How to Improve SEO Rankings should be at the core of every business’s endeavors.
Technological advancements have made it easy for customers to find the products and services they need.
By performing a simple search on Google, customers can find an array of businesses that provide the goods and services they want.
If Google search is one of the top lead generation strategies for your business, then you need to learn how to improve SEO rankings.
A study by Backlinko found that the top results on Google gets 27.6% of all clicks. The second and third results get 15.8% and 11.0% of the search traffic respectively.
Image via Backlinko
Knowing this, you want to target that top spot for your website. There’s a lot you can do with more than a quarter of the search traffic for a target keyword such as:
- Driving relevant traffic to your website and marketing assets
- Directing visitors to other pages on your website to learn more about your business
- Impressing potential leads with your offers
- Converting leads into paying customers
Needless to say, learning how to improve SEO rankings is critical for every business.
In this article, we will share valuable tips you can use to take your website to the first page of Google and compete for the top positions.
There’s so much to cover in this post, so let’s get started right away.
Table of Contents
How to Improve SEO Rankings in 8 Steps
Google has a search engine market share of 92.42% worldwide. It, therefore, makes sense that most consumer experiences begin with internet research to ensure they are making the right decision.
Image via GS Statcounter
When your customers are looking for the products you sell, you want them to find your website on top of the search engine results pages.
We’ve already established that the top result on Google has a CTR of 27.8%. The further down you are on SERPs, the fewer clicks you receive.
It gets even worse for websites that don’t appear on the first page of Google. There’s a popular joke on the internet that the best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google search results.
This is because no one bothers to see what’s there.
As a business, this is the worst place to be. Your customers will not locate you and you will not drive any high-quality traffic to your website.
That’s why you need to master how to improve SEO rankings to give your online business a fighting chance.
However, getting on page 1 of Google is not easy. Many websites are competing for the coveted spots on page 1 hence the need to be on top of your game to land one position for yourself.
To help you improve your search performance, we will share 8 strategies that will come in handy as you learn how to improve SEO rankings.
Make Your Pages Load Faster
The website’s loading speed during search affects your SEO rankings. Websites that load faster rank higher on search results because Google wants to provide users with the best possible experience.
In 2018, Google made page speed a ranking signal for mobile search after more people started using mobile devices to perform searches. Initially, page speed was a ranking signal for desktop searches only.
Neil Patel did a study to find out if page speed affects search engine rankings. He analyzed 143,827 URLs and discovered that the pages that rank top of Google results load significantly faster than the rest.
Image via Neil Patel
It’s,therefore, evident that a large part of how to improve SEO rankings lies in increasing your loading speeds. With people leading increasingly busy lifestyles, search engines prioritize sites that load faster to help users find answers to their questions in the shortest time possible.
Use the best SEO audit tool to analyze your website and discover the issues that are slowing your site down. After that, implement the following strategies to make your website load faster.
Compress Your Images
Images enhance the quality of your content. However, large ones make your site load slowly.
Therefore, compressing and optimizing your images is one of the effective ways to improve page speed. You can compress images on your site by:
- Changing the format of the images
- Enabling lazy loading
- Compressing images with an image compression tool
Minimize HTTP Redirects
Too many HTTP redirects also affect a website’s load time. Every time a website is redirected elsewhere, the response time is prolonged.
Of course, HTTP redirects may be necessary, such as when you move to a new domain. However, getting rid of unnecessary redirects will significantly lower your website’s load time.
Enable Browser Caching
Caching is another impressive way to speed up your website.
Caching allows the browsers to store copies of your website’s files such as stylesheets and JavaScript files. This way, the browser doesn’t have to reload the entire information every time a user visits your page.
This allows you to optimize your website pages and reduce your loading times.
Remove Unnecessary Plugins
While plugins are useful features to improve your site’s useability, having too many of them on your website can also slow it down.
Additionally, outdated plugins that aren’t well maintained can result in compatibility issues that hamper your site’s performance.
Therefore, it’s a great idea to reduce the number of plugins on your site. Review your website’s back end and note all the plugins you have installed.
Disable and delete all the plugins you don’t currently use. Furthermore, review the remaining plugins to see if they are actually necessary.
You may find that some tools have overlapping features and functionalities. Deactivate such plugins to create a lightning-fast web page.
Create More Content
Another trick to consider when mastering how to improve SEO ranking is domain authority.
In its quest to provide searchers with the best user experience, Google ranks websites with high domain authority.
These are sites that have lots of quality content such that they are considered experts on that topic.
A simple search for “SEO guide for marketers” produces more than 68 million results, but the top 2 results are wordstream.com and hubspot.com.
Image via Google
You could be wondering, what makes these websites so special that they take the top 2 positions on Google search results.
Well, Google considers many things when ranking search results, but the key among them is a website's domain authority.
Domain Authority (DA) is a ranking signal developed by Moz that predicts a website’s likelihood to rank in SERPs. DA scores range from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a likelihood to rank higher on search results.
Upon analyzing the domain authority of wordstream.com and hubspot.com, it becomes evident why they have such a high ranking.
Wordstream.com has a domain authority rating of 90 while hubspot.com has a rating of 93.
Image via ahrefs
Image via ahrefs
When you analyze these two websites you will realize that they produce a lot of content on SEO. This means that one of the things you need to do as you learn how to improve SEO rankings is to produce more content.
But before you start creating content for your website, you need a plan to guide your efforts.
- Identify the keywords you need to rank for
- Decide how much content you will need to create to rank for that keyword
- Create plans for the content you need to create. This can be outlines for your blog posts, videos, infographics, webinars, etc
- Create a calendar for your content
With your plan on how to improve your SEO rankings through content in place, you can now start creating content to show your expertise in a given subject.
But how do you structure your content to ensure it appeals to both users and search engines?
The following strategies come to mind:
Use Images
Visual media such as images are great for your site. They break the monotony of text and improve the readability of your content.
Images also help you explain complex issues to your readers. You can use them to illustrate a difficult point or give examples to help visitors understand what you are talking about.
Attrock blog posts always have images to improve the quality of content.
Image via Attrock
We use images to share relevant statistics about the blog. Other ways to use images in your content include:
- Showcasing your products
- Adding branding elements such as your logo
- In the CTA (call to action)
- Showcasing your awards
However, you need to be careful in the usage of images since we’ve already established they can slow down your site.
Before including images when learning how to improve SEO rankings, ensure they are well-designed and optimized properly. Similarly, compress or resize your images to ensure they don’t affect your page load speed.
Also, strategically use keywords when naming your image files to improve your search performance.
For example, instead of naming a file “shoe1”, you can use a file name like “men's shoe for running”. The second name is search optimized and makes it easy for search engine crawlers to understand the image.
Use Header Tags
Headings break up the content on your site to make it easier to read. They also make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for, thus improving the user experience.
Without header tags, your web pages will look like a wall of text. This will not motivate visitors to spend more time on your site and your search ranking will suffer.
Content management systems like WordPress make it easy for you to add headings to your content. The header tags range from <H1> to <H6> and allow you to define your headings and differentiate them from the rest of the content.
Start a Blog
You need to create a lot of content on a particular topic for you to rank for that keyword.
Many websites are targeting the same keyword and it’s only by creating a lot of high-quality content that you will be able to outrank them.
This is why it’s important to start a blog as you work on how to improve your SEO rankings. A blog allows you to share your expertise in different issues and earn the trust of your users.
Long-form posts on your blog also allow you to increase the time people spend on your site. When visitors spend more time on your site, it signals to Google that your site has useful information for readers.
This helps you gain favor with search engines and your SEO rankings will increase as a result.
Create Infographics
Infographics have many SEO advantages.
When you have an informative infographic that other content creators want to use, you will earn a lot of backlinks to your sites.
Quality backlinks are a major ranking signal that comes in handy as you learn how to improve SEO rankings.
So, try as much as you can to create high-quality visuals that generate backlinks like infographics. After creating an article for your blog, summarize it into an infographic and publish it on your site.
For example, Attrock wrote a blog on “How to Make a Video for Social Media” and followed that with an infographic that summarizes the article.
Image via Attrock
Anyone who wants to use the infographic will have to add a link to the article, thus earning Attrock valuable backlinks.
Work on Your Linking Strategy
Links are essential as you learn how to improve SEO rankings.
Outbound links increase the credibility of your content while inbound links showcase your website’s authority.
When you make a claim when creating content, you need to back up the information you’re sharing. You can do this by adding links to authoritative and trustworthy sources.
As you can see in this post, we back up all the claims we make with credible data.
We have claimed that Google has a search engine market share of up to 92.42% worldwide as of September 2022. To back up this claim, we have added a link to the source of the data.
Image via Attrock
The data comes from GS Statcounter, which is a trustworthy source.
You also need to do the same to make your website more credible.
Ensure all your citations are from trustworthy sites. The information should also be recent.
Outbound links that are more than 2 years old are not effective for your SEO. Also, don’t forget to use internal links in your content.
Internal linking to relevant content allows you to direct users to other pages on your sites. This will help you increase the time users spend on your site, thus improving your search performance.
We have used this technique several times in this blog post.
Image via Attrock
The anchor text image compression tool has a link that directs users to another page on Attrock’s website.
Fix Broken Links
Broken links can negatively impact your google rankings. That’s why it’s important to fix them as you figure out how to improve SEO rankings.
Broken links will rarely become an issue when you link to authoritative sites. This is because such websites are well-managed and live most of the time.
However, websites do crash and your site visitors may find themselves staring at a 404 error when they click on an outbound link on your site.
To stop this from happening, analyze your website regularly to identify any broken links.
There are many dead link checking tools you can use for this purpose, and most of them are free. Here, you can use the tools to manually analyze your entire website or a specific page.
Alternatively, you can sign up and get your website checked automatically.
When an outbound link goes down, you will be notified so you can replace it right away. This will ensure visitors are not redirected to invalid websites, thus improving the user experience.
Add Different Types of Links
While there are many types of links you can add to your website to improve content quality, many SEOs make the mistake of focusing on one or a few types of links.
As you work on how to improve SEO rankings, make an effort to diversify the links to your sites.
Some of the link sources you can consider for your website include:
- Blog posts
- Directories
- Statistics
- Landing pages of other sites
Mixing things up has been found to have a bigger impact on SEO rankings. Just ensure the links you use are from authority sources and relevant to your content.
Ensure Your Website Is Mobile-friendly
One of the things you need to pay attention to as you work on how to improve your SEO rankings is to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
The world is increasingly becoming mobile-oriented as the use of mobile devices overtakes computer and laptop use.
Google has also adopted a mobile-first approach where it uses the mobile version of a website to determine search engine rankings.
As such, you will miss out on a decent ranking and all its associated benefits if your website is not properly designed for mobile use.
To guarantee mobile friendliness confirm that your website meets the following conditions:
- Loads properly on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets
- Helps users complete tasks quickly
- Loads in the shortest time possible
- Presents information in a readable manner without forcing users to pinch or zoom the screen
- Provides enough room for navigation
- Is easy for search engines to understand
To make your website mobile-friendly, you need to focus on a few things:
Make Your Website More Responsive
A responsive website is essential for a delightful mobile experience. A responsive design ensures your site loads properly on all devices, irrespective of screen size.
It also ensures your site lives on one URL, thus making it easy for search engines to understand and index it.
One way to make your site responsive is to use content management systems that readily adapt to different screen sizes. For example, if you use WordPress to build your site, chances are your website is already responsive.
Be sure to use Google Developer Tools to see if your website is responsive. If it’s not, ask your developer to fix it or choose a different website theme.
Increase Your Site Speed
As we have already established, speed is a key ranking factor that Google uses to determine where to position websites on search results.
The websites that load quickly often occupy the top positions since Google wants to make it easy for searchers to find the answers they need.
We’ve highlighted the things you need to do to increase your site speed. They include:
- Compress your images
- Minimize HTTP requests
- Enable browser caching
- Remove unnecessary plugins
Considering that mobile users have less internet bandwidth than those who use computers, implementing these strategies will ensure your site loads properly on mobile devices.
Use Structured Data to Organize Your Site
You can never go wrong with structured data when learning how to improve SEO rankings.
Structured data allows you to organize your content in a way that’s easy for search engines to understand. For example, if you have an FAQ section that provides answers to some of the popular questions, use structured data to define this section.
In return, Google may reward you by featuring your website in the rich results section of SERPs. You may even get the coveted position 0, which is above the normal search results.
Space Your Site Content Appropriately
People hate it when their fingers press a button or click a link when they did not intend to do it.
Sometimes, website developers don’t give enough thought to the space between elements. As a result, buttons and links get too close to each other when the site is opened on mobile devices.
This brings a lot of frustration when site visitors accidentally hit a button, link, or menu item and is directed elsewhere.
To prevent this from happening, leave enough space between website elements. This will improve your website's legibility and prevent accidental clicks.
Use the Right Keywords
Keywords play an important role when learning how to improve SEO rankings.
These are the words customers use when searching for companies like yours on Google.
Since your focus is on how to get on the first page of Google, you need to optimize your site content for the target keywords you want to rank for.
For example, if you offer digital marketing services, you want to use this keyword several times in your content to help search engines understand your business.
This way, your website will be in the top positions in SERPs when users search “digital marketing services.”
However, you need to be careful in your usage of the key phrase. Use it too many times and search engines will flag you for keyword stuffing.
The ideal density for a keyword is 1.5%. This means that for a 1000-word blog post, the maximum number of times you should use the keyword is 15.
Similarly, add the keywords naturally in your content to give them a smooth flow. Forcing keywords to be where they are not supposed to be will make your content difficult to read, thus harming the user experience.
Another thing to consider as you learn how to improve SEO rankings is keyword placement. The best place to fit keywords include:
- Header tags (H1, H2, etc.)
- Meta description
- Introduction
- Conclusion
- Image captions
Placing keywords in these places make it easy for search engines to understand your web pages and display them on search results.
Come Up with a Great Title
The title of your page is the first thing people notice when they see your page on search results.
A great title will entice users to click the link to read the content. On the other hand, a poor title doesn't grab user attention and they will quickly scroll to the next result.
It would be very unfortunate for you to spend time and effort creating an informative blog post, only for people to avoid it because of a poor title.
That's why you need to take the time to write a great title for the posts you are about to publish.
Use the following headline writing tips to come up with a catchy title;
- Keep it short – Your headline should not be over 65 characters or it will be cut off in search results.
- Front-load it with your keyword to improve discoverability.
- Make it predictable – The title should lead to a page that meets the user's expectations.
- It should be emotional to catch the attention of readers.
Follow these rules and there’s no way visitors will go past your content on search results.
Optimize Your Meta Description
The next element you need to work on as you learn how to improve SEO rankings is the meta description.
Meta descriptions are short pieces of text that accompany your page URL on search results. This short description gives you an opportunity to impress searchers and persuade them to visit your page.
As you can see in the example below, the meta description comes below the post link and title.
Image via Google
Website managers use the meta description to give searchers a preview of what a post is all about. This helps users decide whether to click a link or not.
To drive more organic traffic to your site, you need to ensure your meta description is appealing. The following tips will help you create an amazing meta description for your web pages:
- Keep it short – The meta description should not be more than 160 characters.
- It should be unique – Don’t use the same meta description for all your website pages
- It is descriptive – Add your main keyword to help search engine crawlers and users understand what the page is all about.
Go for Featured Snippets
Do you want to appear on page 1 of Google search results without updating your content or paying for expensive backlinks?
Then you should go after featured snippets as you learn how to improve SEO rankings.
A featured snippet is a short snippet of text that appears on page 1 of Google search results. They provide searchers with the answers they are looking for by pulling relevant information from the top-ranking sites.
Featured snippets are your shortcut to the top organic positions on search results.
Google wants to make it easy for searchers to find answers. As a result, it will display your site on top of the search rankings if you have used a snippet to highlight content that is relevant to a certain user query.
Below is an example of a featured snippet that appears when you search “how to grow mailing list”.
Image via Google
The featured snippet summarizes the steps it takes to grow an email list. A glance at the snippet and the users will know what to do to grow their own email lists.
If the searcher was in a hurry and had to choose between a site with such a featured snippet and another without it, 9 times out of 10 they will pick the site with a snippet.
This shows how powerful featured snippets are in helping you drive organic traffic to your site.
The above image is an example of a numbered list featured snippet. Other types of snippets you can consider as you learn how to improve SEO rankings include:
Bullet Lists
Create a bullet list of the important points in your blog post.
In the example below, Attrock has a bullet list featured snippet that highlights the things one should avoid when writing a headline.
Image via Google
Videos
When you add a video to your blog post, use structured data to let Google know about it. If optimized properly, Google will feature it on top of other ordinary search results that lack a similar snippet.
Image via Google
Paragraphs
Do you need to explain an issue in detail?
Use a paragraph snippet to provide answers to the questions your users may have as in the example below on remote work.
Image via Google
Format Your Page Properly
How you format your page also affects your site’s rankings.
Think about these factors:
Is your website neat and well organized?
Can visitors quickly scan through your website to find what they are looking for?
As we have mentioned severally in this post on how to improve SEO rankings, Google favors websites that provide a great user experience.
Your website can have great content, but you will still get a low SEO ranking if your bounce rate is high because users cannot find what they are looking for.
For this reason, you need to ensure your website is clean, neat, and properly arranged. That said, here’s how to properly format your page.
- Use header tags to show the hierarchy of your website
- Use colored text, bold letters, and italics to emphasize important issues
- Use bullet points to make it easy for users to scan through the website
- Incorporate a simple navigation system to help users move through your site with ease
Show Your Credibility
Are you aware that credibility can affect your ranking position on search engine results pages?
Google wants to direct its users to sites that are trustworthy to provide them with the best user experience.
If two websites meet the requirements to be in position one of SERPs, Google will hand the first position to the website that appears more credible.
This is why you want to do everything in your power to prove your credibility. One way to do this is with testimonials.
Publish the testimonials of past clients to show your credibility. If clients have to rate your products after purchase, publish the rating alongside the testimonials.
Additionally, share the identities of other websites or organizations that have featured your business. This will help you earn the trust of potential clients who have doubts about your business.
Attrock, a digital marketing company, publishes the logos of the organizations that have featured its content.
Image via Attrock
You will notice that these are some of the top marketing publications. Getting featured on their websites shows that Attrock is a leading and trustworthy digital marketing company.
Provide the Right Contact Details
Have you ever tried to reach an organization but couldn’t find the right contact details on their website?
This is one of the worst feelings a potential customer can experience and it doesn’t help your google ranking.
When potential customers report to Google that you haven’t added your contact details, you will get penalized with a lower rating.
Such complaints make you look untrustworthy and Google doesn’t want such sites anywhere near the top of the search results.
To avoid this unfortunate scenario, ensure to add your contact details as you set up your website.
Encourage Sharing on Social Media
Thanks to its tremendous growth, social media has become a useful tool for promoting businesses. With most of your customers available on social media, the right social media tactics will help you reach your target customers.
But did you also know that social media can also help you with SEO?
Well, now you do.
Social media allows you to leverage the strength of your network to rank highly on search engines.
While it’s difficult to get Google users to see your content after publishing it, social media distributes your content to all your followers when you share it.
This allows you to drive organic traffic to your website. And since your followers already trust your brand, they will spend more time on your website, thus improving your dwell time.
All these activities tell Google that your website has valuable content that can help others users. As a result, you will move up the search rankings.
So, how do you implement social sharing to improve your SERP position? The following strategies come to mind:
Include Social Sharing Buttons on Your Content
When you publish a post, ensure to add social sharing icons to encourage users to share it with their friends.
Semrush is big on social sharing and has buttons in its content that allow readers to share the blogs on social media.
Image via Semrush
At the end of its blogs, you will come across social media icons for Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail that allow users to share the content with the touch of a button,
Share Links on Social Media
After publishing a blog post, share the link on social media to get your followers to see it.
With a large following on LinkedIn, Attrock Digital Marketing Company shares its blog posts on the platforms to get users to see and interact with the content.
Image via LinkedIn
FAQs
Q1. What’s the significance of getting the top position on SERPs?
A. It’s been established that the websites that land the top position on search results get most of the traffic. Getting your website on top of Google SERPs will help you drive a lot of traffic to your website and marketing assets.
Q2. What are the important things to consider as I learn how to improve SEO rankings?
A. Since it is a long-term game, successful SEO takes time. So, as you learn how to improve SEO rankings, you will need to:
- Identified the keywords to rank for
- Create content to show your expertise in that topic
- Create assets to help you earn backlinks like infographics and statistics
Your site’s user experience affects your SEO ranking.
Q3. What are the best strategies for improving SEO rankings?
A. The best strategies to pay attention to as you learn how to improve SEO rankings include:
- Make your pages load faster
- Create more content
- Work on your linking strategy
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
- Go for featured snippets
- Format your page properly
- Encourage sharing on social media
Q4. What should I do to make my website load faster?
A. Website speed is a key ranking signal for SEO. Google prioritizes websites that load faster to provide searchers with the best experience. The following strategies will help you improve your page loading speed:
- Compress your images to the right size
- Enable browser caching
- Remove the outdated plugins that you don’t use anymore
Q5. What steps should I follow to create more content for my website?
A. Creating content should be a priority as you learn how to improve SEO rankings. Great content showcases your expertise and optimizes your website for given keywords.
Here are the steps to adhere to:
- Identify the keywords you need to rank for
- Decide how much content you will need to create to rank for that keyword
- Create plans for the content you need to create. This can blog posts, videos, infographics, webinars, etc.
- Create a calendar for your content
Q6. Why are backlinks important for SEO?
A. Backlinks act as recommendations that your website has valuable content. The more backlinks you have on your site the higher your ranking will be on search.
To earn backlinks, you need to create valuable content that other creators would want to use. These can be informative blog posts and helpful assets like infographics, videos, and statistics.
Q7. What are the featured snippets?
A. A featured snippet is a short snippet of text that appears on page one of Google search results. They provide searchers with the answers they are looking for by pulling relevant information from the top-ranking sites.
Q8. How do I format my page to boost my SEO ranking?
A. The following strategies will help you format your website properly:
- Use header tags to show the hierarchy of your website
- Use colored text, bold letters, and italics to emphasize important issues
- Use bullet points to make it easy for users to scan through the website
- Incorporate a simple navigation system to help users move through your site with ease
Q9. What are the features of a great headline?
A. A great headline quickly grabs the attention of visitors and encourages them to read the entire content. The following are some of the features of a great website:
- It’s short and direct – Your title should not be more than 65 characters.
- It’s front-loaded with the keyword – To improve discoverability.
- It’s predictable – It should lead to a page that contains relevant information.
- It’s emotional – To grab user attention.
Q10. Which are the best locations to place my keywords?
A. The best place to fit keywords include:
- Header tags (H1, H2, etc.)
- Meta description
- Introduction
- Conclusion
- Image captions
Ready To Rise Up On Search Rankings?
Learning how to improve SEO rankings is important for your business. A top position on search results places your business before potential customers who are looking for the products you sell.
This will drive more high-quality traffic to your websites and help you generate more income through product sales.
You will also be able to show your expertise on a particular topic and cement your position as the leading organization in your industry.
As you can see, learning how to improve SEO rankings affects your company's bottom line in many positive ways.
We hope you have gained sufficient knowledge on this topic and are ready to take your website to the top of the search results.
Let us know in the comment section which strategies you plan to use to improve your SEO rankings.
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