If you build it, they won’t come—until you get your website to rank better on Google! Whether your website is old or new, you need it to rank in order to drive new website visitors. Yes, your existing customers may know how to find you online, but having a website is all about expanding your reach. Here are just a few ways to get your website to rank better on Google.
Write Naturally
Instead of diving into keywords, how to select them, local area keywords, and how many to place on each page, let’s talk about what is most important—writing naturally. Sometimes we get so focused on inserting keywords that we lose the natural rhythm and flow, and fail to write in a manner that engages our website visitors. Yes, you need keywords on every page, but with every algorithm update Google increasingly rewards businesses who write to add value to their website visitors. In fact, this is the only major factor in Google’s most recent update, BERT.
Website Load Speed
If your website loads slow your visitors may lose interest or view you as less professional than a competitor with lightning-fast page load speeds. More importantly, a slow website will never rank high in Google.
The first thing you should consider is if your images and media files are too large. If you have a lot of videos on your site, don’t upload the file directly—instead upload them with a YouTube or Vimeo link. This can greatly improve website speed. Also, use a plugin to shrink and compress your images.
If those two changes don’t improve website speed it is time to reach out to a pro to see what else might be the problem.
Links And Broken Links
There are several different linking strategies to consider, particularly when mapping out your blog topics. Before we get into more advanced linking strategies, let’s discuss the basics:
Internal Links—your website pages should link naturally to other pages. For example, your home page may have a short description of your most popular services, and link to the relevant service pages. You never want to place internal links just for the sake of linking, so place them naturally. For example, blog posts should link back to relevant pages, products, or services on your website; not just to your home page.
Outbound Links—your website pages may not have much in terms of outbound links. However, you could link to an outside official source, like a newspaper, magazine, or research data. Aim to have at least one quality outbound link in every blog post.
Inbound Links—inbound links are links from other websites to your website. This linking strategy is reason for you to attempt to find guest blog post or sponsored article opportunities. If you pay for external content that links back to your site, ensure the audience base is within your target demographic
Broken Links—broken links are links that route to pages that no longer exist. The easiest way to determine if you have broken links on your website is to install a broken link plugin and check it at least once per month.
Voice Search Terms
Mobile website browsing is continually on the rise, and the way people browse the web on mobile devices is different than when on a desktop computer. For example, on your desktop you may type in “Italian restaurants in Melbourne” while on your mobile device you may type in “Italian restaurants near me”.
On mobile you are also more likely to speak your search request instead of typing it in so it might sound something like “where is the closest Italian restaurant”. This means all brick and mortar businesses must be on Google My Business which we will discuss below. However, it also means that you must have common voice search questions on your website. The easiest way to achieve this is by adding a FAQ page to your website, and to create blog posts that answer common questions. Questions should begin with What, Where, How, Who, Why, and When.
Google My Business Listing
If you are an ecommerce business, you cannot have a Google My Business Listing. If you are a brick and mortar location, this listing can play a vital role in driving traffic to your website—and your business. Don’t think of GMB as only a review site, as the higher your business ranks here among your competitors, the more walk-in traffic you will generate. There are a lot of things you can do to ethically optimise your GMB listing but here are a few quick tips:
- Make sure that your business name, address, and phone number are updated. Also, ensure your business is properly categorised.
- Before you name a new business, consider adding what you do to your business name. For example, instead of “Byron Brothers” name your business “Byron Brothers Home Construction”. It’s a small change that can make a big difference online.
- A steady stream of 4 and 5 star reviews will help you climb GMB listing results and boost overall website rank, so remind customers that they can leave reviews. You can do this by posting a sign at the register, verbally requesting reviews, adding a link to your reviews in your next newsletter, and posting positive reviews to your website and social media.
Just The Tip Of The Iceberg!
These are just a handful of the things you can do to get your website to rank or rank better on Google. As you can see, there is a lot to learn. Instead of taking SEO on yourself we invite you to reach out to the team at Co Media. We are experts in all things digital and deliver rapid and measurable results!
