When we first started Clear Door SEO, it was difficult to know how to rank higher in Google. No matter what we did, we saw little to no results. Nothing was more frustrating than not seeing the website rank on Google, despite continuous efforts to climb the ranks. Sometimes it felt like no matter how hard we tried, nothing was working.
Does this sound familiar?
For most website owners, this is a common occurrence.
No matter if you are an experienced webmaster, or a brand new website in Google’s ‘sandbox’, the ghost town phase of no website traffic is demoralizing.
Although it is difficult to get your organic website traffic to start flowing in, don’t worry too much. These things take time – many SEO experts say at least six to eight months for new websites! – and we have all been exactly where you are.
If you are looking to speed up the process, and generate organic website traffic as fast as possible, then you are in the right place!
We have come up with 21 tips for how to rank higher in Google search results!
To start off with, we want to quickly define the five basic search engine optimization (SEO) elements and strategies that the tips will focus on.
Without further ado let’s get started!
Table of Contents
The Components of Ranking Higher in Google
In order to rank higher on Google it is important that webmasters understand the SEO basics behind each of the processes. Therefore, we are going to provide a quick overview of on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, keyword research and content writing. This will help deepen your understanding of how to increase your website’s SEO performance.
1. On-page SEO:
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s content and structure so that it can be easily found by search engines. This means modifying things like title tags, meta data, and keyword density to ensure that your site is as visible as possible when people search for relevant information.
It’s important to remember that on-page SEO isn’t just about adding more keywords – it’s also about making sure that your site is well written and easy to navigate.
2. Off-page SEO:
Off-page SEO which is commonly associated with “link building” or “backlinks” is the practice of acquiring links to your website from other websites. These links can be from anywhere – including blog posts, forum posts, directories and social media shares.
These links help to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). This is because backlinks and citations will increase a website’s domain authority (or, the overall level of trust the website’s industry has in it.)
3. Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to the practice of optimizing a website’s content and layout in order to make it easier for search engines to crawl, index and rank the website. This includes things like optimizing titles, meta tags, tags, images, and other elements on a website.
Moreover, the pillars of technical optimization are making a website quicker, easier to crawl, and more understandable to search engines. On-page SEO includes technical SEO.
4. Keyword research:
Keyword research is a process that involves identifying the best keywords to use in order to achieve your desired results. It is one of the most important steps in online marketing, and it can play a crucial role in determining how successful your website or campaign will be.
5. Content writing:
Content writing is the process of creating, editing, and publishing content on websites or other digital platforms. It includes everything from article writing to social media management.
The main purpose of content writing is to provide readers with information that they can use and remember. This means that the quality of your content should be high, and it should be written in a clear, concise, and easy-to-read format.
Now that we have the basic components of SEO and ranking website content, lets jump into the 21 tips to rank higher in Google’s organic search results:
21 Strategies For How To Rank Higher in Google Search Results
Below we highlight 21 of the best ways to increase the rankings of web pages and blog posts. All of these strategies can be implemented as stand alone techniques. However, for the best results, all of these elements should be implemented throughout the entire website, and for every piece of new content that gets better.
This guide to ranking better on Google Search Results can also be used simultaneously with our SEO checklist, which will give you even more in depth strategies to supercharge your website!
With the formalities out of the way, let’s dive into our first digital marketing strategy: locating and optimizing for underperforming keywords!
1. Improve your underperforming keywords:
By looking for and optimizing underperforming keywords websites can get a lot of quick and easy wins.
Underperforming keywords can be any piece of content or keyword that has not performed as well as expected, a keyword that has deteriorated overtime, or a keyword that has been outcompeted by a competitor. There could be several reasons why the keywords haven’t been doing well:
- When content was developed, it was not optimized to its full potential
- Content could be outdated – Google values fresh, new content more
- The page could be ranking for semantic keywords
- Other websites have developed better pieces of content – a competitor has taken over your ranking spot
Although these four things will significantly impact your rankings, the good news is that going after these keywords can become easy wins. Just by adding a little bit of extra work.
There are two different approaches to going after underperforming keywords. The first, to target keywords ranking low on page one. And the second, to target keywords that are not on page 1 of SERPs.
Both approaches have positives and negatives.
Let’s take a look at both.
It’s more fruitful to go after keywords underperforming on page 1 of SERPs – Here’s why
The image below shows the average CTR curve for the first few pages of Google’s SERPs:
You can see the click-through rate significantly drops as you go down the ranks. That means if you are able be rank even by just one position from #4 to #3, you’ll see traffic increase than trying to move up ten positions from #20 to #10.
For instance, if your primary target keyword gets 10,000 searches per month, then the numbers will roughly look like this:
Position #4 > #3 = +300 visitors/ month
Position #20 > #10 = + 10 visitors/ month
Therefore, your keyword research should look for terms that already rank on at least the first two or even three pages of the search engine results pages.
You can use Ahref’s Site Explorer and get a detailed report of your Organic Keywords. Paste your domain into the site and click on the Organic Keywords report on the left side of the dashboard. Then filter the report to show the keywords that you currently rank in #2-10 positions.
Your next step is to only see the “true” rankings and exclude all owned SERP features using the SERP features filter. Click the drop down, hit “exclude” > select “all features” and then tick the “only linking to target” box.
Although targeting keywords on the first few pages to optimize will have the highest impacts on click through rates, this doesn’t mean you should neglect your other keywords and content. Whereas, low performing keywords could be because they were not targeted in the first place, or that the content is of low quality.
Don’t worry, we cover how to perform a content audit, and find some of these opportunities in the rank higher tips below.
2. Choosing the right keyword to rank higher for
It is important to choose the right keywords. Knowing the correct way to evaluate, compare and choose keywords can be the difference between your content ranking higher on Google or being lost in the competition.
Therefore, in this section we cover guidelines for picking keywords that can help your overall position on Google.
Let’s start by looking at targeting keywords that already drive traffic to your website.
Target keywords that already drive traffic to your website
As mentioned above, targeting keywords and phrases that you are already ranking for in some capacity can be a quick way to increase a website’s click through rate and thus increase website traffic.
Keywords that are already receiving impressions means that Google feels that your content is ok to display to search engine users. This means with some minor on-page SEO tweaks, you should be able to see a jump on rankings as well.
By expanding on the content around the topic, including FAQs that answer the specific query, or even including the keyword throughout the body of the text and in header tags, webmasters will be able to influence the base ranking of the keyword.
As mentioned above, improving your rankings by just one position can increase your CTR up to 90% on average. Therefore, if you can raise your ranking a few positions, or even move a post from page two to one you will see substantial increases in website traffic.
Another approach to ranking better while choosing the right keywords is by using keywords with a lot of search volume.
High search volume keywords
By improving rankings by just one position can almost double the traffic you receive from that specific keyword. Although doubling the traffic of a keyword does sound like a lot, it ultimately depends on the search volume of the term.
Therefore, while choosing keywords to rank for on Google, make sure you take into consideration how many monthly searches they get on average. Typically it is best to go after terms that get over a 100 searches per month.
Typically, keywords that have lower search volume are easier to compete and rank from this is because the keyword difficulty is lower, and many of the large competitors in niches, only go for the high-volume keywords.
However, it is important to note that it may be a good idea to target low volume keywords if they are highly relevant and have a commercial intent to them. More on search intent below.
But first, let’s talk about low keyword difficulty.
Keywords with low keyword difficulty
Keyword difficulty (KD) is a metric that provides a numerical value to how difficult it is to rank on Google for the term. Assessing keyword difficulty can show whether or not it’s worth your effort to write a piece of content or optimize a page for that specific keyword.
A keyword difficulty score falls into a range between 0-100. Higher the number, the harder it is to rank for the term. In other words, it takes more effort to rank for a keyword difficulty of 70 than a keyword difficulty of 20. More effort can be described as multiple things, but the main components are domain authority, topical authority, and overall on-page SEO performance.
In this regard, it can be useful to skim through the keyword difficulty of your report and prioritize those with lower keyword difficulty scores. You can check keyword difficulty from any keyword tools like Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, Semrush to name a few.
Note: SD or SEO Difficulty is Ubersuggest’s terminology for keyword difficulty
When choosing keywords based on difficulty, make sure to target difficulty scores that fall into your website’s ranking capability. This means checking your backlink profile and domain score.
You can target keywords outside of your ranking ability, as your website will grow over time. However, it may be a long time before you start to rank well or see any traffic for them.
This is one of the reasons we recommend targeting keywords you know you can win, and then moving up the difficulty ladder as your website grows.
High business value keywords
If the organic traffic flowing to your website isn’t converting into revenue, there’s no point trying to get more website traffic from that source. Therefore, it’s essential to prioritize keywords with high business value.
To make this concept clearer, let’s suppose that you run a coffee/bakery in Salem, Oregon.
It is obvious that ranking for the term “Salem coffee shop” will certainly drive more traffic to your business than ranking for “bakery shop.” Visitors searching for the first keyword are more likely to convert into paying customers. Thus, “Salem coffee shop” will add more business value for you than “bakery shop”, despite having less search volume.
The reason Salem coffee shop is a better keyword to go after is because the search intent of the term is well known. Whereas, we know exactly what the searcher is looking for: a coffee shop in Salem.
Make sure to pay attention to keywords that have clear search intent and that are commercially driven. This way you can rank higher on Google while also driving valuable traffic to your website and brick and mortar business.
Non-branded keywords
Non-branded keywords are the keywords that are related to your services and products, but don’t include your businesses’ name. These keywords could be anything – general keywords that your visitors are searching for that fit their needs. For instance, “SEO services” or “SEO services near me” are both relevant non-branded keywords. These are phrases used by visitors interested in what an SEO agency would be offering.
Moreover, when you are using non-branded keywords it is important to note that it can be more difficult to rank for that specific keyword.
For example, if you have a blog post about Google Analytics or search engine optimization (SEO) then it will be extremely difficult to rank for, as you will have to outrank the large companies in your industry.
Therefore, to give your website the highest chance of ranking possible, make sure you go after long tail keywords
3. Target long tail keywords
Long-tail keywords can be a great way to find under served keywords that none of your large competitors are going after. This is because they don’t see the value of going after long tail keywords as they prefer seed keywords (head terms that contain one or two words).
Long tail keywords usually have three plus words and are much more specific. These longer phrases typically arise when searchers know exactly what they want and are much further along the search journey.
As you can see in the image, the longer the keyword, the lower the search volume, however, the higher the conversion rate. A higher conversion rate and lower competition for the keyword can be a gold mine for websites. This is because it will be easier to rank for these terms on Google and they will more than likely have a higher website traffic value.
So how do you find these longer terms?
The best things to do are:
- Develop a list of seed keyword terms
- Use the seed terms in Google’s autocomplete suggestions
- Collect the information in the people also ask section
- Look at the related searches sections
- Rinse and repeat
After you have created a potential list of terms to use, plug them into a keyword research tool and check their difficulty and search volume. If they are feasible for your website to compete for, then go for them! These terms will have a great ROI when it comes to effort and ranking.
4. Find even more keywords to target with Google Search Console
Still looking for more keyword opportunities to rank higher?
Then you will really like this step. Using Google Search Console (GSC) to find keywords is one of our favorite ways to find opportunities to increase our website’s ranking.
If you have GSC connected to your website, you can look in the performance section of Console, for different terms that your indexed pages are being found for.
Most of the terms you should recognize, as you are more than likely targeting them already. However, on occasion you may find terms that you haven’t optimized for at all.
These terms are typically phrases that are highly correlated or relevant to your content. Moreover, Google believes that the blog post they are presenting for the term, has an opportunity to answer the search query.
In other words these are terms that you are ranking for by accident. What a pleasant accident, right?
These terms will be much easier to rank for then others, as Google already believes you can.
So if you find these terms in your Google Search Console Performance section, make sure to do one of two things:
- Target the keyword on the same page it is being displayed for currently. This means adding the specific term throughout the body text, header tags, alt text and anywhere else appropriate. Moreover, add additional content that covers the particular idea and answers the search intent of the term.
- The second option is to make an entire new blog post that targets the keyword instead. If this is how you decide to proceed, make sure you place an internal link from the existing blog to the new one. This way you can let Google know you want the new page to rank for that specific keyword.
Now that we have all the keywords we need to rank better on search engines, let’s check the intent of each keyword to make sure we are matching it correctly.
5. Check the keyword intent:
One of the most important things you can do when conducting keyword research is to check the keyword search intent. This is how people are searching for your product or service, and it will help you understand which keywords to focus on in your marketing campaigns.
When it comes to keyword intent, there are four main types of searches. The four keyword intents are as follows:
- Informational – Used to answer a question or learn something
- Commercial: Performed to prepare for a transaction
- Transactional: Performed to buy something
- Navigational: Used to locate a specific website
By understanding the search intent behind a query, a content writer can develop a blog article in the correct format, in order to meet the needs of the search engine user. This is important because Google has been able to analyze millions of searches and determine exactly what the user is searching for.
For example, Google aims to provide the most relevant results for any given query. They have been doing this consistently for decades and the importance of relevancy has grown more than ever. Due to that reason, they have invested massively into understanding the searcher’s intent or the intent of queries.
For instance, top ranking pages for link building are not from companies that specifically offer link building services, but rather informational blogs posts and guides:
This shows that Google knows that visitors who are searching for link building are looking to learn, not for that service. This means that if your page doesn’t match the searcher’s intent, that means you’re not even close to ranking higher.
Finally, ensure you match your searcher’s intent while writing content for SEO as it will help increase website traffic and your ranking on Google’s search results. Therefore, if your content doesn’t align with the searcher intent, then it should be fixed immediately before starting another step.
To get a better idea of what to write and how to write it, you can use the top 10 SERPs for your particular query. This will help you decide which format to use while writing. And thus, give your content the best starting place to rank higher on Google.
6. Understand why you are being outranked and then outrank your competitors!
It’s a shark eat shark world out there – and ranking on Google is no different! Getting out competed and out ranked for a term is a common occurrence online.
Even if you get outranked, it’s not the end of the world, you just need to go back and figure out why your web page got knocked off. To do this, you will want to start by conducting a competitor’s analysis.
A competitor analysis of the businesses outranking yours will help you understand where your page is lacking. For simplicity we break down the reasons why your content was outranked in to two categories:
- Domain authority
- Content quality
Let us expand on these two categories.
Outranked because of domain authority
A study conducted by Ahref showed that there’s a clear correlation between the number of referring domains point to page and its ranking.
Therefore, what you need to focus on is check the search results and keep an eye on the number of referring domains to the pages that have been outranking you.
When it comes to being outranked because of backlinks, there are two main components to consider: domain authority and page authority.
Domain authority (DA):
Domain authority measures the strength of a given domain. The higher the website’s authority, the more authoritative and stronger it is. Generally, the higher the authority of your domain, the better. However, it’s essential not to judge DA in absolute terms, as by definition it is a relative metric. For example, your DA is good if it is higher than or comparable to your competitors.
For example, your site has a DA of 89 and your competitor as a DA of 93. This could be that your competitor has more backlinks from websites with strong link profiles which leads to a higher authority score.
Therefore, comparing your DA to your competitors can tell you whether your competitors are doing worse or better than you. If they’re doing better, then you may want to look for different ways to build backlinks to your website.
Page authority (PA):
Google’s rank has been built on PageRank which calculates the value of a page by looking at the quality and quantity of other pages that link to it. In simple words, it helps to determine the relevancy of a given page in the World Wide Web.
In 2016, Google discounted PageRank scores and there’s no other way to check the PageRank of a webpage. However, you can take a look at the URL ratings of pages that outrank you. Generally, pages with more backlink authority are likely to rank higher and get more traffic.
Do you have a high domain authority but still being outranked? It might be because of the quality of your content.
Outranked because of content quality:
Another reason that you are being outranked is because your content is not up to par.
The first thing to check is if your content is grammatically correct and free of errors. The fastest way to do this is by running it through Grammarly’s free grammar checker.
Next, you will want to check if you’re leaving out any important information that your competitors included in their content. Are they adding extra related information and queries to their blog post? Or are they offering a long-form, more in depth article?
Have a look at the top 10 SERP results and see what they are doing. And compare it to your blog post. Look for additional header tags and topics you can include in your post.
7. Target how-to and tutorial keywords with videos
If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few years, you have probably noticed a shift in the content being ranked and displayed in Google SERPs.
Search engines are getting better at understanding search intent, and displaying the type of content people want to see the most. This is why many of your searches now display videos in the organic search results.
In order to capitalize on the shift to videos being displayed, webmasters should plan on making videos for how to-guides and tutorials. By making videos to support your blog posts, you are giving readers exactly what they are looking for. And, as we mentioned before, by matching search intent you are positioning yourself to rank better on Google.
If better rankings didn’t convince you to make videos, maybe this next point will.
With a video, your blog can theoretically rank in the top 10 SERP positions for both your written blog content, as well as for your video! Additionally, it can rank on YouTube search as well, meaning even more exposure online. Ranking videos are slightly different from ranking blogs though. Therefore, we recommend checking out Backlinko’s YouTube SEO: How to rank YouTube videos blog!
8. Publish High-Quality Content
Publishing high-quality, highly informative, and unique content is the most important aspect to content marketing in SEO. No matter if you use the best SEO techniques, or can build a bunch of backlinks pointing to your blog, if it is not written well, people are not going to stick around to read it.
Poorly written content that somehow manages to rank (maybe through black hat SEO methods) won’t last long. This is because Google pays attention to different metrics related to user engagement and experience. Whereas, if a page has a high bounce rate, low engagement rate, low time spent on page, or results in users pogo-sticking to other search results, will negatively impact a page’s ranking.
Therefore, during the content development process, make sure to rank high quality content (remember it needs to be better than the competition’s content as well!). There are a few key things you need to keep in mind when writing content:
- Make sure your content is well-organized and easy to read
- Use clear and concise language that is easy to understand
- Be sure to research the topic matter before you start writing
- Provide valuable information that helps readers learn something new
- Avoid fluff, make sure the content you include is relevant and adds value
- Avoid AI generated and spun content. Google’s new Helpful Content Update is cracking down on this lower quality content.
9. Write long-form content about it
Having long-form content can be extremely valuable. This allows you to go more in depth and add valuable content to your reader
A piece of writing that is between 1,000 to 7,500 words is referred to as long-form content. To provide a thorough understanding of complex topics to your readers and audience you might want to write long-form content.
Long-form content is meant to provide useful information and more value to readers. Moreover, longer content tends to rank better on Google, and tends to help increase the amount of time spent on your site.
Moreover, by optimizing your website for search engines and inserting calls-to-action in the body of your piece, you may boost lead generation. You can even urge consumers to products that relate to the subject of your work, and your articles have a greater chance of appearing on the first page of SERPs.
There has been a great deal of research about the optimal length of blog posts to rank better on search engines. We provide an in depth guide about how long a blog post should be, which breaks down the optimal blog length by industry and format.
Even if you produce long-form content, it still needs to be engaging, and more importantly easy to consume.
10. Make your information skimmable
A long line of copycats has replaced well-known long-form content businesses such as Backlinko and HubSpot. Many people make poor judgments of what makes their content successful in the first place. Just because you have produced a 5,000-word article, doesn’t mean it’s automatically helpful to the audience.
On a daily basis, readers are bombarded with information. People can’t keep up with all of the content from their favorite sources. When they get to your material, they are constrained to make a fast judgment about whether it is worth their time.
Therefore, readers typically skim the page, read headlines, opening sentences, and summarizing paragraphs to reveal the most important pieces of information in a long-form piece.
Effective content, on the other hand, will hold the attention of the reader from the opening line and refuse to let it go. Remember, you’re asking a lot of your readers when you publish a 5,000-word piece. You are requesting a half-hour or more of their time to read the entire post.
Therefore, it is important to make your content as skimmable as possible, this will keep the readers on your page, and engaging with the content. These are both positive user experience signals that Google takes note of. These signals will ultimately help your content move up positions in the SERPs.
In order to write skimmable content, keep the following in mind:
- Use white space and font size to your advantage
- Ensure that you have intriguing and informative headlines
- Keep paragraphs short and concise
- Utilize bullet points and lists
- Use visuals to supplement your body text
- Summarize your findings early and often
11. Have a table of contents
By using the Table of Contents you can rank for more keywords and thus increase your overall organic ranking. Whereas, the table can be shown in a featured snippet for list formats or shown in the People also Ask Sections of SERP results.
Not only will using a table of contents help the page rank better, it will also help with readability and user experience. By adding extra navigational features that make it easy to find the exact information a user is looking for, your website’s dwell time will increase. Moreover, this will help reduce the page’s bounce rate as well.
If you are using WordPress, you can use the built in table of contents block. Make sure to add it close to the beginning of the article, and more preferably, above the fold if possible. This will make it easy for your reader to find and interact with.
12. Include meaningful visuals
Blogs that include images and videos are generally seen as more engaging and interesting, which makes them rank higher in Google.
Including visuals in your blog posts not only provides a visual element that’s attractive to users, but it also helps you to convey your ideas more effectively. This is because images and videos can act as clarifiers and connectors between different parts of your content, making it easier for people to understand what you’re trying to say.
Furthermore, including visuals also allows people to learn more quickly – since they don’t have to read everything before they can start understanding the article. Infographics can be a great way to showcase stats, data and other complicated topics to make them more easy to read and understand.
To make engaging, information content you can use tools like Canva or Photoshop to create custom visuals that fit perfectly with your blog’s theme and style.
Before including images in your content, make sure to optimize them properly. By following the optimization steps below, you can increase your chances of having a higher SERP position. To optimize images properly, you should:
- Ensure the image is served in a next gen format. Either JPEG or WebP format. Avoid using PNGs in your content
- Keep image file sizes small. Aim to have them be smaller than 200kb – the smaller the better!
- Use keywords in the image file name
- Use keywords in the alt text of images
Using visuals and other supplementary content (videos, podcasts, infographics) can do wonders for your readers. They also can help with the expertise, authority and trustworthiness of a website.
Let’s take a look at E-A-T.
13. Focus on E-A-T
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are the three factors that E-A-T in SEO stands for. Google’s Quality Raters’ Guidelines goes into great detail on this principle. Demonstrating excellent E-A-T both on and off your website might help boost your Google rankings. Whereas, Google states that “if you understand how raters learn to assess good content, that might help you improve your own content.”
Google also published a document on major algorithm updates in August of 2019. If you’ve been harmed by a basic update, they recommend “getting to know the quality rater principles and E-A-T.”
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are extremely important for organic rankings, as search engines tend to rank content that they know is reliable and credible. This is even more important when it comes to YMYL (Your Money Your Life) related topics.
To improve your website’s E-A-T and to help positively influence your ranking, you can use the following tips:
- Build more backlinks
- Ensure website content is up to date
- Use facts and data from reputable sources (and externally link to them)
- State your qualifications, show your credentials and why you should be trusted
- Display contact details on your website
14. Write content for featured snippets:
One of the fastest ways to increase your ranking is to win featured snippets. By winning a snippet, your page will be displayed above the 10 organic listings. This means the content will be featured in the coveted ‘Position 0’ of Google SERP rankings.
Featured snippets take one of four formats including:
- Paragraph
- List
- Video
- Table
The first step to winning a snippet is to determine what snippet Google is displaying for the specific query. This will tell you the exact format you need to copy to get placed in position 0. Moreover, the content should be concise and factual, Google does not want to feature opinions in the snippet area. This is because snippets are being featured to display quick answers and information pertaining to the query being searched for.
Snippets can be one of the best ways for an online business to jump the ranking link on Google. It will increase their visibility significantly, and instill a strong brand image, as readers will perceive the website as a trustworthy source as Google is featuring them.
15. Monitor Your Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the practice of optimizing a website for search engines using search engine algorithms. It involves improving the visibility and ranking of a website in Google, Yahoo! Search, Bing, and other major search engines.
Google has been upfront about the importance of having a website that is: responsive, fast and secure. Moreover, with the introduction of Google’s ‘mobile first’ approach to indexing content, a responsive website is now more important than ever.
These components, and especially mobile responsiveness and load speed, are also important for core web vitals as well. And as we know, Google’s core web vitals are ranking factors. Therefore, if you want to be able to raise the ranking of your website across the board, it will be important to focus on the technical SEO aspects that feed into the core web vitals – such as load speed.
16. Reduce Your Bounce Rate
Lowering your website’s bounce rate may not have a direct impact on your Google ranking. However, it can be a good indicator to understand how valuable your content is to your audience. High bounce rate, perhaps the content is low-quality and not answering the search query correctly.
Google does take notice of the bounce rate of websites, and especially when it leads to pogo-sticking from one website to another. This is a signal to Google that the content being displayed in the top 10 SERP positions, are not serving their needs.
Backlinko’s study on search results has also found a correlation between time spent on page, as well as bounce rate when it comes to higher ranking. Although Google denies it being a ranking factor, it still can be a strong signal regarding the website. Therefore, it will serve your ranking, as well as future readers better to lower your website’s bounce rate as much as possible.
Plus, lower bounce rates can lead to better click-through rates, conversions and money for your business!
17. Build Backlinks to Your Site
Google is the world’s most popular search engine, and it’s important that your web site ranks high in its results. If you want to rank higher, then you need to build backlinks to your site from high-quality websites.
Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. They act as a signal to Google that your web site is worth ranking. These signals from third party websites are considered to be votes of trust and authority in the eyes of search engines.
Moreover, the backlinks pointing to a website also influence what SEO experts call domain authority. Domain authority is a metric that calculates, and assigns a value to how strong a website’s overall backlink profile is.
In order to increase a website’s backlink profile and overall ability to rank, it should implore some of the following tactics:
- Write guest posts
- Build citations in local directories
- Make social media accounts (Facebook page, Pintrest, Instagram, etc.) and include the website domain in the description section
- Create a Google Business Profile (formally Google My Business profile)
- Create high quality blog posts, infographics and videos that are worth linking to
These are just some of the ways to build backlinks, however, if you are looking for a full rundown on how to increase your domain authority, make sure to check out our resource on how to build backlinks.
18. Use Internal Linking
Internal links are links that lead to pages within your own website. When a user clicks on one of these links, they are taken to the page that the link points to.
Google considers internal links as a way of promoting your website and giving it more credibility. This is because internal links often point to highly relevant and important content related to the source page. In addition, linking to important pages on your website will help users find the information they’re looking for more easily. This can help increase the user experience, and increase their time spent on your website.
The best way to use internal links is by creating them whenever you can. This includes anything from describing the main topic of a post in detail, to providing additional resources or explanations for topics you’ve covered in your article. Whenever possible, make sure that your text is properly formatted and easy to read – this will help ensure that users understand what you’re trying to say and where they should go next if they want to learn more about what you’ve written about.
Finally, internal links are one of the most underutilized aspects of helping pages rank better on search engines. This is because internal links can help build a strong network of information, in order to showcase a website’s topical authority.
Another way internal links can boost organic rankings on Google is by sending strong signals about what the webmaster wants a page to rank for. Finally, internal links also pass page authority to other pages on your website as well.
19. Local SEO
Local SEO is the practice of improving the visibility of a website or business in local search results. This can be done by optimizing the site for local search results. Moreover, it can help you be visible on Google’s Snack Pack – like Google local pack, Google Maps. Whereas, it will show the top three local businesses in the area.
Local SEO is especially important for small businesses, which often have limited resources and don’t have the time to devote to a larger online presence. By ranking high in local search results, these businesses can attract more customers from within their area and beyond.
To get started with local SEO, you first need to identify your target market. After that, you will need to determine how best to reach these customers through relevant content creation and optimization strategies. You will also need to focus on building strong links back to your website from high-quality websites in your area.
There are a few ways that you can optimize your site for local search results:
- Add localized keywords to your website’s title, description, and content
- Write targeted blog posts that discuss your company or product in detail as well as its location
- Include your business’s location on your website, about page or contact page
- Claim your Google Business Profile (Formerly Google My Business)
- Get your website listed in local directories
20. Track and monitor your rankings:
Tracking and monitoring your rankings while you are optimizing the various components of your website is essential for ranking better. Whereas, by tracking your own position in the SERPs, you can begin to create more informed decisions about how to optimize your website. Moreover, this will allow webmasters and SEO experts the chance to build an overall SEO strategy for their business.
Search engine optimization is a long term strategy, it will take a great deal of time and effort to increase the SEO ranking of your website. To make tracking your efforts more efficient, we recommend using a few different SEO tools.
The first tool is Google Search Console (GSC). GSC provides primary data related to the position your content and keywords are ranking. By using their performance tool, you can see how your efforts are trending and if they have positive or negative impacts.
The second SEO tool is to use a third-party rank tracking tool like Ubersuggest of Ahrefs. Both of these platforms provide free versions that you can track different keyword performance. For many websites, the free version will be more than enough to monitor performance.
One important thing to note is that while you are optimizing your content and pages, you will more than likely see fluctuations in your rankings. This is to be expected, as Google will take time to recognize the changes, and be able to rank them accordingly. So stay patient and monitor them over weeks, and months, not necessarily days.
21. Repeat the steps for other keywords
Our last top for how to rank higher in Google search results is to: rinse and repeat.
As mentioned, SEO is a long term game. It will take multiple iterations of changes to fine tune your content and its ability to rank. Additionally, just as you are performing content optimization, so are your competitors. This means as you’re getting better, they are more than likely doing the same as well.
Don’t stress about this too much though. If you follow the strategies listed above, you will be able to outrank your competitors over time. The best way to do this is by consistently setting time aside to work on optimizing your website every month. Little constant improvements over every month, will do much more than making one big push to optimize content each year or two.
Focus on setting up a strategy and time for optimizing your website every month, and you will be ranking higher in Google search results in no time!
Key Takeaways: How to Rank Higher in Google
SEO isn’t a “flip of a switch” kinda task. It takes time and effort to rank higher on Google and sometimes certain keywords can be more challenging than others. Therefore, if you want to be successful online, you will need to set your overall SEO goals and objectives, and focus on the strategies that will help you reach them.
As you now know, a Google ranking factor can be many different things. In order to rank better and get noticed by a potential customer, the best thing to do is to understand Google’s algorithm, and what the Google bot values the most! Additionally, to get that number one Google search result, pay close attention to every relevant keyword you can. Whereas, the more you know about your industry and the more content you can write to find new opportunities, the better chances you will have to rank!
Just remember that ranking higher on search engines can be a hard up-road battle. It can take a lot of time and devotion to position yourself exactly where you want to be on the search engine SERPs. Therefore, If you’re looking to increase more traffic to your site with a more hands off approach, you can schedule a free consultation with us, and we will help you with figuring out how to rank better on Google!