It’s well-known that Google search results are influenced by various factors. You probably know how important keywords and high-quality content are for Google rankings. There are a few more factors and strategies to consider if you want to improve your rankings.
Let’s look at some tried and tested methods to improve Google rankings and website visibility. If you’re new to SEO, check out our guide.
- Reengineer the Keywords of Your Competitors
- Use Conversational Phrases
- Add Buttons for Social Sharing
- Refine Content Readability
- Link to Authority Sites
- Boost Site Usage
1. Reengineer the Keywords of Your Competitors
Getting ahead of the competition is important for improving Google rankings. After all, improving your rankings isn’t ideal if you’re still ranking below your competitors.
That’s why it’s so important to keep an eye on your competitors’ Google ranking strategies. This includes tracking their keywords and re-engineering them for your own content. So you’ll need to create better content than your competitors using similar keywords.
2. Use Conversational Phrases
Voice search is gaining worldwide popularity. Voice-enabled speakers and voice search engines should continue to improve in the coming years. GlobalWebIndex reports that 20% of online adults use mobile voice search at least monthly.
Catering to voice searchers will increase your site’s visibility and traffic. This will help your Google rankings. To cater to voice searchers, optimize your content with their preferred keywords and phrases.
Voice searches aren’t like regular searches. 41% of users of voice-activated devices say it feels like talking to a human.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and consider what terms they might use to voice search. Answer the Public is a great resource for finding popular conversational phrases related to your keywords. Choose the best natural phrases to use in your content to improve Google rankings.
3. Add Buttons for Social Sharing
Social signals don’t directly affect Google rankings, but they amplify the effects of other factors. Social shares help your content get seen by more people. As more people see your content on social media, they are more likely to click on the link and visit your website.
And we all know how important traffic is for Google rankings. Plus, more visibility for your content means more people will see it and link to it. Because link profile is a ranking factor, this may also help Google rankings.
4. Refine Content Readability
Visitor engagement is an important ranking factor. Backlinko says Google pays close attention to page dwell time. It looks at how long visitors stay on your page to determine your ranking.
Google interprets longer visits to your site as a sign that your content is interesting and relevant to their search. So it will boost your page’s ranking in other relevant search results.
It will consider your page irrelevant or non-engaging if visitors bounce almost immediately after landing on your site or do not visit any other pages. High bounce rates will hurt your search engine rankings.
So, if you want to improve your Google rankings, you must make necessary preparations to ensure visitors stay longer on your site. This means giving them content that is easy to read and grabs their attention.
Readability affects reader engagement. If your content is long and difficult to understand, chances are people won’t finish reading it. Even if they are interested in the topic, they will likely leave your page quickly.
Improved content readability improves visitor engagement and Google rankings. Break up long paragraphs with bullet points. Make your sentences short and simple, and use simple words. You can also use images to break up text blocks.
Also, test readability with WebFX’s Readability Test Tool. Enter the URL of the webpage to be tested, and the tool will assess the content’s readability. Assemble a mostly green score. Reading difficulty is indicated by red and orange scores.
5. Link to Authority Sites
Outbound links to relevant sites with high Domain Authority will help Google trust your site. This can help Google rank your website higher because it considers it credible and relevant.
Reboot tested this hypothesis on ten new test websites, with five having outbound links ranking higher than the other five.
So whenever possible, link to authoritative industry-related websites. But don’t overdo it with outbound links. Too many dofollow links will leak your PageRank and harm your page rankings.
Only link to pages relevant to the topic. You could cite studies and examples. You could also link to blog posts that expand on a topic you briefly mentioned. Also, make all outbound links nofollow. You can use WordPress plugins to make outbound links nofollow.
6. Boost Site Usage
Usability and navigation of your website also affect dwell time. If you want to improve your Google rankings, your website should be easy to navigate. They’ll be more likely to explore your site’s pages to learn more about your products and services.
If they can’t find even one button, they’ll get frustrated and leave without getting the information they need. Several improvements were made to SwingbySwing’s on-site user experience.
It reduced bounce rate by 35% and increased time on site by 95%. The website’s Google ranking increased by 25X.
Starting with mobile responsiveness, there are several ways to improve site usability and ranking. Make sure your webpages are mobile-friendly. Testing different layouts and formats can also help improve user experience and Google rankings.
You could use drop-down menus to organize your content for visitors. A prominent search bar could improve site usability. Usability testing tools like Optimizely and Five Second Test can help you identify areas for improvement.