If you think that being a website owner ends once you’ve made the site live, think again. The creation of a website is just a very small part of an ongoing, extensive process that can lead to great success. To get your website ranking high in the search results, you’ll need a detailed strategy.
We’ve put together a list of the 5 top ways to improve your position on Google. This list isn’t exhaustive. There’s a huge amount of work that can be done to optimise a website. We feel that these are a great starting point for any website traffic strategy. Read on to find out more.
1. Plan Your Keywords & Content
It can be easy to choose your most relevant keywords. However, that doesn’t mean to say that it’ll be easy to rank for them. If you’re in a competitive industry in a popular location, you’re going to have to come up with a plan.
A good way to tackle a difficult keyword is to start small. Think of what questions your customers might have about your service, and try to answer those on your website. The more accurate and informative you can be, the better. This might not help you rank for your main keyword, but you could start to gain traffic through longer queries. The more traffic your website gets over time, the more likely Google is to trust you. This leads to a higher position in the search results.
Try not to think of a keyword strategy as an instant fix. SEO is an organic process, and it can take many months to see results. Remember to be consistent and stay up to date with the latest developments in your industry. By posting regularly, you’re showing Google that you’re active and relevant. Your content strategy should include regular new posts and periodic updates for your main website pages.
2. Be Mobile-First
Mobile responsiveness might be the most important feature for any website in 2023. Google now crawls only the mobile version of every website for indexing and ranking. If your site isn’t mobile responsive, this means that you’re very unlikely to appear in the search results.
To qualify for mobile responsiveness, your site should adapt to different screen sizes. It should also have text that’s an appropriate size for a smaller screen, navigation buttons that work and a clear layout.
3. Tidy Up Your Technical Work
If your website has broken links, duplicate content or 404 errors, it’s really important to get those things fixed. Google doesn’t just crawl a website for its on-page content. It also takes into account the technical health of your site. ‘Broken’ website are harder to crawl, meaning that your high quality content might not even be seen beneath the errors.
We recommend running a site audit to check for any 404 errors. Make sure that you redirect them to an appropriate page on your site. As well as this, check through any internal links to ensure they go to the right places. This way, your users and search engine crawlers will have a better experience accessing the pages on your website.
If you have pages with duplicate content, put aside some time to rewrite them. Google views unoriginal content as spam, which results in your site being penalised.
4. Create An Excellent User Experience
Find out what your users will get out of viewing your website. Do you offer a service that’s a solution to their needs? Will your website answer their burning questions? Have you made high quality video content to get users hooked on your ideas? Whatever it is that you create, do it and do it well.
There’s no point in generating large amounts of content if it’s not saying anything new or answering a question completely. A good user experience consists of fresh, easy-to-read content that leaves the reader satisfied. If they have to look elsewhere to answer their question, your content needs improvement. Every user that leaves your site to go somewhere else is a potential customer lost.
You also need to ensure that your site is speedy, secure and easy to navigate. Could your website be confusing your users? Think about their intent. If they’re accessing your website to purchase your product, it should be easy to get to the transaction page. If it’s more than a few clicks away, this could be off-putting. You also don’t want to overwhelm the user with a rushed, hard sell.
The key is to have everything available for the user to access at their own leisure. Most people who are looking to make a purchase will also want some information about the product and who is selling it before they commit to buying. If your company has a great backstory, be sure to share it! Emotionally connecting with your viewers is a great way to build trust with them.
5. Be Consistent & Persistent
It’s easy to tell you that you shouldn’t get disheartened. In truth, an organic SEO strategy takes many months to show results. It is very important to be consistent at updating your website with new, original content. If you don’t show persistence with your strategy, you’re not giving yourself the best chance.
There’s a few reasons for this. First of all, the more content that your website has, the better. It shows an in-depth knowledge of your subject. Second, Google wants to see fresh, relevant content. Frequent updates to your website shows crawlers that you’re active. This leads to your site being crawled and indexed more often. That then results in a better understanding of your site and potentially a better position in the search results.
