When you own a company, you strive to be the best in every way possible and stand out among competitors. This can mean anything from winning an award to having the highest number of positive reviews online. When it comes to digital marketing success, one of the best ways to determine your competitive standings is through your Google ranking.
Your company’s ranking on Google refers to how high your website or related content is listed on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. The higher your ranking, the more traffic you’re likely to receive. Research shows that the first organic search result on Google has an average click-through rate of 27.6%.
You want to identify the weak spots in every aspect of your company to determine how you can keep growing and improving. That’s why your digital marketing strategy should include search engine optimization (SEO) tips to help boost your rank. When SEO is a focal point in your efforts, you can make sure that you’re taking the right steps to appeal to the Google algorithm and rank as high as possible.
In this blog post, we’ll talk about contributing factors to your Google website ranking. Then, we’ll share seven SEO tips worth incorporating into your strategy.
What to consider when trying to boost your company’s Google ranking
The truth is that ranking on Google is all about knowing what the algorithm wants, and figuring out how to check those boxes. By learning about the different SEO factors that can contribute to your Google ranking, you can figure out how your business’s website content needs to be adjusted, as well as strategies that will help to get you in front of as many eyes as possible.
Having a high ranking on relevant Google SERPs does more than boost your click-through rate and traffic rates. Your rank can represent your credibility to users who want to go to the most trustworthy source possible for their information. It also boosts your brand visibility and recognition. Your name is likely to stick out in a user’s mind when they’re ready to make a decision or a purchase in the future.
Here are a few SEO factors that play a role in your company’s Google ranking:
- Quality — Your site’s content should be written without grammatical or spelling errors. It should provide value to the user that’s relevant to the keywords they’re searching for.
- Keyword optimization — Use keywords throughout your site’s content so that the algorithm can understand the value that it provides to the target audience.
- Backlinks — Being linked from another reputable source can boost your credibility and establish your authority in your specific field.
- Usability — A user should be able to easily navigate your site, on both desktop and mobile, with fast page loading speeds, working internal links and easy navigation.
7 tips to help boost your website ranking on Google
Now that we’ve talked about what the algorithm is searching for when it comes to Google ranking, let’s dive into specific tips and tricks that incorporate those factors.
If you’re trying to boost your company’s ranking on Google, here are seven tips worth testing out:
- Speed up your site — There’s no denying that in the time of having the world at our fingertips, people don’t have much time or patience for slow websites. If a page doesn’t load in three seconds, it’s likely that users will click off. A site’s page loading speed can impact key SEO contributors, including user experience and mobile-friendliness. Complete a technical audit to see your site’s load speed and how you can improve it. Strategies like allowing for caching and compressing images may help.
- Don’t be shy with keywords — Keyword placement is everything. Using a targeted keyword only once or twice just won’t cut it in your content. Find specific, relevant keywords that are popular for your target audience, and make sure they can be found in the right places in your content, from the title and URL to the meta description and image file names. They can also be present in your site’s Google Business Profile description and the anchor text of your internal links.
- Consistency is key — Even if you have the best business in the industry, having an out-of-date site or inconsistent campaign efforts can get in the way of your online reputation, which decreases your credibility and authority in the space. Posting new content on a regular basis is essential for trying to rank high on Google. When you’re consistent with your posting, the algorithm can see you as trustworthy and recognize how you keep users’ interest by regularly providing new information.
- Optimize old content for relevance — If a post doesn’t provide enough value for a specific keyword, it won’t be recognized as relevant by the algorithm. When it comes to trying to rank higher on Google, it can be helpful to look back at what’s already been published but isn’t performing well. Take a look at older content and determine how it can be optimized for relevance. This can include adding new external links, focusing on a user’s specific pain points and incorporating secondary keywords.
- Focus on being skimmable — When you spend time and effort on creating site content, you hope that a user reads every word of it. However, that’s just not realistic. Keep in mind that the user is likely to skim what’s on the page — they want to find the key information, have their questions answered and move on. Since the algorithm understands user behaviors, it also values content that can be skimmed based on factors like format and brevity.
- Prioritize long-form content — While everything on your site provides value of some kind to a user, the Google algorithm tends to gravitate toward long-form content. Making blog posts that are longer than 1,000 words or videos longer than 10 minutes (e.g., webinars) will showcase your expertise and insight to the algorithm. Plus, long-form content allows you to provide comprehensive information that anticipates and answers users’ questions while also boosting engagement and creating evergreen posts.
- Answer the right questions — Targeting long-tail keywords in your content brings less rank competition than broad keywords. It also enables you to showcase your insight and relevant value to the algorithm, leading to higher Google ranking. By answering particular questions through your content, you can appeal to the intended target audience because the keywords have lower volume, so the people who are searching for them are looking for specificity, not generic, broad content.
At BURG+CO., we know what the Google algorithm is looking for when it’s ranking sites. We use that insight to create strategies that will get you to rank as high as possible on the search engine for increased traffic, engagement and conversions that lead to growth.
Want to attract new visitors to your website with a boosted Google ranking? BURG+CO. can help
Increasing traffic to your website plays a role in increasing conversions and leading to new clients. However, it’s difficult to attract visitors to your site when you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, this is what we specialize in at BURG+CO.
Our team has years of experience in helping businesses improve their digital presence to attract new leads and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more visitors to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help. Contact our team today for more information about digital marketing or to schedule a complimentary consultation.
