You probably know that the vast majority of Googlers never make it past the first page of search results. But if your website is buried like a dead body on the second, third, or thirteenth page of results, you may be a little perplexed about the mystery behind a well-ranking web page. Although there isn’t a magic formula, there are certainly some guidelines that will maximize your web page’s chances of being prominently featured on Google. Here are some of our best tips and tricks on how to improve search engine ranking!
Improve Your Metadata
Incorporating SEO keywords that internet users are searching for online is crucial to increasing Google’s ranking. While the keywords your readers can see on the web page itself are important, you also want to make sure you’re optimizing the listing that a reader will see on Google. This is part of your site’s metadata. It includes the meta description and the meta title (also known as the title tag). These are the two things that appear when a user first gets their search results.
Because the title tag is the very first thing potential visitors will see from your site, you want to make it count, for the benefit of search engines. If you can, try to make the very first word or phrase in the meta title keywords.
A meta description may be your most important sales copy. It should be short (160 characters or less) yet descriptive. You want it to be unique enough to stand out among other top searches as a web user is likely to check your meta descriptions before choosing which website to visit. Because you’re selling your page, it should also include your SEO keyword or keywords you’re trying to target.
Be Consistent
Ranking well will not happen overnight. It takes time. But you must be spending that time wisely. If you want to see your website climb in the ranks, keep posting fresh, high-quality content on your website. One of the best ways to do this is through a blog. While you don’t necessarily need to be posting every day, posting once a week or once every other week can be very beneficial to helping your website rank.
That being said, make sure you aren’t falling into the trap of posting content simply for the sake of posting content. Each blog should be surrounding a topic that’s relevant to your audience and provides helpful information, not just the same old same old. If it’s not quality content, you run the risk of Google thinking it’s spam which will hurt the rank.
Make Sharing Your Content Easy
You want as many people as possible to share your content on social media. Although this does not have a direct impact on your rank, it will expand your content’s reach and help you get new visitors. The more views your content has, the more highly it will rank.
To get more shares on your content, you first and foremost want to make sure you’re producing high-quality, valuable content on a consistent basis. But you also want to make it as easy as possible for others to share your content. That’s why you should have all the share buttons front and center. This will remind people to share your posts and help out any viewers that may be a little less technically savvy.
Improve Your Linking Game
Incorporate outbound links (links that lead to other sites) as well as internal links (links from one page on your site to another page on your site) in your content to further optimize your position on Google. That being said, there are some important guidelines to be wary of when you are choosing to include links on your page.
For outbound links, make sure you aren’t linking to random blogs and websites that aren’t the most reputable. You want sites that are authorities in your industry or at the very least are producing authority content. Because Google knows which sites are reputable, you’re essentially earning Google’s trust by linking to these websites. Just don’t overdo the links or you could actually be hurting your site’s rank on Google.
Make sure that the phrase you are using as an anchor to a link is descriptive and, preferably, includes keywords. Using the phrase “click here” as your anchor text is meaningless and won’t help your search rank. Because broken links could harm your page’s rank, you also want to make sure all the links you include in the content lead to something.
Check Your Content’s Readability
One of the least technical yet most important things you can do for any of your content is to make sure it’s readable. A high bounce rate (meaning that visitors quickly leave your web pages) will harm your site. And one thing that gives you a high bounce rate is content that’s not very engaging or just plain hard to read. All the content you post should be simple for the average person to read.
Not only should you have images and headings to make your content easy to navigate but the text itself should also be engaging and never overly complex. One commonly-used measure of readability is the Flesch Reading Ease. This scores your content based on how old the average person needs to be to understand it. You can paste your content into an online tool or plugin to see how it does. Ideally, you want something in the 90 to 100 range, meaning the content can be easily understood by an 11-year-old.
Improve Your Search Engine Ranking with Strong Estate Marketing
Following all of these tips to improve search engine ranking can seem almost impossible. As a business owner, you may not have the time to devote to improving all your web pages. This is exactly why you should hire Strong Estate Marketing! We can rewrite your existing content, create new pages, or write blog posts to share with your audience regularly. All of these services can your business!
Place an order with Strong Estate or get in touch with us today!
