Diving into digital marketing without knowing how Google ranking works is a recipe for disaster (and a big waste of your time). Google regularly rolls out small updates to its algorithm, while we see significant updates every few months. The algorithm constantly evolves to provide users the best experience, and it uses more than 200 factors (such as backlinks, page load times, mobile-friendliness) to rank pages and websites.
Are you looking for ways to improve your website’s search rankings? Here are some important website marketing tips you should follow to rank higher.
Keep Your Content Fresh
Google gives your website or page a score whenever you publish fresh content. Over time, the score dwindles, which means that you should consistently update your website with in-depth, well-researched, and fresh content. Add new content every day or at least once a week to increase your website ranking.
YouTube
Embedding a YouTube video will help you rank higher on Google. Since Google owns YouTube (the second most visited website on the Internet), YouTube videos are also shown in search engine results pages (SERP’s). Google rolled out its Panda update in 2011, which increased YouTube’s traffic, thanks to a series of search filters they put in place to stop sites with poor quality content from appearing into Google’s SERP’s (and reward high-quality ones).
In-Depth Content is More Important Than Ever
Longer posts have begun to dominate Google’s search engine results because they provide more opportunities for using relevant keywords. But with great SEO power comes great responsibility – content with too many keywords can produce a negative effect. Therefore, you should aim to create content that is rich in useful information in order to attract natural shares and backlinks.
Optimize Your Images
Optimize the images on your website to rank higher because it will improve your site’s user experience. Reduce the file size, include captions, choose descriptive filenames, give titles to images, and add alt tags.
Contact Us Page
Trustworthy websites rank higher in SERP’s, and those are the sites that provide sufficient contact information. Make sure to add complete contact information that matches your whois info (method of changing information about domain name ownership). Having a well-designed contact form will help you improve customer services and capture fresh leads.
Brand Names in Anchor Texts
The anchor text is the text that people see when you post a hyperlink. It should include brand names, but it should also contain keywords and terms not associated with keywords or brands. According to some research, 3 out of 10 anchors should include your brand name.
Comments
If a page or site has lots of comments, Google sees that as a sign of quality and user-interaction. Having a healthy community of users who engage by leaving relevant comments and feedback means there’s a lot of organic traffic, which Google rewards with a higher ranking. In contrast, spammy comments and unrelated links affect your website rankings negatively.
Numbered Lists and Bullets
The benefit of numbered lists and bullets allows readers to scan content quickly. In other words, it contributes to your site’s user-friendliness by improving content readability, which is a factor that Google takes into account. If your readers appreciate it, Google will also. Just make sure not to overdo it (lists that are too long can be overwhelming to your readers).
Google is the most visited search engine on the web, so it’s natural to want to do as much as you can to rank high in their SERP. However, it is almost impossible to keep up with all of the 200 ranking factors that Google’s algorithm considers. These are some of the best and most practical tips that can help your site get closer to the first search engine result page.
There are many more actions you could take in order to bring your website closer to the first SERP. If you need help or guidance, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to discuss your marketing strategy and help in any way I can.
Rob Dunford is a Marketing Consultant in the Great Toronto Area with over 20 years of experience in implementing marketing plans for small businesses.