10 ways to improve your position in Google ranking

Surely you already know that the higher the position of your website in the search engine results pages, the more traffic it will receive. By applying the best SEO practices to your website, you can increase quality traffic, which translates into more and new customers.

Did you know that the top five organic search results on Google get about 75% of the clicks? Over the years, several click-through rate studies have shown this, so it’s very important to appear in those top five positions.

Organic results vs. payment

You can attract visitors to your website in various ways, but one of the most effective is to appear at the top of the organic search results in engines such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Unlike paid ads , which are ads shown in sponsored areas, organic search results are “free” and are based on, among other things, the content of the site and how well they match the keywords being searched for. .

Your SEO strategy: get on the first page!

Few people click from the second page of search results, so if you want to be seen, you have to be among the first positions. For this, it would be convenient for you to know a little about how search engines work and how to optimize your website, more commonly known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or search engine optimization.

Once the search engines know that your website exists, they study it, index the information and analyze the content to determine how and where it should appear on the results page. If your site is not optimized, it will not rank well and may end up far below your competitors.

Each search engine has its own set of ranking criteria, but they all take into account these same basic, yet fundamental elements.

Keywords

VisualHunt

They are words and phrases that people use when searching for your business on the Internet. Research and discover what your current and potential customers are searching for and then generate content that has to do with those terms. If you publish a page targeting “birch hardwood flooring”, you should include that same phrase a couple of times in the textual content of that page, but only where it makes sense, not just anywhere.

Title tag

The Title tag provides a brief summary of what people can expect from a page. It shows up in a few important places, including the browser’s title bar and as the headline for your ad in search engine results. If you want to target a specific audience, consider including it in the title, such as “Motorcycle accident lawyers in Madrid”. It is best if each page of your website contains a unique and different title, but concise and with a length of less than 65 characters including spaces.

Meta description tag

The Metadescription tag is displayed below your website link in search results and should be attractive for people to click on and visit you. Each page must include a unique description using the keyword for that page. Meta Description tags must be made up of at least 150 characters, avoiding non-alphanumeric characters.

Header tag (H1)

Each page of your website should include only one H1 tag. Although it doesn’t appear in search results, it’s usually the most important text on the page. The header tells your visitors what they are reading or viewing; think of the chapter title of a book. It has to be a short phrase and must include the keyword of the page.

page content

The content of your website, that is, the text that your visitors read, is also essential for search engines. Use between 300 and 700 words per page, including the keywords you previously selected. Match the content of the page to the topic of the keyword. Wikipedia is an excellent example in this regard. If you visit the Wikipedia page dedicated to Isaac Newton you will only see content related to him. The text on the page focuses on that topic. Search for “Isaac Newton” on Google and take a look at the first result. So always make sure that you only publish original material on your website.

Website navigation

Website navigation refers to all the links and how your visitors move once they access it, from one page to another. In addition, it is very important to make it easier for both Internet users and search engines. Is your website navigation built in code so search engines can read it? It is best to use HTML and CSS. Is each page you want to index linked through your web navigation? If not, you will have missing pages, and if they are not important enough for visitors to have a good browsing experience, search engines will rarely rank those pages.

Make sure all URLs are working properly because a broken link can do a lot of damage, so check the links on your website regularly.

Sitemap or Sitemap

The sitemap is essentially a map or directory of all the pages on your website. Its function is to guide search engines throughout your site thanks to the names and locations of the pages. They can speed up indexing and, in some cases, increase site traffic by indexing previously hidden pages. There are two types of sitemaps: HTML and XML.

An HTML sitemap is usually linked in the footer and is a web page that users can visit to see all the important pages on your site. An XML sitemap is something completely different. It is actually only binding for search engines and has specific protocol as well as code requirements. Every site should have one, and the XML sitemap should appear in your Search Console account and in the Bing Webmaster Tool .

Image optimization

Images help break up text and add visual interest to your website. Make sure to include an image on every page and optimize these resources for referral traffic from search engine image search engines. There are three important components to optimizing an image. First, it links the target keyword of the page with the name of the image file. If your page is pointing to “birch hardwood flooring”, then the image file name should be:

birch-wood-floor.jpg

Always use lowercase and separate each word with a hyphen.

It uses and optimizes the ALT text attribute of the image again using the target keyword of the page. Because search engines can’t view images the way we do, they rely on various attributes to properly catalog and index them. Do you know what the image ALT attribute is for the keyword “birch hardwood flooring”? Must be:

Birch wood floor

Finally, search engines take into account the text content of the image to understand the subject of the image. If you use “birch hardwood flooring” as the image file name as well as for the image’s ALT attribute and the page content is about birch hardwood flooring, the engines can safely assume that the image is a photograph related to a birch wood floor or at least related to that term.

Pro Tip : Optimize the size of your images so your website loads faster and ranks better in search engines.

link building

Incoming links are an important factor for the SEO positioning of your website. There are two types: internal links and backlinks. An internal link is simply creating a link to a keyword or phrase on one of your website’s pages so that it takes your visitors to another page on your website as well. For example, the phrase “Find a lawyer near you” would link to the dedicated office location page.

visual hunting

Backlinks are links found on other websites that direct users to your website. Search engines take them into account when determining your site’s ranking, and unfortunately, they are the hardest to come by. Some simple ways to create backlinks is by producing content of interest to your audience and promoting it through your social networks. It is not a quick method, but it is the safest and it works!

Take your time to write that content that interests your target audience so much and don’t forget to have profiles on the most important social networks for your company. They are usually Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, but LinkedIn, for example, is also one of the main ones, although it depends on your audience. If you want to target truck racing enthusiasts, LinkedIn might not be a suitable social network.

see you at the top

Search engine optimization can have a huge impact on the success of your online business. With these tips you have the basic tools you need to get started. Take a little time to set up your website and you will see your customer base grow thanks to your ranking in search results.