SEO best practices: 10 tips to improve site ranking

SEO is an essential part of successful businesses. It’s a fact that internet searchers are more interested in Google’s first page than other pages.

Equally, many businesses and marketers have discovered how to improve site ranking in-order to get their website to the top of Google. And they’re enjoying the value of good search engine optimization (SEO).

If you’re reading this article, I’m convinced that you’re interested in ranking your site and being ahead of Google’s algorithm. Thus, you’ll learn 10 ways to improve your website ranking and getting organic traffic to your web pages.

Tips for Improving Your Google Ranking

Keywords are not the only aspect of SEO. As much as it’s important for you to improve your SEO ranking by choosing the right keywords and adding them to your headings, subheadings, and metadata, it’s also vital that you focus on other factors as well.

When your website provides visitors with a convenient and reliable experience, they will always return when they need information about a given topic. Apart from user experience, your web content needs to be straightforward and up to date.

Let’s not get the cat out of the bag just yet. Below are the 10 best tips to boost your website ranking on search engines.

1. Boost Your Page Loading Speed

Have you ever been on a website that took forever to load? I can tell that after a few seconds of waiting for the pages to load, you opted out. Correct? You’re not alone! Page loading speed is a BIG deal.

Google and many other search engines include the page load speed of websites in their algorithm. And when your website takes more than a few seconds to load, your dwell time reduces and your bounce rate increases.

Bottom line: compress images, minify code, and include caching plug-ins to improve page load times. You can use Google’s ‘PageSpeed insights‘ to get some tips on how to improve your site performance.

If you run your site on WordPress you can also use the following tools:

• W3 Total Cache – Allows you to cache pages and minify code to improve site performance.

• Compress JPEG & PNG images – This will compress your images automatically after uploading without losing any quality.

• Lazy Load – Lazy loading is a technique used to make sure only images that are in the browser’s viewport are loaded.

2. Link to Authority Sites

Including outbound links in your content can bring users to your website. People believe in research and seeing links to well-known sites can assure them of your website’s authenticity.

Another reason you should use outbound links is that they boost site ranking and create a level of trust between you and Google. Nonetheless, use a minimal number of outbound links to avoid making your content unintelligible.

3. Publish Informative and Engaging Content

When people visit your site, they’re looking for quality content. And you have no excuses not to deliver relevant content which answers their questions and includes a call to action to the services they are after.

If you run an online fashion store, for example, your content should include the most recent fashion trends and how fashion lovers can fit them into their own style. Anything short of users’ interest will be ignored and your site ranking may stay down.

Again, as far as content is concerned, research your keywords using relevant forums, Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, and a host of other keyword tools. Utilize emphasis tags and other formatting tools like bold and italics.

Keep your writing interesting and informative and your users will keep coming back. An extra perk: your SEO will get even better!

4. Optimize images

Images are often ignored when site ranking is discussed. Many webmasters focus on content and pages, while paying little attention to the optimization of images.

Focus on the size and format of the image. Is it small enough to boost your page load speed? Can you compress it a little further? Have you saved the photos with the ideal keywords and not just an ordinary name?

Pictures are an integral part of site ranking; so, you should ensure that they are compressed and correctly labelled with alt and title attributes.

5. Make use of videos

Top websites are known to include videos and audios in their text, as these improve their website usability and enhances their user experience.

Users want to connect with your website, and text is insufficient to achieve this purpose. A “how-to” video can explain your products and convince potential buyers of the need to choose your business over other brands.

Videos speak volumes even more than words and they’ve been found to increase the time users spend on a website.

Go on now and create an interesting video, and you’ll see the improvement in your Google ranking.

6. De-clutter Your Web Pages

Sites with excessive and disorganized content tend to attract fewer views. Your website needs to be neat if you plan to improve site ranking.

Use a reasonable amount of everything e.g don’t overload your site with images or too much text, it’s important to get the right balance. If you are monetizing your content using ads, it’s essential not to overload your pages with adverts as this can cause your users to leave the page and search engines can even penalize you.

Make it easy for users to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for. Make sure the pages are neatly arranged and well designed so that users can conveniently use your website without any headaches.

7. Maintain a Mobile-Friendly Website

Today, most people connect to the internet using their phones and tablets. The rate at which people make searches using desktops has largely reduced. In essence, your site ranking will take a leap when you optimize your site for mobile.

Make use of a responsive web design when building your website by using a grid system like bootstrap. When users browse your site easily and conveniently using their mobile devices, Google will be happy!

You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly test to see if your website is optimized for mobile.

8. Promote Social Sharing

Being active on social media is the secret to reaching a wider audience in the shortest time possible. Your website should have sharing links to social media platforms where readers can share your content.

With social icons on your content, your site will enjoy more organic search and site ranking will improve.

9. Include a Strong and Clear Call to Action

A compelling call to action tells your website users the specific thing you want them to do after reading your content or visiting your pages. Whether it’s “Contact Us”, “Place an Order” or “Call us now”, ensure that your readers know what to do at the end of a page.

10. Provide Contact Details

What’s a call to action without contact information? Always leave location address, phone number, and email address which users can use whenever they need to get in touch with your business.

When your contact details are available and simple, people will trust you.

Closing Comments

In brief, SEO ranking will always be valuable to websites and businesses. You need to build it now for the future if you plan to have an edge over your competition. And if you’ve never had these 10 tips in your SEO toolkit, welcome to the club!

Don’t wait another sec. start with the simple ones until you achieve all ten. Evaluate your site ranking overtime and enjoy the process of getting your website to the top of Google!

If you need further assistance on optimizing your site don’t hesitate to contact our experts on digital@techmatador.com or using the form on the following page.

Did you find these SEO tips useful? Let us know in the comments below. We are happy to know the SEO tricks that worked for you.