It’s every marketer’s dream to be ranked first for their chosen keywords and stay at the top of the search engine result page (SERPs). While some look for shortcuts to improve SEO ranking, the hard truth is that search engine optimisation (SEO) is never a sprint, it is a marathon that requires continuous improvements. Before reading further, if you are new or unfamiliar about SEO, be sure to head over to our handy SEO guide before continuing.
SEO is probably the most powerful digital marketing tool a marketer has. Not only it is cost-effective, but the long-term benefits also outweigh the short-term cost. In short, once you have already been ranked high on the SERPs, it is unlikely for such ranking to drop drastically.
Companies fight fiercely for search ranking because the benefits are great. Statistics from Databox shows that Google receives approximately 75,000 searches per second, of which 67% of all the clicks go to the top five organic results. Hence, appearing on the first page of search engines is extremely important in getting website traffic – think of it as having a retail outlet right at a busy cross junction, it just means more customers!
There may be many ways and approaches to improve SEO ranking. However, we narrow five ways to help you improve SEO ranking
#1: Avoid Keyword Stuffing
A common mistake most digital marketers commit is flooding your articles and website with the chosen keywords. This may have worked in the past but not now.
Engaging in keyword stuffing will affect your engagement levels with your readers as it reduces readability. In fact, it is also a signal to Google that you’re attempting to trick their algorithms. This method will backfire, and you will end up not being listed in Google’s search results.
Instead, strategically plan for the keywords you would like your website to rank for by using keyword research tools such as Moz. For instance, you decided to rank “IT Services” after conducting keyword research. The ideal approach for keyword optimization is to use the keyword once in your title, description paragraph, introduction, and a few times in your body text – and that is sufficient. Just remember not to spam your article with keywords, quality works better than quantity here!
#2: Avoid Low-Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are among the heavily weighted ranking factors by Google. A backlink refers to the incoming links from other websites. This may be a result of other websites mentioning you in their articles or re-publishing your content.
In the context of backlinks building, quality wins quantity. Multiple low-quality backlinks contribute nothing compared to a few high-quality links. Google view websites with multiple high-quality links as credible and authoritative.
Hence, avoid building backlinks with websites that are penalised by Google – websites with a low domain authority (less than 20) or spam websites. A website’s domain authority can easily be checked using tools such as Moz.
Tip: A good domain authority (DA) is more than 30 and you should ideally aim for the website with DA of 70. A page authority (PA) of at least 10 is generally considered good.
#3: Optimize Your Website For Speed
Whether mobile or desktop, it is crucial to ensure your website loads as fast as possible. This is especially true for mobile since Google’s has a mobile-first policy that uses the mobile version for indexing and ranking. Google provides some tools to check your website speed:
While the optimal speed varies depending on the industry, every webmaster should aim to increase the speed of their website’s pages. After all, a slow-loading website not only affects your SEO ranking but also frustrate your visitors.
2 seconds is the threshold for ecommerce website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half second.
Maile Ohye, Google
There are many ways to improves the loading speed and covering all of it is another topic for discussion. Here are some ways that you should take a look for possible improvements:
- Image size: Be sure to optimize and compress all images before uploading them.
- Server Response Time: Ensure your hosting plan is adequate, it may be time to upgrade or change your hosting provider.
- CSS codes: When using gimmicks like third-party software, pop-ups or advertisement, make sure to remove unused CSS (code comments, formatting) to reduce loading time.
- Redirects: Reducing redirects minimize the number of HTTP request-response cycle to be completed.
- Pop-ups: Be careful with using unnecessary pop-ups as certain pop-ups will hurt your ranking.
Of course, there are many other technical aspects that affect optimal website speed. It would be best to consult your web administrator to improve your website speed.
#4: Fix Your Broken Links!
A broken link is a dead hyperlink on your website that directs to a page with a 404 error. This could happen due to internal and external factors. Internally, your developer could have deleted a linked page, change the URL address but failed to update the correct URL or simply placing an incorrect URL into the text link. Externally, the same issue could happen on other websites you linked to which is beyond your control.
Broken links are frustrating for everyone. For your website visitor, they affect their access to information. For marketers, it poses a challenge as having too many broken links means that Google bots are less likely to crawl the site as they signal to Google that the site has a poor user experience. The end result is that Google is not impressed and view you as unreliable.
Note: Google is all about the user-friendly experience.
Regular maintenance is necessary in order to ensure your website does not suffer from multiple broken links. Fortunately, there are various tools available to conduct broken link checks. For larger websites, once a month is ideal, and you should rectify any broken links detected immediately.
#5: Go Big On Originality
Some websites utilize blogs as part of their SEO strategy. You will be surprised how many people actually think that reposting content from other websites has the potential to work wonders. In fact, if you index a duplicated article, Google will start to view your website as a ‘copycat’ and push you down the search ranking.
Generating good quality original content may require tremendous effort. However, there are a few ways to identify interesting original content to engage your audience:
- Google Trends: Depending on the industry, you may identify a trending topic for new content.
- Old Content: You may have a large archive of old content; sometimes a simple update of old articles may be all you need.
- Existing Content: Look at your existing content and see if you can expand it further. For instance, we could write a new article on “Target Audience Persona” by expanding our Digital Marketing Strategy article.
- Keywords: Based on the keywords you want to rank; you may come out with topics around them.
Ultimately, do not attempt to duplicate other content on any part of your site. It definitely not beneficial to your site. Once consumers find out that you are a ‘copycat’, your branding would only improve – negatively.
A Final Note
The road to achieving a fantastic SEO ranking is a long journey. There are no hacks for overnight success that improve SEO ranking. The only way to improve SEO ranking is to be committed to dedicating consistent time and effort to keep up with the industry’s best practices. Results will appear in due time and you’ll need to be patient!
If you are looking to improve SEO ranking, engaging a professional SEO agency such as MarketingGuru may be worthwhile. Not only do they possess the relevant experience and expertise, but you also save time trying to figure out the technicities that improve SEO ranking.
