Landing on the top spot of Google’s search engine results is the Holy Grail in digital marketing. There’s the never ending organic traffic, a significant increase in sales, and acquisition of new customers, among other things. However mind you, the journey towards the most coveted spot in Google Ranking is a long campaign. You need to prepare your SEO arsenal that should cover search engine marketing and the mobile first index.
Google employs a mixture of techniques and algorithms that determine which websites or pages are shown first in the search results. So the challenge is to conform to the algorithm and the techniques used by Google. This article will discuss the elements you need to work on to improve your Google Ranking.
Achieve Better Google Ranking as Easy as 1-2-3
SEO is the heart and soul of Google Ranking, but with the intense competition happening across all industries, some businesses tend to take the shorter route in achieving their SEO goals. More often than not, SEO shortcuts lead to penalties dished out by Google. This does not only affect the page’s ranking, but also the website itself. Therefore, it is a must that businesses and online marketers implement the proven methods of search engine marketing and optimisation to ensure you achieve your end goal.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO improves the content using focus keywords that are carefully positioned in a blog post or page content. This optimisation also deals with the proper use of headings and the quality of the content itself. Well-structured data will ensure that Google fully understands every page in your website.
Complementing your content with appropriate images and videos will also help your on-page SEO, and eventually, you’re Google Ranking. When creating content you should also consider the customers who are visual learners. This does not only target a wider audience, but also increases the time on site of page visitors. This metric is paramount when Google’s algorithm ranks your page or website in its results page.
Another checklist to cross out is your meta data. It is ideal that you include your focus keyword at the start of your meta title and, embed this keyword in your meta description. Your focus keyword should also be used 3-4 times throughout the page content and in the first paragraph of the copy and don’t forget to add the keyword as Alt Text to your images on the page.
Speed
Google has announced that the loading speed for websites will be used as a metric for its mobile first index. To simply put, slow page speed would mean low ranking. Page speed also influences the user experience. Data shows that web pages that take a long time to load have higher bounce rates. Moreover, the slow loading speed is correlated to a decrease in any sales conversions.
According to Yoast, details and guidelines on how page speed will be used to gauge mobile rankings have not yet been released. In the meantime, digital marketers can work on their page speed by running a Page Insight test or a GTmetrix test. This will tell you which component of your page slows down your loading speed.
Link Building
In search engine marketing, the links to and on the page establishes its authority and augment its SEO value. How can link building improve your Google ranking? Data shows that the link popularity of a page accounts for one fourth of the metrics used by Google’s algorithm.
There are three things that are considered important in link building:
- The quality of the link
- The number of links
- And the anchored text.
Since not all links are valued equally, the ranking algorithm prioritises quality over quantity. In short, links from authority websites have more impact in the ranking algorithm.
In the case of anchored text, it is like the proof that you are the expert in that field. For instance, a lot of anchored text for “books” is linked to Amazon. This means that Amazon is the online leader when it comes to all things book-related.
Optimising for Mobile
A website optimised for mobile use is a competitive advantage not only in terms of mobile first index, and user experience but also in improving a page’s Google ranking. To do that, you have to check first your page’s loading speed. If it takes a while before texts and images load on your site, then you should ditch your old design and opt for a more responsive web design such as AMP pages.
An AMP is a HTML page designed to be super lightweight; really fast-loading mobile pages are created by stripping them back to basics. This open-source initiative is designed to enable publishers to easily improve speed (and consequently, user experience) for their mobile readership.
Another thing to consider is the user experience that your site gives. Remember that most of the customers nowadays visit e-commerce websites and other pages through their mobile phones. Therefore, it seems only right to focus on their user experience. You can check how your page is doing using the Google Analytics device reports.
Search engine marketing is a cutthroat market. It is only imperative for businesses and digital marketers to stay abreast with the current trends in SEO and Google ranking. If you need help in Google ranking and all things SEO, get in touch with us today.
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