerful, although they don't always have the same volume as shorter keywords, it is much easier to determine search intent, and serve the searcher exactly what they are looking for, this will result in higher conversions!
11) Google search console
By using a Google search console, you are guaranteed to up your ranking. These performance reports hold invaluable information that will help you be more intentional in your strategy and ranking. Log in, go to performance reports, click pages, and have a look at the high-traffic ones. You will see all the keywords it ranks for and if you dig deeper, you can find much more information you might not have known before. You can then use these terms in different posts and Google will recognise them and likely increase your rankings.
12) Use X questions and answers
When someone's searching for a high-level term, they usually want the definition. It’s therefore a good idea to rank for the definition keyword by making sure your content answers the question (What is X?). This will then be your first H2 heading.
There you go, 12 tips to getting your SEO started.
Article by Dean Cothill and Craig Howes