Having your site rank at the top is a peak of online business success. Google is the number one search engine in the world and gets about 12 billion searches every month.
You want to get top ranking on Google, which will in turn give you a higher possibility of growing and maintaining your online clientele.
Unfortunately, there is no trick or shortcut to achieving this success. You must be willing to employ proven strategies and get the work done to reach the top.
How To Get Higher Ranking On Google
1. Understand the Google ranking algorithm:
The truth is, you cannot fully understand the algorithm Google uses in ranking websites because it changes regularly without notice. The best information people have about the algorithm is derived from algorithm updates such as Mobile friendly update, Pigeon, Hummingbird, Penguin, Google EMD’s, Panda, and Phantom.
So how can you track all the information you get from all these and make sure it’s useful for you? Moz’s Google Algorithm Change History, The Webster and Google Webmaster Control are all great resources to tap into if you want to get some understanding of the Google algorithm.
2. Evaluate your present search ranking:
You would not know the steps to take to improve your site ranking if you don’t know where you’re currently at. There are several resources and tools that can help you determine your current web ranking on Google.
The first is SERPs.com. Suppose you’ve been aiming specific keywords on your page, this site can help assess your rank. Simply type in the keyword you’ve been targeting as well as your website’s URL. From the results you will get to see where your site ranks in each search engine for every term, what page comes first from the topic results, the average number of searches you get monthly, and the average cost of clicking each keyword on your site.
One of the things that affect your site’s ranking is speed. So in finding out more about your current ranking, you need to know what your site speed looks like. If it’s slow, your search position on Google will be low and it affects the ability of clients finding you.
There are many tools available for checking site speed and my favorite include:
• WebPageTest
• Pingdom Website Speed Test
• YSlow browser extension
• Rigor
• Google PageSpeed Insights
When you host with Wealthy Affiliate your site speed is always there for you to see.
The other element that affects site ranking on Google is the health of your site. For your site to be healthy, all elements must be working optimally such as the network, domain, and email among other systems.
There are many incredible tools that can help you determine how healthy your site is. My all-time favorite is the MxToolBox Domain Health Report tool which looks for any major issues in five areas: mail server, general site issues, DNS and web server.
3. Measure and track the correct metrics:
Next step involves taking a good look at some key metrics for your website to unveil any other factors that may require improvement. The most relevant metric for assessment includes organic traffic.
Organic traffic helps you discover the number of visitors reaching your site. You should have a Google Analytics account so to get this data just log into it and examine the acquisition channels statement.
4. Make sure that your website is mobile friendly:
Research shows that today over 60% of all online searches are made from a mobile device be it a cell phone or tablet and this number is expected to grow. If your website is not mobile friendly you will not get a good ranking on Google, in fact, you risk being penalized for it.
So how can you tell if your site is mobile friendly? Simply use the Google’s mobile-friendly test. It gives a simple and quick solution to help you ascertain if your website meets the requirements of a mobile-friendly site.
All you have to do is type in your sites’ URL and then click on the tab ‘Run Test’.
The results display themselves in a simple and easy to understand manner.
Wealthy Affiliate is always monitoring your website to make sure it is mobile friendly.
5. Identify and correct any existing penalties:
Unknown to you, your site might be in violation of some Google rule and regulations and when you have penalties, they affect your site ranking no matter how good it is on the surface.
Start by analyzing your site’s inbound links and you do this using the following tools:
Open Site Explorer, Majestic, Ahrefs, WebMeUp, and SEO profile.
6. Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with keyword research:
Keywords play a significant role in SEO. For our site to be effective, you must pinpoint keywords that your target audience is using to get to your site. To find this out, use Google Keyword Planner site and then click on the tab ‘Search for new keyword and ad group ideas.
After that input, your primary keyword then clicks on the keywords tab. A table will pop up showing all the keywords that have been used in searches per month.
Researching keywords give you firsthand information about your audience, what they want to get from your site and how they prefer to get it.
7. Improve your Google ranking by using on-page SEO:
The best tool to use to help you achieve this is Backlinko which is an infographic that breaks down sixteen on-page SEO features, which can help you improve your Google ranking tremendously.
8. Generate great content using keywords:
When you write detailed and resourceful content with informational keywords incorporated therein, you improve your search ranking. In addition, you should supplement your content using meta descriptions that are descriptive and title tags. This will attract more visitors who share your content on social media platforms as well. In my opinion this is most important.
9. Build links in the proper manner:
A strategy known as the anchor text linking approach is the best when you’re looking into ranking using a particular keyword. You can use the target keyword as your anchor text. However, you need to be careful and avoid penalties so it’s advisable to add in a few generic keywords into the mix.
Thanks for this great article on generating organic traffic to achieve a higher ranking in Google. As someone who is indexed in Google, but still waiting for that ranking, your tips can go a long way in helping get to where I want to be! Thanks fo much and I hope you have a great start to your New Year!
Thanks for your comment Steve, if you have picked up a few tips from it then that makes my day. Happy New Year.
Wow! This post just proved all kinds of helpful and informative for me! I am a new affiliate marketer and I had very little knowledge of most of the points that you discuss in this post and I am very grateful as knowledge is power and this post of yours is yielding all kinds of inspiring vibes. I am really happy to see your recommendations for Wealthy Affiliate as it looks like they take a good portion of the aspects here and dial them in for you to be more successful. Thank you for the great insights…have already bookmarked your site and look forward to more to come and learn from! Happy New Year!
Hi Bex
Every tip on ranking in google that can be utilized is a plus and I’m glad you found some more useful tips to help with your marketing. Happy New Year to you and yours also.
Thanks for this great educative piece about how to rank my site on Google. I must say I never have this training before I joined and go premium on Wealthy Affiliate. But thanks to all the great training about how best to use keyword to get ranked. Have wasted a lot of my time writing online without achieving any success. Getting to know how important jaaxy application which let us know the best niche to go and how is the competition in the market. Special thanks to experienced bloggers like you and people in live community in wealthy affiliate.
Thank you and I’m happy you found a few more tips on marketing. Yes Jaaxy is a great tool for finding niches and awesome keywords, all the best in your new business venture.
Great advice here. I use Wealthy Affiliate as well, and I dunno why my website is slow on mobile according to PageSpeed. When I load it on mobile, I don’t experience any issue at all. And on a computer, some pages get the 100 pass mark. Any idea on how to improve the speed on mobile? I usually get 30 to 40 on pagespeed. Thanks for talking about Backlinko. I will subscribe to their website and see what they have to offer.
Getting 100% load speed for your website on your computer is great. I have been as low 40 – 50% on mobile and then the next time I check it will go up to 70 – 80%, Not sure why, will have to ask around. Thanks for the comment.
Wayne you have provided some great ideas for improving one’s rank in Google. I had heard of some of these but not others, so I appreciate your guidance. There are so many factors that affect one’s ranking in Google as well as other search engines, and it can seem very overwhelming. You provide a good checklist for anyone building a website who wants to see better ranking and more visitors. Thank you for your insights!
Your welcome Cheri, we need to use some of these ideas that affect our websites for better ranking and more visitors. Here’s to lots of committed and buying traffic.
Thank you so much for this post, Yes the ranking criteria changes overtime and one has to have a proper understanding of the algorithms.Using the right keyword is key to ranking fast on google and also the SEO,i hosted my site through wealthy affiliate and I look forward to put the right strategies into place so as to rank well on google. Thanks
Your welcome, you are already ahead of the game as far as I’m concerned because you are hosting and building your website in the Wealthy Affiliate. program.