We all want our websites to do a little better in Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. And while you may already be familiar with SEO, it can sometimes take years to build up the necessary authority for good rankings. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take a few shortcuts to rank faster and better. And no, we’re not talking about black hat SEO.
We’ll be taking a look, instead, at legitimate ways to grow your website. And we’ll also include a few paid methods to help it grow a little faster without sacrificing your entire budget. Click here to know more. Take all these steps into consideration for your new or existing website and you’ll be able to boost your rankings by at least 20% within a year.
Source:trglv.com
1. Check the “Queries” Report
We’re assuming you have access to Google Analytics since you own the website. In case you don’t, then set it up. After you’re done, go to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. This report shows you what keyphrases you rank for. Set the filter to only show phrases that you rank high for.
Once you’ve found the phrases you rank the highest for, it’s time to check and see how the phrase is used on the page. Depending on the relevance of the phrase on said page, you can improve upon it or leave it as is if the article is already optimized. Your goal should be to improve the articles and pages that have the potential to rank higher. In short, when writing a page, always have the user in mind, and make sure that the article responds to the user’s intent.
2. Get on Social Media
The great part about social media is that you don’t have to limit yourself to one platform. There are giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, but there are also lesser-known platforms like MeWe or Gab that have attracted a fair share of users. Depending on your target audience, you could score some organic traffic from social media as well. Read a guide to find out more.
Source:freepik.com
3. Create Landing Pages That Are Oriented Towards Call to Action
First off, if you’re not good at copywriting, either read a few books related to the subject, go to a specialized course, or hire yourself a copywriter that knows what they’re doing. Using the power of social media and SEM, you can lead your visitors to a web page that offers them enticing info which keeps them on their toes.
It can be either an offer, a story, or simply a page that gives the user several reasons why they should subscribe to your website’s newsletter. In any case, creating such pages will create new leads. And you know what new leads mean, right? More money, more rankings.
4. Write in the Now
Sure, some people like to read up on their history. However, the vast majority of people within a niche want to know what’s happening now. Think about what you would want to read if you were in the reader’s shoes. If you had a gaming website, you would most likely want to write articles similar to the things you see on sites like BetConstruct. Do you want to read about the latest trends in gaming, or do you want to read about the first gaming attempts in history?
Well, we all know the answer to that. People are more connected to what’s happening today, and they want to read the latest trends and hot news. The more popular the topic within your niche, the more reason to write about it. If a popular website within your niche is writing about a topic, then you might need to do so as well. Of course, give it your own spin and don’t forget the keywords.
5. Use Synonyms of Your Keywords
Not long ago, Google’s algorithm wasn’t all that smart despite the fact that it was still the number one search engine on the planet. However, more recently Google has updated itself to make connections between plurals, synonyms, and other elements that can allow you to rank for related keywords.
This is called LSI or latent semantic indexing, and it allows the search engine to understand user intent and correlate different words in the syntax to better understand their behavior. As of now, Google practically appreciated natural speech instead of forced keywords as you would have seen in older search engine optimized articles.
6. Optimize the Speed of Your Website
Source:tigrettagency.com
Another more subtle ranking factor that Google and other search engines use is, as you guessed from the subtitle, speed. The faster your website loads, the better its chances of ranking higher in the SERP are.
To optimize speed, the first and best thing you can do is compress your images. Afterward, you can start optimizing the rest of the website data using specialized web dev tools and knowledge.
If necessary, you should upgrade your hosting plan to accommodate faster speeds in case the slowness is the main cause of a less than ideal ranking.
7. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Source:smartinsights.com
We don’t need to tell you that smartphones are becoming more and more popular with each passing year. And because of this, Google has also taken this factor into consideration. If a mobile user finds your website unfriendly, they will leave immediately and thus increase your bounce rate.
Having a higher bounce rate means that your website will rank lower than your competition. In short, do yourself a favor and optimize your website for mobile. Search for fluid responsive design and apply the principles you’ll learn from there. The thing is that responsive design uses a single code base across multiple devices, so you won’t need to make a separate mobile version. However, applying this might be harder if you already have an existing, older website.
Final Thoughts
Whilst this isn’t the definitive guide to rising to stardom, the steps listed here are just enough to get you to rank higher in Google. If you’ve found this information useful, please share this article with others. It helps us grow, and it helps people grow their website as well.
