Whether you use a free website builder tool like WordPress or custom build a website from scratch, launching a website is a huge milestone. It's your first opportunity to make your content visible and accessible to the masses. But if you want to improve the accessibility of your website even further, you'll need to take extra steps to rank higher in Google search.
How can you make sure your website ranks as highly as possible for relevant queries posed by your target audience?
Understand How Google Works
First, you need to understand how Google works. Don't worry; you don't need a programming background or any technical knowledge to understand the fundamentals.
It's true that Google is a very complex algorithm, and one that we don't fully understand, because Google doesn't formally publish exactly how its search algorithm works. However, we do know that there are hundreds of different ranking factors considered by this search engine.
You can study the top Google ranking factors for a more in-depth look, better understanding each individual factor, but most websites can easily rank higher by focusing on the following:
· Keyword optimization. If you want to rank, you need to think about relevant queries for your organization. That means you need to think about the keywords and phrases your users are going to search for – and optimize your site for them. Ideally, you'll include these most relevant keywords and phrases throughout your website.
· Website quality. The quality and performance of your website also matter. Google preferentially ranks websites that work well on mobile devices, load quickly, and serve content reliably. If there are any technical or functional issues with your site, it could damage your chances of ranking.
· Content quality. The quality of your content matters for many different reasons, and you'll want high-quality content regardless so you can better appeal to your visitors. The highest-ranking websites are ones that produce in-depth, excellent content on a regular basis.
· Backlinks and authority. The more trustworthy or site is, the higher it will rank. To build trust with Google, you need to earn links from reputable sources. That's why backlink building is one of the most important strategies in search engine optimization (SEO).
Now let's take a look at the actionable steps you can take to help your website rank higher.
Choose Target Keywords
Before you start optimizing your website, you'll need to understand which keywords and phrases you should be targeting. There are many keyword research tools that can help you with this, outlining relevant keywords and making recommendations for your strategic choices.
You'll always want to choose keywords that are actively relevant for your brand and your customers; otherwise, you might show up for irrelevant searches. Beyond that, you'll need to consider keywords that enjoy a high search volume and minimal competition.
These keywords should attract plenty of traffic without being too expensive for your SEO strategy.
Master Your Onsite Optimization
Next, you'll need to master your onsite optimization:
· Page titles and descriptions. The titles and descriptions of your webpages play an important role in how Google considers those pages and how it displays them in search engine results pages (SERPs). Accordingly, they should be optimized with target keywords and they should be as appealing as possible to new potential visitors.
· Core content. You also need to spend time developing the core content of your website, making sure each page has several hundred words of high-quality content, preferably optimized with your target keywords and phrases.
· Site performance. Next, it’s important to improve your website’s overall performance. Even simple steps, like making your website responsive, reducing loading times with a caching plugin, and testing your website on multiple different browsers to ensure functionality can make a big difference.
Create Regular Onsite Content
When your core website is fully optimized, commit to a regular onsite content development strategy. Ideally, you'll be producing high quality content for your website multiple times per week. Try to optimize these new pieces of content for your target keywords and make them as appealing as possible for your target audience.
Start Building Links
After that, you'll be ready to start building links. Attracting your first few links will be difficult, but as you gain momentum, this process will get easier. Consider offering guest posts for offsite publishers as a convenient and authentic way to earn new links. You can also develop better onsite content and actively promote it, so people are more likely to naturally link to your website.
The path to fully optimizing a website for search engines is a long and somewhat complicated one. But you can master some of the basics in an afternoon. Take things one step at a time as you continue optimizing your website and always prioritize the fundamentals.