The best way to increase website traffic is to rank higher in Google. Here’s how!
How to Rank in Google Searches? SEO Decoded!
Do you have a business of your own? Do you want to drive more customers towards it? Well, who wouldn’t!
Realizing the importance of online presence and having a big consumer base, you build your own website.
But unfortunately, you’ve been too busy focusing on small business management.
You’re not experiencing that boost in traffic even after quite some time. You ask your customers if they’ve seen the site. Most of them say they’ve not. You do a Google search for your business, and your page is nowhere to be seen. You then ask yourself: How do you get ranked on Google searches?
A million other businesses are asking this right now. This leads us to a bigger question: How do I effectively implement SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
SEO increases your visibility online. The free queries on search engines, called organic searches, will show your website higher if you have implemented SEO. In 2014, there were over 14 billion devices connected to the internet. That number has grown exponentially since. In 2021, that number is predicted to reach 46 billion (including IoT devices). Imagine the impact that ranking high can have in this day and age!
Why Is SEO Required?
There are various methods to let consumers know about your services. These include commercials, online advertising, flyers, hoardings, radio advertising, etc. To be spread on a significant scale, all of them require a lot of money. For small business owners, this becomes a problem as they are short on extra money. After all, a small business continuously needs more money coming in to grow at a healthy pace. Here, SEO becomes the most cost-effective yet influential method for growing your business.
Why? Because the internet is everywhere and more and more people are using online searches to buy products and services. The rise of e-commerce giants establishes this fact. If people search for a particular service and your page comes out on top, there is no limit to how much you can achieve!
So How to Rank in Google Searches?
Though no one knows exactly how Google ranks pages, the most important factors are well known. With thorough study and experience, we have established the following actions on how to rank in Google searches.
1. Content Matters the Most
Create unique, valuable content that other people would want to read. This way, other posts would like to link back to you for a particular purpose. Plus, when you frequently post and add new content to your website, this helps Google to see that your page is regularly updated, which is great in the eyes of Google.
2. Better User Interface Means Better Rank!
One of Google’s parameters while ranking pages is the average time spent on the site or retention. If you have a clear, pointed, and eye-pleasing UI, people are more likely to spend some time there rather than exiting to some other site. This helps in building your rank. Ensure your landing page (a page which outside links first direct to) is neat and eye-catching.
3. Choose Appropriate Keywords
Keywords are those words that you think people might search for when looking for a service or product like yours. One of the major things you need to do is choose your keywords wisely to make your site relevant enough for people to search for it. The most important keywords should be in your page titles, and all the others should be used in your content. But remember not to overdo them! If Google detects too frequent usage, it considers it as spam and might penalize the site.
4. Use Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tailed keywords come in handy many times. Long-tailed keywords are the long, specific keywords for which there is little competition.
They also tend to target consumers better than the shorter, “to the point” keywords. For example, people in Sacramento won’t type in “Dentist” to see one; they would type “Dentist in Sacramento” or something similar.
In fact, long-tail keywords account for the majority of web searches. So if you aren’t targeting these in your strategies to increase website traffic, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
5. Give Attention to On-Page SEO
It’s 2021, and SEO is still not dead! That is why you should continue optimizing your content for search engines. For on-page SEO, you want to make the most of your image alt text. You should also create internal links to fresh new content. And don’t forget about your meta descriptions! These tasks don’t have to take very long, and they can do wonders for boosting your organic website traffic.
6. Internal Linking
Speaking of internal links, let’s talk about why that’s so important. The effectiveness of your link profile isn’t determined only by the number of sites linking back to you. Your own internal link structure is also a huge factor. So whenever you’re creating new content, keep internal linking in the back of your mind and look for opportunities to include internal links. It’s useful for SEO and for helping users find what they want, which is why Google incentivizes internal linking for ranking higher.
7. Backlinking Is Essential
It will do you a world of good if other sites about similar topics have links to your site. Writing better content and commenting reasonably on other content with links to your site can help. Also, never hesitate to link to other sites from your own page. If you think other websites are worth looking at for your consumers, then go for it! This will encourage others to link back to you!
8. Social Networking
Make the most effective usage of social networking to spread the word about your business. Facebook pages and Google My Business profiles are the best ways to do this. The huge presence of potential customers will do you a world of good if your idea clicks right, and it only has to click right once!
Many sites will go on and on to give you hundreds of tips for social networking, but you just need to make sure you get your basics right. It can be very helpful if someone in your business understands these aspects well and monitors the traffic and conversion rates.
These steps on increasing website traffic from Google searches are quite easy, but they take some time and patience. Remember, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.