You’ve probably heard the saying, “If you build it, they will come.” In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), that’s not necessarily true.
For example, if you build a website but don’t optimize it for Google, the chances are good that your visitors won’t find it through their search engine results. However, if you optimize your site and implement strategies to get high-quality backlinks from other websites—and follow some of the other tips in this article—then yes, they will come.
How Google Ranks Your Website
You might think that why focus only on Google when multiple search engines exist? Well, it’s pretty simple. Google holds around 83% of the current search engine market share. Moreover, around 40,000 search queries are processed on Google every second, meaning 1.2 trillion searches annually.
It might seem that with so many searches processed every second, it can be easy to rank in at least a few. But that’s not how it is. Google ranks your website considering multiple factors, and if you don’t consider these factors while developing your website or its content, your website is less likely to rank high.
In a nutshell, Google uses a combination of factors to determine how to rank your website. These factors include:
- Authoritativeness (or “trustworthiness”) of the website where your content is hosted
- Information provided on the website
- Relevant and suitable keyword usage
- The popularity of the page or domain that hosts your content
- Engagement rate on that page or domain, etc.
How to Rank High in Google Search
Now that the concept of how Google rank’s your website, here are some tips that can help improve your website’s rankings.
Research and Use Top Ranking Keywords
To achieve the best possible results, you should use a combination of broad and long-tail keywords. The first thing to do is research for them using the Google Keyword Tool.
This will help you determine which words people are searching for, so you can include those in your content and optimize your site accordingly. There are several other keyword research tools that you can use. However, before selecting a research tool or software, read its reviews to determine its reliability.
It’s also essential to ensure that these keywords are relevant to your business, customers, website, and/or industry. For example, a personal trainer might use “weight loss” as a broad keyword.
However, it may make more sense for this personal trainer’s website if he uses “lose weight fast” or “easy tips on how I lost 40 pounds in 6 months” as his long-tail search terms rather than just simply “weight loss.”
Similarly, a clothing company could target different types of customers by using different combinations of broad and long-tail search terms like:
- Men’s jeans – Used by someone who wants nice jeans but doesn’t know what brand or style might look good on him
- Best jeans for men – Used by guys who’re already familiar with different brands
- Mens’ jeans for sale under $50 – Used by men looking for cheap pairs
- How to make your own denim clothing line? – Used by designers interested in starting their denim fashion line
Finding the right keywords and using them effectively to rank high on Google can be challenging, especially if you don’t have any experience. Hence, it is highly advised to seek help from a professional marketing company. Collaborating with an experienced company, like Arcane Marketing, that specializes in SEO will enable you to research the keywords and use and monitor them to ensure higher rankings on Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Use Meta Data Effectively
Meta tags are used to describe the content of a page. The keywords you use in your meta tags should be based on the traffic you want to attract and where you want to rank for those keywords. Google offers support for both meta and inline tags, so you can use both of them effectively for better rankings.
Keyword placement is essential, so use them in the following areas:
Meta Tags In the Head Section
- Title tag – The title tag is one of the most important on-page SEO elements because it’s what shows up first in search results for a keyword. Google also uses it as part of its algorithm to determine whether your site is relevant for that keyword phrase.
- Meta description – Although not as influential as other types of metadata (such as backlinks), meta descriptions still play an important role in ranking well on Google search engine results pages (SERPs). This is why it’s critical to have yours set up correctly.
Meta Tags In Body Section
- Meta description – Although not as influential as other types of metadata (such as backlinks), meta descriptions still play an important role in ranking well on Google search engine results pages (SERPs). This is why it’s critical to have yours set up correctly.
- Meta Robots Tags – This is where you tell Google what type of data must be crawled, such as only allowing the search engine to certain index pages. Using this tag, you can also tell Google not to index specific pages or directories.
- Headings – These are the main headings on your page that let Google and other search engines know what the content is about. They’re also used to give users an idea of what they can expect from a page before they click through it.
Optimize Your Content and Images
The search engine is looking for images relevant to your page’s topic. So include a variety of high-quality images on different pages, add image titles, alt text, and captions, and try to insert keywords in them.
Moreover, you should also optimize your content. Use keywords in the text and use synonyms when possible. Be sure to include long-tail keywords and phrases in addition to short ones, so you can rank well for more specific searches that are less competitive than broader terms or phrases that are more common across sites. For example, instead of “pizzas,” you can use “best pizzas in Chicago.”
Lastly, you must also optimize your content for mobile devices. If someone is searching on their phone, they want quick results—and fast loading pages will help them find what they need much faster than slower pages on desktop computers or tablets!
Optimize Your Page Speed
If you’re not optimizing your page speed and user experience, you could miss out on a huge opportunity to improve SEO. Page speed is one of Google’s most important factors when ranking websites. Here are some reasons why:
- Users want fast-loading pages. A slow website will frustrate users, who tend to leave if they can’t find what they’re looking for within three seconds. According to recent research, pages that load within 2 seconds have a bounce rate of only 9%, which increases to 38% if the page load takes 5 seconds. In fact, a single second of page loading delay can reduce viewer satisfaction by 16%.
- Google uses page speed as a ranking factor. Even if your goal is not to rank highly in search results but to get more traffic from social media or referrals, optimizing your web pages’ performance can still help achieve this goal.
Conclusion
There’s no magic formula for ranking on Google. You can do some things to improve your ranking, such as using the right keywords in your content, optimizing images, and creating quality backlinks.
But ultimately, it comes down to how well your site satisfies users’ needs and whether those users share their positive experiences with others. So if you want more traffic from Google search results, focus on providing great content that answers people’s questions!