Do you want your website to rise in Google search? There is a guaranteed way to get to the top of Google search results: pay-per-click (PPC) is the generic term; Google Ads is what appears at the top of the search results Google delivers. It can be quite cost-effective, or an absolute waste of money if you or your PPC agency doesn’t understand how Google optimizes ads and the creativity needed to succeed.
Organic results, or natural search engine results, are the listings that start after the ads. These listings are determined by Google’s artificial intelligence algorithm. People generally consider these listings more trustworthy than the ads.
So how do you get your website to rise in Google search results?
So how do you get your website to rise in Google search results? The answer is to optimize it, to make it the best it can be at providing an answer to the search query. This is the art of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.
As small business owners try to improve their organic search results listings they may succumb to SEO telemarketers and advertisers that promise big results. SEO marketers often use deceitful tactics and low-value listing services that can actually lower your Google ranking.
There are, however, legitimate ways to optimize your website and rise in Google search results. Just don’t expect to go from number 35 to the first page overnight. A dose of realism is recommended before you throw up your hands in exasperation proclaiming nothing works.
SEO Basics
Google’s search algorithm determines search results based on a large number of factors but basically, it wants to provide the best answers to queries. Now what’s best to you may not be best to an AI, but you and the AI are constantly learning and changing because of it.
So here are my absolute Top 5 ground rules for SEO. Implementing some or all of these will make your page rise in Google search results.
1
Make your website mobile.
According to Atlas, 70-80% of website visitors are using mobile devices. Accordingly, Google’s AI highly values a mobile-friendly website. So if it’s not mobile-optimized, updating it should be priority number one!
2
Secure your website.
Older web browsers indicate with a little lock icon that a website is securely encrypted between you and the web server. Newer browsers simply alert people when a website is not secure. Security is now expected and an insecure website cannot expect to even show up in Google’s listings.
3
Speed up your website.
Rendering and loading speed of websites affect Google rankings. A fast website helps the user experience (UX) as well. Optimizing website speed will require webmaster skills, but here’s some things to take a look at:
- Shared hosting can be notoriously slow, especially running a WordPress website. If you’re not blogging, consider switching to an HTML5 static website or an online e-commerce provider.
- If you need WordPress for your website, run it on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or cloud servers like Digital Ocean or Linode and make sure caching software is running and configured properly.
- Eliminate unnecessary and bloated plugins for WordPress.
By upgrading servers, we’ve experienced a rise in Google search results of up to five spots.
4
Add Google Search Console.
It used to be called Google Webmaster Tools, but it’s user-friendly enough that you don’t have to be an expert. Just add your domain name and Google does the rest. You’ll get feedback on website performance, coverage and errors that need to be addressed.
5
Add Google Analytics tracking.
Analytics provides insight into the performance of website pages and content. You can link the Analytics account to a Search Console so they work together. The data provided will help you understand how to optimize your website content.
SEO Craft
Once you’ve implemented the Top 5 SEO basics, the next 5 SEO strategies involve crafting content to make it exceptional.
6
Choose the right keywords.
Key words in your content provide Google’s AI with “understanding” of the topic. As mentioned, there are many factors that the AI uses to determine the importance of a page, but use keywords that best define the topic and focus on it. The more precise and narrow, the better.
7
Put keywords in the title, the URL and the body
Keyword stuffing, the practice of overloading a page with keywords, severely affects a page’s results ranking. So don’t do it. But do use the keywords in the title, the URL and the body of the content several times so that the AI is clear about the focus of your web page. Rewording pages increasing keyword density will result in a rise in Google search results.
8
Use internal and external site links
While it seems obvious to use links to other pages on your website, it’s just as important, if not more so, to link to external sources of content that are related to and support the relevant topic of your web page. Google’s AI will analyze the links as it determines where to place your web page in it’s results.
9
Listings and social media
While this could be considered an SEO basic, the other SEO recommendations should really be implemented before listings profiles. Once your website is optimized, add your website listing to Google My Business, Yellow Pages, Angie’s List, Yelp and other industry-specific listing directories. Use the same description for all of them (copy-paste) for brand consistency. Then add the important social media pages for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and others.
10
Promote your page for visitors and links
When your web page is ready, promote, share, and tell the world about it. If it’s informative, exciting, controversial, fresh, insightful or generally worthy of sharing, people will share it and link back to it from their news sites, blogs, forums and social media. Google’s AI values links to your web page from other sites, especially authoritative publications.
The biggest challenge
By far, the biggest challenge for increasing search rankings, and thus visibility, is getting authoritative publication backlinks to your website. It takes time and effort.
One way to get organic backlinks is to be super unique in your industry, or have a breakthrough technology or service; something that everyone wants to talk about and share. This will build backlinks in news media, publications, and on enthusiast blogger sites.
Another way is guest blogger posting or expert contributing. Since not everyone has a breakthrough technology, contributing to industry blogs and publications has become the most popular method of backlink building. The best way to get started as a contributor is online networking through social sites and forums. Or just contact the business-related publication directly.
If guest posting is out because you’re really not a writer, consider partnering with a writing or blogging service. They can write unique posts for your website or guest post for backlinks.
SEO buyers beware
There’s two types of SEO help available: software and services. Neither is a magic instant traffic solution. They can’t make your business unique and they can’t network and write articles. But they’re worth considering if you want help.
Software is a tool. It can be helpful aggregating SEO data in one dashboard. It’s probably most useful for people selling SEO services; but it’s not essential.
There are people that understand SEO that will educate and not oversell. Beware of services that promise getting you to page 1 on search results or getting listed in thousands of directories. The directories are typically low value and, if Google’s AI sees it as spam, can actually lower rankings. Other tricks include sending bot traffic to your site to spike traffic and making you pay too much for Google Ads.
Looking for SEO help?
We provide SEO basics included in our website design services and our website managed hosting. For website design services, contact us. For SEO optimized managed hosting, visit the page. To partner up to optimize your website, contact us. We’ll be happy to share some of our results.
