- Blog
- July 1st, 2022
Most people are aware that Google is presently the most popular search engine globally; therefore, it makes sense to design websites to rank high on it. Most people don’t realize that a website’s ranking on Google is not determined at random. When you enter a search term, Google rates each relevant site using the Google Algorithm, which creates a score based on a “secret” scoring system and ranks sites based on the highest score.
I am often asked, “How can I boost my website ranking?” At the absolute least, you should follow these guidelines. There are no shortcuts; you must read and study. There is also no assurance that no matter what you do to boost your rating, you will rank higher on Google, but there are certain fundamental things you can do to your site to aid placement.
Here’s a helpful article on the fundamentals of search engine optimization tactics. This is a simple SEO tutorial, not a comprehensive one, but it should provide some ideas to get you started.
1. Keywords and Keyphrases
Creating online content varies from traditional writing. To produce online content, you must first understand keywords, keyword phrases, and keyword density. You must modify your writing style to appeal to search engines while still making your work interesting for readers.
When developing websites a few years ago, it was sufficient to simply add a “keyword meta tag” to the code that created the website content. This meta tag was merely a collection of terms such as This set of keywords assisted Google in determining the topic of the page. Yes, you may insert misspelled words as well.
This keyword tag was subject to abuse, with users stuffing it with keywords, some of which were irrelevant to the site’s content, only to achieve a better ranking. It didn’t take long for Google to adjust the relevance of this tag such that it had little if any, influence on position. It is now worthwhile to include the tag for other search engines, but it does not affect Google’s rank.
So, how should keywords, keyword phrases, and keyword density be used? The keyword is a bit of a misnomer; instead, you should target a keyword phrase. People no longer utilize single keyword search searches; instead, the typical search query includes 3-5 related words.
In any case, keywords or keyword phrases are the words or phrases that a consumer or prospective user of your website would enter into Google to locate you. Choosing the correct keywords to optimize your site is a vital first step. General or general keywords are often not the ideal strategies. It is sometimes preferable to be more precise and concentrate on specialty keywords related to your product or service. Some search phrases, such as “earn money,” might be quite competitive!
Consider a website that sells trendy shoes to young men and women. The issue is that there are a LOT of shoe merchants with websites out there, so how can we get our trendy shoe website to appear in Google’s top 10 rankings? We could attempt to optimize for the term “shoes,” but I assure you it would be a difficult effort on its own since it is simply too broad. More specificity is required, which means:
1. Find a more appropriate market for your style of shoes.
2. Competing against fewer websites that target the same keywords
3. Optimizing for terms that individuals use while doing searches
There are a few ways to see how competitive your keyword phrases are, but the simplest way to see how many sites you are competing with is to do a Google search and note how many results are returned. The more sites that compete for your keywords, the more difficult it will be to rank on the first page. So, using our shoe store as an example:
Results 1 – 10 of approximately 56,100,000 for fashionable women’s shoes. (0.25 sec)
1 – 10 of approximately 1,560,000 results for fashionable women’s shoes. 0.029 seconds
1 – 10 of approximately 62,700 results for fashionable women’s shoes Leeds. 0.028 seconds
Do you get the picture?
Alternatively, use a keyword popularity tool to get a rough idea of how many people are searching for the keywords you want to optimize your site for. It’s not exact, and it doesn’t track Google searches, but it provides a good estimate. You can also use Google’s, Keywords Tool. Based on the keywords you enter, it will also provide you with a list of related keywords. This can be an excellent method for locating additional keywords to optimize your website.
Now that you’ve learned what keywords are, it’s time to learn how to use them, so keep reading.
2. Keyword Density and Website Content
The pages at the top of Google all have one thing in common: excellent writing. There is a lot of content that is well written and relevant to the website. It should come as no surprise, given how frequently Google emphasizes the importance of good website content. Most SEO “experts” or “specialists” never mention it, preferring to focus on the technical aspects of SEO, such as optimizing title tags, page titles, alt tags, etc. All that stuff that sounds impressive in the report they offer you to improve your website while also confusing you!
So, what exactly is well-written content? What does Google search for? Here are a few ideas:
* Consistently updated content; write new posts, articles, and blogs at least once a week. Google favors freshly updated pages and websites. According to them, a dynamic site is more appealing to its users than a static site that hasn’t been updated in months. Furthermore, having more content means having more pages for Google to index; Google prefers larger sites, and each page can be written to target specific keyword phrases. The more content you have available, the more likely you are to be discovered.
* Spelling and grammar should be error-free, if possible. It should be considered whether Google rewards or penalizes poor spelling and grammar. To begin with, nothing irritates someone reading a web page more than a slew of errors. Second, no one knows what the 100 factors in Google’s algorithm are, and it’s entirely possible that spelling is part of their scoring system.
* Effectively use paragraphs, sentences, and lists on the page to emphasize the content and break up the text. This is more for readability, but who knows how Google judges content? If they see a large block of text without paragraphs, they may penalize the ranking because it appears unfriendly to users.
* Keyword relevance within the page’s text. Numerous terms are related to the keyword, as well as keyword variations. Make sure keywords or keyword phrases are used frequently but not excessively in your page’s text. When writing for other humans, we try to use word variations to make the text more readable. When writing for search engines, you should avoid overusing keywords, even if it makes the text easier to read. There is a fine line between writing well for your users and maximizing your keyword density.
* The final and most important factor to consider when writing web page content is keyword density. Consider your keywords and keyword phrases. Use the keyword(s) as often as possible without keyword stuffing the page. Under ideal circumstances, your article will have a keyword density rate of 5-7%. This means that your primary keyword/keyword phrase should appear in 5-7 of every 100 words in your article. The keyword density is 5-7 percent. Don’t interpret this as a license to spam your web pages with keywords. This will ruin readability and annoy your potential customers, but it will also be penalized by Google. Yes, they are well-versed in all the trade secrets! Additionally, ensure that your opening paragraph includes your keywords, preferably in the first sentence, as this informs the search engine that this is the focus of your copy.
3. The Title and URL Bar
Your domain name and title tag are two of the most important factors in Google’s ranking.
There may be reasons not to include keywords in the domain name, or the domain name may already be registered, making it impossible to change. The alternative, and a useful strategy for everyone, is to incorporate your keywords into the names of your pages.
Your domain name is just as important as your title tag. The title bar is the blue bar at the top of the browser, as illustrated below:
title
Using keywords in your title tag can significantly improve your Google ranking. Trying to strike a balance between professionalism and keyword density in the title tag, on the other hand, can be difficult at times.
If your website is built on a CMS (if you can update your website using an administration tool to add your page content), the CMS should be designed so that you can change the titles of your pages. Most Content Management Systems will do this for you automatically by generating a page title from the name of your page. In your CMS, you will be prompted to enter a page title, which will appear in the blue bar. So choose your title carefully.
Typically, the CMS will also add your domain name to the blue bar. Furthermore, your CMS will almost certainly add the category to the page title if you categorize articles.
Google spiders like titles because they give them a good idea of the page. For example, in the image above, you can see the page title of one of my website pages and the article category, and my website’s name. The title bar contains numerous keywords.
If your website developer or whoever is in charge of your website has not optimized this title bar, please say something; it’s very important!
Another tip is that the closer your keywords are to the front of your title tag, the better. To begin with, some search engines can only read a few characters in this title bar, and you don’t want to risk cropping the tile and losing some of your keywords.
Keep the title brief and to the point. Many CMSs put the domain name at the beginning of the title tag, which is fine if it includes good keywords, but if it doesn’t, you should move your domain name to the end of the title tag.
4. In Your Content, Use H1 / Headings / Titles
If you use a CMS with a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Editor, your headings may be labeled as “heading 1, heading 2, heading 3′′ or “H1, H2, H3′′. The heading tag in HTML is. Headings, along with the page title, are critical in SEO. It tells the search engine what your page is about once more. Search engines consider the text in a page heading to be more important than content. The headings are also ranked in order of importance by search engines.
Here’s a simple example:
Google considers this text to be more important than this, which is the page’s least important title. This paragraph is less important than the headings, but any content is more important than the following paragraph because it is the first. This paragraph’s text should include relevant keywords, but it is not as important as the first paragraph.
5. Linking Techniques
Backlinks are the most difficult aspect of the Google SEO process. Backlinks are websites that link to yours directly. Google appreciates backlinks. Every link from another site to yours counts as a vote for your site. The simple reason is that if another website links to you, your content must be good, right?
The more backlinks you have, the higher your pages will rank. Again, we can only speculate on how Google classes backlinks. Backlinks from directory sites like Freeindex and Yell are unlikely to carry as much weight as those from non-directories. Again, if a website that links to you has content that is similar to yours, if it is about the same or a similar topic, it may carry more points. If a website that links to you is ranked high on Google, it may give your site a higher ranking boost than a low-ranking site.
It’s all common sense, but getting people to link to your site is essential while keeping in mind that the links must be high quality. Getting anyone to link to you may do more harm than good……remember, Google is always on the lookout for those who cheat and don’t take it seriously.
It takes time to set up backlinks. Every day, I would recommend emailing 5-10 websites to request backlinks or partnership links (keeping in mind that the sites contacted should be relevant but not competitive). Within a few weeks, you should have a hundred or so sites linking back to yours! It may take some time for this influence to be reflected in your ranking, but I have found it to be one of the most effective ways to improve your Google ranking!
Conclusion
Google can be a difficult search engine to master. However, we hope that this article has provided you with enough basic information to optimize your website. SEO takes time; changes you make could take up to 6 months before Google notices them. Be cautious of what you change and make a plan. Start now if you aren’t already implementing any of the above suggestions.