Everybody wants to be at the top of the list on page one of Google search. The top few results get the overwhelming majority of clicks. Improving your ranking starts with taking proactive steps to increase your search engine visibility, including SEO best practices and SEM best practices.Here are seven proven strategies to improve your search engine visibility.
1. Compelling Content
The job of a search engine is to provide the most relevant content that matches the searcher's intent. It won’t do you any good to get to the top of the rankings if the content isn’t strong. Content that doesn’t offer value for visitors creates a negative impression and does more harm than good.
2. Target Keywords
Keywords let search engines know what your web page is about. The keywords you choose to target will play a significant role in the type of traffic your site gets.SEO best practices include using high-ranking keywords that reflect your content and long-tail keywords for specific terms. For example, a high-ranking keyword for a wine store might be “buy wines online” while long-tail keywords might be “Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Chu” — possibly the world’s most expensive wine. This combination helps you attract those looking for your category, but also very specific products or content.
3. Technical SEO
Google uses more than 200 ranking singles in its algorithms. Many focus on the technical aspects of search engine optimization. These include:
- Site and page load speed
- Mobile optimization
- Optimized URL structure
- Structured data markup
- Robots.txt and XML sitemap
- Website security (HTTPS)
The list is long, but important. These technical SEO items help Google search and other search engines evaluate the quality of the experience a visitor will have on your website. If website visitors have a poor experience when they visit your site, it reflects poorly on the search engines for sending you there.If your technical SEO is weak, you will not be rewarded with a top ranking
4. Links
There are three types of links and all of them play a role in search rankings.
- Internal links are from one page on your website to another page.
- Outbound links are those taking you from your web page to an external website.
- Inbound links or backlinks are those from other websites to your site.
Inbound links provide the greatest boost. When a high-authority website links to your content, it sends a quality signal to Google. They are also the most difficult types of links to get.
5. Marketing
While Google says traffic counts do not affect search rankings, site popularity does play a role. You can improve your popularity by driving visitors to your compelling content by using social media, paid search, and other off-site marketing tools.
6. Google My Business
If you haven’t claimed and maximized your Google My Business (GMB) listing, stop and do it right now. GMB listings can help you show up in Google’s map pack, which appears above organic listings. It also helps you show up in local searches.
7. SEO Audit
If you aren’t achieving the Google search rankings you want, it’s time to conduct an SEO audit. Rather than try to tweak things here and there, an SEO site audit will help identify areas where you can improve. For example:
- Broken links
- Canonical errors
- 404 errors
- Sitemap errors
- Duplicate content
Improve Your Google Search Rankings
All these things need to work in concert to improve your ranking significantly. We can help.20North Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency with a boutique feel. Contact 20North Marketing today and let us show you how we can help your website rank better on Google and other search engines.
