For small businesses to succeed in today’s digital marketplace, they need to have an established online presence. Just having a presence, however, is no longer enough for most industries. Your pages must rank high on Google, higher than your competitors, if you want to grow your business. But how do you rank high on Google? What do you need to do to make sure your website and its pages trump the competition in the search results?
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Want to rank high on Google? Make the best website possible.
We agree with the SEO experts when they say improving every aspect of your website is the way to climb to the top of the search results. This is called holistic SEO. And while it does take effort, the rewards are worth it.
Google wants to provide the best results for any search query. If you prioritize making your webpage the best result for that question, with time and dedication, you will earn your place in the search results.
1. Perfect your site’s technical SEO
If you use WordPress (like we do, as well as all of our clients), you already have most of your technical SEO handled for you. WordPress is SEO-friendly, and many of the people on the development team make improvements to WordPress with SEO specifically in mind. For any minor SEO issues that WordPress still has, you can use an SEO plugin. There are many out there, but our favorite has always been Yoast SEO.
While there are many aspects to technical SEO, the most important is your site’s speed. Now that more and more people are accessing websites from a mobile device, fast loading times are absolutely essential to rank high on Google. Potential customers will not think twice about leaving your website if it is too slow. Some of the factors that impact your site’s speed are:
- A large number of plugins on your site
- Your hosting service
- Large file sizes
- Poorly optimized images, animations, and/or videos
- Too many redirects
- Badly written code
To find out which problems your site has, you can run page speed tests with a variety of tools. A couple of our favorites are Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, and GTMetrix. Simply type in your page URL and take a look at the results. The report will tell you where you can make improvements to your website to improve your page loading speed.
Does this sound like a lot to tackle on your own? Contact our experts for help!
2. Structure your site properly
Search engines like Google follow links. When Google sees a page receiving a lot of links from other pages, it pays more attention to that page and its content. Internally linking your pages together in a structured way can help signal to Google that it should take a closer look at your page. Make sure every page on your website connects to at least 3 other pages. Otherwise, Google will have a hard time finding (or caring) about your page.
Important caveat: Site structure is not something you should “wing”. Take some time to think about how your pages will connect to each other. Your ultimate goal is not simply to please Google, but to give your customers a phenomenal experience with your website. As you plan out how you want to structure (or restructure) your site, always keep that in mind. What links would your customer expect to see on this page? How can you facilitate an easy, pleasant experience for them?
Check out any of our blog posts or main website pages to see how we have done this in practice!
3. Write killer content
Perhaps the key element to a successful SEO strategy is solid SEO copywriting. This means writing and optimizing engaging blog posts, crafting an enticing About page, and making sure your Service pages are up-to-date and contain the keywords you want to be found for. Every page of your website needs TLC when it comes to optimizing for unique keywords and attracting customers.
Related: Writing Great Cornerstone Content That Ranks
Unfortunately, SEO copywriting is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. To keep your site relevant, you need to adapt your content to the ever-changing algorithms of the search engines. That means regularly dedicating time to writing, revising, and auditing your content.
4. Eliminate keyword cannibalization
As you write more content and create more pages on your website, chances are you might end up with two or more pages that compete for the same keyword. This makes it difficult for Google to choose which page to rank. So, in the end, Google picks someone else’s page altogether, and your rankings can drop. This is called keyword cannibalization because you are competing with yourself for that top spot in the search results.
Luckily, keyword cannibalization can easily be fixed. By auditing your content regularly, you can find articles that are competing against each other and merge them into a newer, more in-depth, better article.
4. Set realistic expectations
When doing keyword research for your website, focus more on long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords have more words in them; this means they return more specialized results. For example, a broad keyword like “fishing equipment” is far too competitive to break into. Think about how many million pages could pop up for that kind of search. Instead, if you aim for something like “DIY fly fishing rod building kit”, the number of results decreases significantly, which slims out your competition and increases your chances for taking the top spot.
Over time, keep an eye on your rankings for different keywords. If you find yourself having little to no success after a year, it may be time to consider another keyword or further narrow down your content.
Solid website SEO is the best way to rank high on Google
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer for how to rank high on Google. Optimizing your website takes sustained effort in the long term. If you focus on creating an incredible website for your visitors, you will be successful, as long as you stick with it! Focus on improving your site’s user experience, technical SEO, copywriting, and structure. Over time, you will begin to see the fruits of your labor. Good luck!
Ready to optimize your website? Reach out to MotorClick’s experts today!
Keep Reading: How to Create Quality Content