I'll tell you a secret, there's no trick or magic number that will help you out. Learning how to improve website ranking is just a case of learning how to put out content worthy of higher placement.
That's what Google wants to see, because it's what users want to see. Ever since Google made its Panda update in 2011, emphasis has been on quality content.
On top of that, since the Penguin update in 2012, SEO strategies that are aimed at artificially increasing rank (gaming the system) don't work, and ultimately get you punished with LOWER rankings.
How To Improve Website Ranking – What Still Works?
We know that we can't try to use some tricks to get higher rankings anymore, but that's actually a very good thing. A lot of the gamers have left the Internet. There's less competition, and it's easier for good content to get noticed. All you have to do is optimize your content a little bit to help it get found, then trust the search engines to do the work.
With that in mind, here are some of the things you should be concerned with in 2021.
1.) Use Long-Tail And Low Competition Keywords.
It's a big old Internet out there with billions of Internet searches taking place daily. In every niche there are people searching for very specific questions that you can answer. Find the questions, answer them, and get traffic.
2.) Forget About The Keywords Beyond The Title.
People seem to think there's some magic number of times a keyword should be inserted onto a page to get top rankings. They also seem to think that they should insert the keyword into meta descriptions and so on.
Perhaps this was true in the past, but not anymore. Remember, you're writing your content for users not search engines. Once a user has typed their query into Google and landed on your page, you don't need to remind them of their query every five sentences. They know it already.
Of course, you might naturally write the keyword or variants of it over the course of the article, and that’s perfectly fine. Keywords used naturally throughout your article will help you rank better — but it is better to use a natural pattern than try to insert keywords where they don't belong — Google will not reward you for this.
3.) Share Your Content Socially.
Sharing content with social media circles has many benefits. You’ll get more exposure, you’ll get visitors, and if those visitors like what they see (they comment, read the whole article, click around on your site, re-share it etc), you’ll get some love from search engines too.
When an article is first published, it can take time for search engine spiders to find it (especially on a new site), so sharing with social circles is an excellent way of getting the ball rolling. The more people like your stuff, the more Google will. Simple.
4.) Encourage Comments.
Just like with social sharing, encouraging comments will have positive effects on your rankings. Google loves sites that have interaction and create engagement. Nobody wants to find a “dead” site where people just leave, they want to find a site with fresh, entertaining, and engaging content.
Create a discussion on your site and you’ll be surprised at how much of a boost your rankings will get. Don’t just encourage “nice site” type comments though, they have to contribute something to the debate.
5.) Add Media
“Media” (images, videos, infographics and so on) benefits the end user, and no surprise here, Google likes that.
Make your site more engaging by using videos where possible, images (at least one per page), and anything else that is necessary. Of course, find a balance, because if your site loads too slowly then that’s going to harm your rankings a lot more than benefit them.
I like to record videos and upload them to YouTube and Wistia, then embed them in posts. It increases the “time on page” that my visitors spend, and gives them something else to do other than read.
Often, adding a video will increase my rankings.
6.) Keep Posting Consistent, High Quality Content
Just like I mentioned above, since Google’s Panda update the emphasis has been on quality content. Google no longer looks at individual pages, but at the overall rating of the site. The more high quality content you post on a consistent basis, the better.
You don’t need to post every day or even every other day, twice a week is enough if that’s all you can do. Just be consistent.
7.) Link To Your Content From Your Other Content
Sites that have a good interlinking structure tend to enjoy higher rankings. They are easier to navigate, have a higher “pages per visit” count, and serve more information to their users.
By interlinking, I mean you link between your posts. An example is further up this page where I link to one of my other pages on “how to research keywords”. It’s useful to users, and Google will notice that too.
8.) Forget About Your Rankings
Finally, it’s hard to do, but you need to stop focusing on your rankings (especially if it’s effecting your mood and motivation). Hitting refresh or Googling your site every few hours to see if your rankings have gone up or down isn't going to get you anywhere.
New sites and new posts on sites tend to go through what’s known as “The Google Dance”, where they move up and down for a week or two while Google finds the best spot for them (they can still fluctuate for months though). This can be pretty exciting and disappointing to watch, and ultimately leads a lot of people insane.
The worst thing is, you might think you've done something wrong when your rankings go down, or you might think your strategy isn't working and give up.
The hardest thing about writing online is that you often have to wait months before you know if what you are doing is working, and that’s the sad truth.
The sooner you can get over this point, accept it, and just get on with adding good content to your site, the sooner you will notice that your rankings have gone up since you last looked (which hopefully, was at least a week before).
9.) Encourage Return Visits
If people are returning to your site, that’s only going to be a good thing. Encourage return visits by publishing regularly, and maybe even doing a “series” of posts with multiple parts, or posting the same category every Tuesday (for example).
Additionally, by using an email program and collecting subscribers, you can share new updates and posts with them, further encouraging return visitors and engagement.
Learn More
To learn more about increasing rankings and creating quality content, check out HPD's training programs.
Highly appreciating post. But Google offers good services for tags and keywords through its tools.
Excellent post Bryon. This is something I keep forgetting… I keep focusing on a keyword. I put it in the title, URL and meta description AND THEN in the first paragraph too.
I should stop doing this. Title and URL is enough.
Need to brainstorm some more keywords and get back to creating some more awesome content.
What is Jaaxy like for the long tail keywords? The tool I use doesn’t seem to do the long tail stuff too well. Anything more than 4 or 5 words all the results seem to be the same.
Jaaxy is excellent for long-tail keywords yeah, most of my good ones have come from there. Google instant is also good, but you never know the search volume. Title and URL is enough like you say, anything else is just to help Google really figure out what your article is about. If you are doing things right though, they’ll already know.
Meta description is fine, but I only do manual meta descriptions if I don’t like the snippet Google has given me.
I only do the meta description to try and make the post more enticing to click on. Might give Jaaxy a try, still have all 30 free searches to use
Yeah that’s what I mean, I do meta description when I want to manually make it look “cleaner”. Usually Google chooses a good one based on what the person searches for, but sometimes it picks up image alt tags and so on, so you have to force it.
Yeah definitely check out Jaaxy.