The search engine optimization and content marketing landscape is tough. With so many high-quality pieces of work being produced, it has become nearly impossible to stand out in most industries these days – at least not without a good strategy that will help you make your mark on Google’s algorithm.
If you’re just starting out on your SEO journey, you might be overwhelmed with the amount of information that’s available. Don’t worry, we’ve got some easy tips to get started.
In this article, we will cover the best practices that can help increase your site ranking faster. We’ll also share some tips for improving your search engine optimization (SEO) game. By implementing these steps into your SEO strategy, as well as making a few tweaks to other aspects of your website such as content frequency and engagement levels, you should see an improvement in rankings within days!
Remember, the most important thing is to understand what factors contribute to your site’s ranking, and then you can fix any weak spots.
What Makes Some Sites Rank Faster Than Others
All other things being equal, it is not uncommon that some sites seem to rank faster than others.
The first step to understanding how you can increase your site’s ranking is understanding what determines a website’s rank on Google.
You can be doing everything needed but still, your website isn’t ranked well. And that can be due to the age of the site.
Setting up a website takes time. And if you just set it up recently, then the search engines won’t know about your content yet! You need to “show” them that there’s new material coming in order for rankings success and this can take some patience (and maybe even frustration).
Make sure you keep working hard to create new content. Without regular updates, your pages will start falling behind.
The Basics Of An effective SEO strategy
1. Trust flow
Trust flow is a way of showing how trustworthy your site or company really are.
Google ranks websites based on how much it trusts your site. In order to rank well, one must have a high level of trust flow which can be achieved in different ways such as providing original content or following best practices for site design and search algorithms.
2. Fresh Content
When it comes to updating your site content, frequency is important because search engines use freshness as an indicator of the relevance and authority of a site.
Sites that are ranked faster have a history of being updated regularly. Sites that are not frequently updated tend to be penalized by Google’s search algorithm because their content quickly becomes stale or outdated, making it useless for searchers looking for up-to-date information.
So if you produce new, high-quality content more often than other sites in your field or industry, chances are good that Google will rank you higher for relevant searches.
To have a better chance for successful SEO, it’s important to update new content at least 2-3 times per week.
Tips: Ensure that you time updates for SEO properly by updating at different times throughout the day or week. If most people are looking at your website in the morning hours, update your website right before they are about to go to work or school, rather than during their lunch break. The more frequently you update the better chance of becoming one of Google’s top results for certain keywords terms each search engine query.
3. Session Duration
Designed to engage readers and boost rankings, Google’s algorithm for determining search engine placement is complex.
One known factor that impacts your ranking is the amount of time spent visiting pages on our site – called ‘session duration’. This number represents how long someone spends viewing content before leaving without reading anything else or browsing other parts of the website.
So what’s the key to keeping people on your site longer?
The answer is simple.
A good post, with sound information and an interesting topic, will keep readers coming back for more.
A post that is too short doesn’t give them enough information or context for their own thoughts which can lead to one-way communication with no feedback from readers; while if it’s too long odds are high someone will get bored before finishes reading (not everyone has the attention span needed).
People read blogs in different ways these days! Some people might just skim through them or maybe only check out what looks relevant at first glance – but others will devote hours to every single sentence because they love hearing new information from experts who know their stuff inside-out (and upside down).
Longer posts tend not only to get better engagement rates than shorter ones; they also have higher conversational capacities.
A good rule of thumb for length, roughly speaking (and depending on what your topic or niche might be), would be at least 1000 words. This will allow you to give your readers enough information and context that they can easily understand what you’re trying to express.
Tips: If you have trouble writing long-form content, here is something that helps to get it done. It has reduced the amount of time it takes for me to write an article from 8 hours down to 1!
4. Engagement
Engagement with audience members through social media mentions and comments can help increase rankings too.
Engaging people on Facebook and Twitter show Google that there’s something interesting going on at your website that users want to learn about—and this helps bump up its page ranking when someone does a quick keyword search within their social networks.
Also, make it a practice to reply to comments on your site, this show search engine that your site is active and that readers are interested in what you have to say.
In a way, the comment section also extends the length of our content. It naturally enriches our blog with more keywords.
5. Link Building
One of the most important ways to build a domain reputation and site authority is by linking. Links are a key ranking factor that bots/crawlers can use.
Bots/crawlers follow links through to subsequent pages, determining how relevant they are for the search query at hand. This applies to both internal and external linking.
6. Keywords
Keywords are phrases that people commonly search for on Google, Bing and other websites.
Keyword-rich content is important for getting rankings on Google because the search engine uses certain keywords as indicators of relevancy when determining where a website should rank in its results lists. It also helps that users are more likely to click through to a site if the search result includes keywords.
Make sure yours show up by using relevant info about your business such as its location plus any special offers going-on right now – this will increase traffic which means more chances of getting found organically.
Best Practices When Creating A Post
1. Write For Humans First And Search Engines Second
SEO is constantly evolving, and as Google gets smarter by the day it’s important to stay ahead of their game. You can’t outwit them with tricks or formulas so don’t bother trying!
Ultimately your priority should always be providing your audience what they are looking for – which only comes through writing engaging content that aligns naturally with human thinking (not keyword stuffing).
2. How To Get The Most Out Of Your Keyword Placement
Keyword placement is crucial in determining your website’s rankings so you want the right amount and location where it counts.
A study shows that Organic Search remains the dominant source of trackable web traffic at 53% share. Therefore, it’s important to put keywords at strategic places – don’t stuff it up with too many per page or post but rather place just enough where they’ll have weight when someone is searching on Google.
In particular, it’s important that you have a number of keywords in the title and meta description from your site. If someone is typing out a certain phrase related to what you do then Google will prioritize results with these words over those who don’t mention them at all or use synonyms.
Keyword In Meta Title
The meta title is basically the title of the page.
It specifies how the document should be searched in an online search engine. Meta titles can help or hinder your web pages’ placement when people perform a search for information.
Meta Title should contain keywords that people might look for online about your topic or related topics. They’re a form of meta marketing meshing closely with SEO practices that ensure strong rankings on commercial searches.
Keyword In Meta Description
The meta description is the short, contextual summary of your content displayed right below the Meta Title on the search engine result page.
You can think of it as a “teaser” for your article.
A meta description is the textual representation of your web page’s content, publicizing what’s on the other side. A good meta description should succinctly describe an article’s headline or purpose so that people viewing links to it on social networks or search engines have some inkling of whether they want to follow the link and see more.
Keyword At The Beginning Of Your Post
The placement of keywords in the first 100 words can make or break a post. A high-quality article places them at the beginning, which is typically where people start reading when they log onto Google for their search engine queries. It’s important that your readers are able to find what they’re looking for as soon as possible, so make sure these key phrases show up early in the article and provide relevant information about it.
Keywords In Image Alt Text Descriptions
Image alt text descriptions are essential for SEO and will help you rank in image-based searches.
Without alt-text descriptions for images, search engine crawlers will be left in the dark. This is bad news because bots can’t understand pictures without being told what they’re looking at!
So adding these important bits of information to all your pics and videos helps rank you higher on image-based SERPs too – When somebody searches for pictures on google, the picture will show up if it contains the same keyword. It’s just good sense from an SEO perspective.
For example, if you are writing a blog post on ‘how to optimise your website’, then using an image and includes the words ‘optimize’ and ‘website’ in the alt text, this allows the search engine to pick up on the keywords you are using, which helps with your page ranking.
3. Include Visual Content
Images are a fantastic way to add visual interest and appeal, not only for the readers but also on search engine results pages. They can help increase user engagement with your website as well by making it more accessible!
If you have time or resources available in order to create graphics yourself we recommend doing so, you can also add high-quality images from stock sites such as Shutterstock or Adobe Stock. However, if this isn’t possible there are always ways to get your images for free.
The last step is following best practices; these include optimizing images for the web (using the correct size of the image, file type), and adding alt text.
Page load time is an important factor to consider when weighing the SEO value of your site. Using large images can affect user experience and image search optimization, which will, in turn, penalize you with lower rankings from Google.
A long wait time for pages not only frustrates visitors but also impacts their ability or desire to return again.
You don’t have to optimise your images one by one, simply choose a Web Builder that automates this process for you.
For example, SiteRubix Web Builder is the ultimate site-building software that does all of your optimizations for you. It collects copyright-free free images from around the web and includes them in galleries for you to use- everything will be automatically optimized when publishing it. You can test it out for free if you are interested.
Tip: If you are keen to find out more about image optimisation, this is what Google says about it .
4. Internal links
Internal linking is the technique of placing hyperlinks on a webpage pointing to other pages on that website. This technique helps search engines find the content of your site easier, improve page ranking and the flow within that site.
It’s important because they can help provide more signals for Google’s algorithm to identify the importance of a website. If enough of the content on a given page is referencing other important content found elsewhere on the site, it gives Google more information about the importance and relevance of that page in relation to everything else.
Internal linking will also help visitors navigate through different pages in an easy manner without having too much difficulty finding what they are looking for, which can increase engagement rates as well.
There is no magic number as to how many links to use per post. Just use it naturally, make sure not to overcrowd it with too many or make them difficult for users or search engine bots to follow easily.
5. External links
External links are links that will take you to another website. It’s the opposite of an internal link, which is a link that takes you to another site on the same website that you’re currently on.
The idea behind external links seems counterintuitive when those clicks directing your readers away from your website. However, linking out accomplishes two major goals. Firstly, linking out to trustworthy sites can help to strengthen your brand reputation and site authority. Secondly, it actually helps Google figure out what your content is about for SEO purposes.
In a way, this practice is also good for building trust among visitors who may have clicked away from the site and landed on something valuable or relevant to them.
6. Embedded Video
Integrating video into your blog post can help you to communicate your message with a large number of people, as well as being a fun way to entertain and engage visitors on your blog!
If you are creating video tutorials then consider using YouTube as opposed to hosting videos directly from your website – simply by linking back to them instead. This is part of good SEO practices but will also help improve user experience by allowing people quick access to relevant information.
Otherwise, go find any video on YouTube related to your topic and check whether or not its shareable.
Click on the button ‘Embed’.
Copy the embed link and paste it into a post as long as it isn’t protected by copyright laws (which means there won’t be an issue with sharing).
Video’s visual appeal will grab the user’s attention and keep them from bouncing off your website too fast. The engagement time on average for each video viewed is more than seven seconds – meaning that your readers will spend more time on your site.
7. Request Indexing
Once your article is published, you can ‘notify’ Google of your new content and get it indexed faster by Request Indexing.
Request indexing is a process calling on Googlebot to crawl your page and rank it in the search engine results pages (SERPs). To request indexing from the Google Search Console navigate to the left side of the screen, find URL inspection, insert your post’s URL into the box with http://yourwebsite.com/post-title/.
Then make sure you click on “request indexing”. If everything is set right for now after some time (a few minutes) it will say that your website has been queued successfully!
8. Update Old Post
If you’re writing new blog content or blogging on a regular basis, there’s really no reason not to consistently update older posts too. Your older blogs will have more future value if they don’t wind up being out-of-date already – so updating them periodically is all about making sure the information stays valuable and up-to-date.
By updating an old post with a fresh perspective, you are also providing new content to your readers and increases the likelihood that they’ll share it on social media – which all contribute to higher rankings.
9. Avoid Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO is an umbrella term describing deceptive tactics that are used in search engine optimization to manipulate the ranking. Websites that use these techniques generally try to fool the search engines into giving them a higher ranking for particular queries.
Common black-hat SEO techniques include keyword stuffing, link manipulation to obscure content ownership, and other methods designed to take advantage of search engine ideals without providing quality content.
The problem with this tactic is that it will only result in a temporary boost in popularity, there is no longevity. You will not gain true long-term organic rankings because the spammy tactics will often be tracked by Google and other search engines, which can result in either loss of rankings or blacklisting completely.
Conclusion
With so many sites vying for attention, it can be hard to keep up with all the competition, It is crucial that you do all you can to improve your site’s ranking and increase traffic.
One of the most important things to remember about SEO is that it takes time. Be persistent – but not to the point that you invest too much time into it and end up burning yourself out.
SEO is a marathon, not a sprint – so pace yourself accordingly, and don’t rush into things if you want your website to rank on page one of Google. Google takes time to index pages so be patient.
Remember: patience = success!”
