Ever wondered how to get your website to the top of the search results? Well, the wait is over. The following strategies will get your website to a first-page position with the rewards of flowing traffic and new clients to your site.
Make the right keyword selection
A common mistake by many businesses is to attempt to optimize for the wrong keyword-or even worse, choose no keyword at all.
The keyword you choose for your business should describe what you offer as a service or product. It seems simple enough but there are so many ways to phrase the same thing that research is needed to make sure you’re the keyword you’re attempting to rank for is a good match for your site.
When you choose a keyword it should describe your business but it also needs to represent a minimum amount of traffic as well as be a realistic keyword in which you can rank on the first page. This is where keyword tools come in handy.
Use Moz keyword explorer to analyze the keyword of your choice. You can get an idea for how much search volume your keyword represents as well as how difficult it will be to rank for it. Moz will even list the top three competitors that currently rank for that keyword.
You can check the domains that rank in the top three spots for how many backlinks they have by copying the URL of the ranking page and plugging it into the link explorer. This will give you a backlink report so you can see the quality and quantity of referring domains that point to the ranking page.
Use this information to make a much more educated decision on the impact the keyword has on your business.
Create depth in your content
Once you have decided on the best keyword, you will need to create content to support your status as having an expert opinion. Google loves websites that demonstrate expert opinion through related content published and linked to a keyword-optimized page.
Establish the major topics that are directly linked to your keyword idea. Go through the same process of determining keywords for additional pages on your site. Find the best keywords that you can include in a long-tail key phrase.
The idea is to rank these articles for less competitive phrases that may not bring in as much traffic as your main keyword but will contribute to the relevance and credibility of your main keyword. These articles will also lead you visitors to your main keyword page by linking to it within the body of content.
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This subtle strategy takes a hub and spoke structure and is commonly used to optimize and organize the content on a website to highlight the most important keywords and topics.
Speed up your pages load time
Google has stated that page speed is a ranking factor so increasing the load time of your pages should be a regular commitment in order to maintain a competitive edge. Not only will slow page speed hurt your ranking but it also causes an increase in the bounce rate of your website. People get impatient when a page takes too long to load and will back out and look for another option.
You can test your page speed by using any of the tools that appear in a search for “page speed testing tools.” Google offers PageSpeed Insights in which you can type the URL of your site and get a score based on the time it takes for the first appearance of meaningful content.
A report is provided at the bottom of the page to indicate where you can improve the time it takes your pages to load.
You can be proactive at reducing your page speed by making sure your images are reduced to the size that is needed for your site. Delete any plugins that you aren’t using as they too will clutter your header with JavaScript and code which causes search engines to take a longer time to parse.
Reach out for credibility
Most pages that rank on the first page have backlinks to add to the credibility of their content. You will need to make a list of sites that will link to your content in order to receive enough credibility and authority to outrank your competition.
If your brand has been in the news or is a semi-known name you can look for unlinked brand mentions to earn some backlinks. You can start by searching Google for mentions of your site. Use this search operative to exclude your own site and any social media links (they don’t count for much in terms of authority).
intext:[insert company name] -companyname.com -twitter.com -facebook.com -pinterest.com -youtube.com
The results will display websites who have mentioned your brand in their content. When you find a website that has mentioned your company name but hasn’t linked to you, simply reaches out with an email asking them if they would mind adding an anchor text link from your company name to your website.
The odds are if they have already mentioned your brand in their content, they won’t be opposed to linking to you as well.
Broadcast your content
Whenever you publish a piece of content that’s worth sharing, post it to every social media profile you own. Leave a call to action on the post asking readers to share with their network. Leaving a call to action can get you 4 times as many shares than the post alone.
As your network grows so will the power to generate traffic to your website. Although social signals count for very little towards ranking, you have a better chance of acquiring more backlinks when more traffic is being driven to your site.
SEO for small businesses is not an option when it comes to getting your site to the first page of Google. It’s a regular part of doing business and should be implemented as early on in the life of your website. The earlier you get started the more prominence and authority your company will develop in the search results. Establishing authority in your industry will contribute to driving the most traffic from competitive positions on the first page of Google.