Top 20 SEO improvements for high Google ranking.

Table of Contents

You can’t just explore SEO improvements, aiming for a better Google ranking.

You need to implement a comprehensive strategy for sustainable success.

In today’s world, the customer clicks only the top search results on Google.

There is more than a 30% chance that the top result gets clicked by the viewer.

We will show you 20 simple but tried and tested methods to improve your SEO ranking.

First Things First

Evaluate your current ranking before SEO improvements

First, we have to check the current ranking and positions, to do this, there are lots of online tools available such as SERPs.com, Moz.com, Google Search Console etc

keyword rank checker

Each will show you keyword-specific results by providing the domain name and location. Also

  • shows the current site ranking in the eyes of search engines.
  • Number of times that domain is searched.
  • Serps and Moz will also show the click cost of your website if your website is implementing Google ads.

However, I personally prefer using the Google search console previously known as the Google webmasters tool.  

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. 

The Search Console helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site. View Google Search traffic data for your site: how often your site appears in Google Search, which search queries show your site, how often searchers click through for those queries. How many sites link to your website. Fix indexing problems and crawl problems, blocks etc. on your site

Search Console also reports updated content, errors when encountered, indexing, spam, or other issues on your site.

Further, it helps Troubleshoot issues for AMP and mobile usability and helps you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results.

Also, all these tools check the health of the website and remove some basic existing errors and warnings.

 

Understand Google Ranking algorithm.

Google ranks the pages on its unique intelligent ranking algorithm.

Google’s ranking algorithms come into play by trying to understand
what you’re looking for, so they can be helpful even if you don’t know exactly the right words to use, or if your spelling is a little off.
 
Then they sift through millions of possible matches in their index and automatically assemble a page that tries to put the most relevant information up top, for you to choose from.
 
Okay, now we have some results.
 
But how did the algorithms actually decide what made it onto the first page?
 
There are over 1,000 factors that go into ranking search results, so let’s talk about a few of them: You may already know that pages containing
the words you searched for are more likely to end up at the top – no surprise there.
 
But the location of those words, like, in the page’s title, or in an image’s caption– those are factors too.
 
There’s a lot more to ranking than just words.
 
Back when Google got started, they looked at how pages linked to each other to better understand what pages were about and how important and trustworthy they seemed.
 
Today, linking is still an important factor.
 
Another factor is the location – where a search happens – because if you happen to be in Sydney, Australia, you might be looking for information about their annual Anzac celebrations, but if you’re in Newyork, you probably aren’t.
 
When a webpage is uploaded is an important factor too – pages published more recently often have more accurate information, especially in the case of a rapidly developing news story.
 
Google spends a lot of time trying to stay one step ahead of spammers who try to cheat Google algorithms and gain high ranking. Google algorithms can recognize scam sites and flag them before they make it to your Search
results page.

According to Google, they are changing the ranking algorithm every year and making hundreds of small updates each year. 

They even name these updates, some of which are the famous Penguin and Panda updates.

The following picture illustrates the spread of the importance of key factors in the way the Google Ranking Algorithm works.

 

Components of Google ranking algorithm

 

Google has produced a number of algorithms to rank a website’s functionality and quality over the number of spammers. E.g.

Google understands the intent of the searcher, rather than just the keywords and understands the query you want to say aside from the keywords you are using or not. 

Google’s other assessment criteria are mentioned below in detail.



Age matters

The age of the webpage matters. Search engines are more likely to place a webpage on its first page if the website’s age is over five years old.

The website does get popularity even when the backlinks and their referencing links, are coming from aged websites.

If you want to improve your Google rankings for any of your pages, you need to be patient. 

Over time, with your quality content, you get more audience, you’ll receive quality aged links and you’ll increase brand awareness; all of this matters.

The graph below presents the popularity of websites over time, and that indicates the importance of the age factor.

Page rank with year to show age and influence on rankings
Age of a domain

Improve Title Tags

Title Tags are still a big part of how your site will perform.

Tags should be descriptive, unique, and related to targeted keywords.
Produce unique tags and do not repeat again and again
Example:

Curly Hair Leave-in Conditioner – Hair Care | Call Diana’s (02) 8005 2864

    • Use pipes (|) and dashes ( – ) instead of other characters.
    • Try not ALL CAPS; tags must be written in an appropriate form.
    • Put the essential and unique keywords first.
    • Write natural strings related to your keywords over forced keyword phrases.
    • Overstuffing keywords is a terrible practice.
    • Some people don’t even click the link in the Google search results page, so add your phone number and they’ll call on the spot.
    • Improve local search by adding your locality eg Liverpool, Sydney Australia 



Improve content

Content is King. Content is an essential part of the website or any page that wants high ranking and conversions with the right type of marketing content.

If the content is good, the viewer will stay longer on your page, and it will attract additional traffic since Google tracks how long its users spend on a page. The longer the user stays before returning to Google, the more relevant the copy is to the keyword.

Therefore, quality content means, relevant to the search query, easy to read, uses keywords, and emotions, and excellent visual presentation. Oh, and plenty of photos and links to other sources.

Here are a few ideas to use to write attractive content, quickly; 
  • top 20’s,  so you might have a title “top 20 things to do to get high Google ranking, or
  • do x and get y today.
  • Best titles are short and clear: “If this then that” e.g. “If you want more leads from your website, then follow these seven simple steps”…

These are just some examples, however, make sure it’s good value. Google can decipher between Good quality, valuable content and quickly written mishmash.




Improve Website loading speed.

 

Speed test
Run a Speed Test.

Search engines always keep an eye on the web page loading speed, and page loading latency which should be very low to help with your ranking.

Moreover, the visitor would not like to wait too long for a page to load up and will probably leave never to come back again. Slow page load times will lose visitors and lead to less traffic. On average, a website visitor will spend 7 seconds on a page, scanning, looking for what they are after. If your page loads longer than 5-6 seconds it’s too late the visitors already left. 

Following these easy tips can help your website load faster.

    • Choosing a fast web server can increase the speed of the website
    • Optimise your website code so it’s clean and lightweight.
    • Optimise website images down to under 50kb, so the visitor’s browser loads them faster.
    • If you have many images or a long page, utilise Lazy loading which is the loading of partial content, only the part that’s viewable by the visitor. The remainder gets loaded if the visitor scrolls down the page.
  •  

You can also check the speed of the domain by using pingdom.com

Put the URL and location will show the latency of the website and all the other speed-related insights.  Gtmetrix website is another great site to measure how fast your webpage loads along with a list of bottleneck issues that slow it down.

Host your website close to where most of your website visitors are, for example, our clients are mainly in Sydney, so we have our servers here in Australia. 

 

Make Websites mobile-friendly:

 

According to the research, Overall, more than half ( 55% ) of the website request comes from mobile devices and the rest are from desktop web browsers.

There are more mobile users than PC users. However, this can differ from website to website, audiences and so on. For instance, office workers usually search via desktops. So if your website is targeting office staff, you will find the desktop usage stats higher.

All Websites should be compatible and optimised for mobile web browsers.

You can optimise your page and develop it so it’s mobile-friendly by using the following techniques.

Do not use Flash, Flash content and Flash player greatly downgrade the performance of the website and deliver it slower for Mobile phones.

Use Elementor for WordPress or Use Mobile Plugins like WPtouch.

Improve text-to-html ratio, too much HTML can be a burden for mobile devices slowing down page load times and therefore preventing your mobile search positions from performing

There is a unique tag called “meta viewport tag”. Add this into the header of every page, to tell browsers to adapt according to the device the page is viewed on.

 

Improve postions in Google results for mobile sites




Add Metadata

Meta description, for example, is still displayed in Search engines. It’s the description of the content. So use it, and make it descriptive and attractive so people click on your ads.

It’s essential to add the metadata, don’t skimp on it. A throughout, concise description increases the chance of getting clicked. Moreover, add keywords in the metadata as well. visitors usually scan and will see them.

Mention your location here also, so you might use a sentence such as “Visit us at our showroom here in Prestons” since shoppers like to shop locally.

 

Use Specific keywords

According to Google’s ranking algorithm, the use of keywords is beneficial and critical, and keywords should be: Relevant, Appropriate and Understandable

For example, instead of using the keyword “Fast Food” use “Best Fast Food in Sydney.”

Doing This will increase the SEO of the website and will make it more relevant.

Include every keyword in the header tag.

 

Write Interesting and worthy titles

 

The title is the most focused part of any webpage or blog. It appears directly in the search ad.

A title must be interesting to grab the attention

We will tell you how to write an excellent title that adds value to your page.

Here are some guidelines you must follow:

A Title:

    • Must be click-worthy
    • Relevant to the content
    • Must contain keywords
    • Emotional
    • Not more than 65 words

Example :

Improve CTR with good Titles

 

Include valuable backlinks

Backlinks are the URLs from the other websites to your web page.

We have a whole blog on getting awesome backlinks

Acquiring High Page Rank (PR) links are essential to attain a high rank in Google. In other words, getting links from relevant, large, popular sites would give you a huge boost in ranking.

The high PR links must be from relevant websites or blogs. The topic must be of similar context to your page and the anchor text should also be keyword-rich.

Creating backlinks by commenting in different high PR blogs used to work well in the past, but has been abused by many so these days let links come to you naturally. 

Just write good-quality content. 

SEO Improvements via quality links
SEO Improvements via quality links

Its also important to consider improving your backlinks, by disavowing any toxic backlinks you may have acquired in the past. SEMRUSH has a great tool for this, but take great care when doing this.

Fix Broken Links

Broken links or dead links are lethal for your website. Google would lower the rank of the page if you have any in your website.

Make sure all the links are working on your page.

Check the links by using broken link checker websites. There’s plenty online

Identify broken links and replace them with live links; they must be relevant.

Do not link to bad neighbourhoods. In other words, don’t link to bad, spammy websites, as it will negatively affect your own website.

 

Connect your page to social media.

Connecting your website to social media greatly enhances your ranking.

When someone tweets or shares your content on social media, it creates a direct inbound link to your page.

Google loves these shares and tweets.

Create a blog, and update it frequently. Try and promote the page on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others.

Hopefully, if it’s helpful content you may get a few likes and shares. 

 

Create Longer Content

In blogs, the content length must be more than 2,000 words; in research, the pattern has shown that more content leads to higher rank.

If you have less than 2000 words, add contents of the existing text, instead of writing from the start.

Sometimes topic does not demand lengthy paragraphs, only needs bullet points.

The purpose of writing in detail is to satisfy the reader with enough details,

so the reader does not go to other sites to find relevant information; the user must be satisfied with the knowledge.

Create Google Business 

A visitor must know what the page, the company and your business are about.

So, create a Google business page and add your contact and About Us details.

“About us” contains a detailed summary that someone could read and understand the inner workings of your organisation.

But, most importantly, to help improve your local SEO efforts having a Google business page allows your customers to leave you feedback and the more feedback you get the higher your website will rank. Google review is a strong signal for Google to determine how active your business is in the real world.

Moreover, contact details in Google Business allow your website to be displayed on the Google Maps software which is also very critical, google uses contact details in their search engines to show the contact details and since many users these days search via the map to find local businesses.

 One other advantage is also, having a phone number in Google Business allows searchers to click on the number and call you right away without additional steps such as visiting your website. 

Here is an example:

Google business
Google business



Improve bounce rate by adding video to the content.

Videos are eye-catching and usually engage the audience and help reduce user bounce rate which in turn helps SEO. People prefer to watch a video instead of reading, and videos are more emotional than text.

Moreover, you can put a link to your YouTube video channel that can play a vital role in getting traffic to the YouTube channel and help sell your products and services.

Merely adding a video to your page, will not affect your ranking much. Instead, it directly relates to a lower bounce rate and longer dwell time.

Which again says to Google that your page is providing value to its users. As the video contents grab the attention of the user it keeps them on the page for longer.

Many companies like Apple and Microsoft are inserting videos of the products on their websites instead of just images and descriptions.

You will find a “Play”, “Watch Now” or even  “Watch Later” button, on every major website nowadays. 

It helps to sell, gain increases click-through rate, reduce bounce rate and improves Google ranking.

Make your Page secure

Every website must be protected and provide a secure link to the user.

An SSL-secured website dramatically affects your ranking, especially with E-Commerce websites.

Make sure all your web pages start with HTTPS and also use SSL with no broken SSL pages.

If your website is not secure, Google Chrome will display an error that doesn’t look professional for your business. 

Also, Google wants to help its users by sending them to safe websites, so will rank accordingly.

Improving website security not only helps with nosy hackers listening in on user traffic but also helps with Search Optimisation.

Add Sitemaps

 

Sitemaps are the directory of your website and contain links to all pages on your website. 

It Helps search engines crawl your website and understand the hierarchy of the site. A great SEO improvement.

Adding a sitemap to the site is very easy, There are numerous websites that help build a sitemap. Learn more about creating sitemaps.

 

Create a Blog

 

Blogs are crawled quicker than web pages. According to research websites with a blog have more traffic than those without.

Through blogging, you can get more natural traffic, especially with weekly fresh updates.

Answering questions, or producing and posting new ways of how to do things is also a great way to interact with customers and visitors. People learn a lot through blogs and like reading them.

Blogs create a more dynamic environment as opposed to static websites.

Optimise blog content for SEO and also choose a creative theme.

Publish posts regularly or frequently, at least once a week, if you want your blog to be noticed. If you want popularity, add hot topics and news and write interesting facts that are not known by everyone.

You can start a blog for any kind of business or topic. Moreover, they are the backbone of SEO nowadays.

 

Submit URL to Directories

Submit your URL to one or more directories. local directories and yellow pages along with Chamber of Commerce websites help quite a bit.

There are lots of free web directories but choose paid ones, with High PR they get you better results.  

Submitting to directories is an old SEO technique but still helps.

Avoid too many links at once and stay away from spammy link directories, they are toxic and will negatively affect your rank.

Also, make sure your name, address, and company details are correct and match up with all directories otherwise you will encounter NAP issues.

So our company Hype Studio, is actually registered with the ATO/ASIC as Internetwork Solutions trading as Hype Studio Australia, so that’s what we use.

Our address always matches exactly what we use with Google Business eg. 6/89 Jedda Rd, Prestons NSW 2170 not unit 6 89 etc.

Its worth going to all the business directories you registered with and fixing these issues to help with your local ranking in Google maps.

 

Conclusion:

Everyone wants the first page of Google.

We have provided 20 SEO techniques that will help with your Google ranking.

 Start to improve your ranking using SEO (Search engine optimisation) techniques as outlined above and you will see your ranking lift.

 There is no shortcut to success; improving your rank is not an easy task; it takes time, lots of quality work, devotion and the right audience and internet traffic.

Regularly update your content, engage with your audience, get real traffic, and don’t use shortcuts to get a higher rank.

You should keep yourself up to date with SEO updates, they’re important and help you avoid mistakes.

Also, keep in mind, that most searches belong to Google. However, in this Blog, we didn’t mention Bing, Yahoo and others since almost 80% of the requests come from Google. But don’t worry, all the factors mentioned above apply to all the search engines one way or another, they all work in a similar fashion.

In summary, for the best SEO improvements write quality, thorough, relevant, fresh content, consistently.

Get good links. Get great reviews and before you know it, you’ll be ranking for many keywords.

Good luck.

Learn more about our top notch SEO Services 

 

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