Everyone wants to be visible on the web. In today’s digital world, online visibility can play a crucial role in your business’s success (or lack of it). SEO may sound like magic when you don’t know much about it, but the truth is it’s a long game and hard, attentive work. Anyone promising quick results is probably playing an unfair and risky game. How long does it really take to rank high on SERPs? No one knows. It all depends on your industry, current position, competitors, etc. First of all, you need to identify the problem; Rankitor may help you with that by tracking your rankings. Know your current traffic, relevant keywords and why your competitors are better. Then, you can start trying to rank higher. And how can you do it? Here are 5 ways that can help you boost your website ranking on SERPs.
- Improve your website
In order to rank high, your website needs to be easy to navigate for both users to find what they need, and for Google to crawl it. Without it, even the most brilliant SEO experts can’t perform their miracles. Your website should be consistent, useful, clear and transparent. Think like a user – what would you like to find on the web, what is redundant, what’s bothering you? Plus, watch out for duplicate content. Don’t double your own texts (link if you want to refer to something) and avoid setting errors: sometimes different variations of your page can be seen as different sites with the same content and Google doesn’t like it.
- Make it mobile-friendly
Because of the increasing number of people accessing websites from their mobile devices, mobile optimization has become one of the most important ranking factors. Make sure that you have a mobile version of your page, that it’s easy to navigate and transparent. It shouldn’t take too long for the users to find what they’re looking for. Bear in mind that mobile devices connections are often slower than those of computers’ and that the speed of your website is one of a mobile search ranking factors as well. So be positive that there’s no endless scrolling and no images that take forever to load.
- Make sure it’s fast
The speed is also important when it comes to the desktop version of your website. You have to monitor the situation constantly to be absolutely positive that you’re only improving, not slowing down. Make sure that all the images are of the right size and dimensions – if you want to rank high, you need your page to look good and clear, and load fast. When it comes to web design, the simpler is almost always the better. Plus, enable browser caching – thanks to that, resources of your page will be stored and they won’t need to be loaded every time.
- Watch out for the links
External and internal links can do a lot to help your website rank well, so it’s essential to understand how it works and what you can do better. Make sure to check your page for broken links regularly. Some pages cease to exist or change their address or move their content, so it’s important to stay up-to-date – you can use one of many tools to crawl your website from time to time. Plus, watch out for your anchors – using them can be risky, so make sure that the links are always relevant and useful; otherwise, Google can identify you as a spammer and you may be penalized. What’s more, Google Alert can help you identify if your brand is being mentioned on the web – if it is, you can contact their owners and ask for a link.
- Remember on-page optimization
Thanks to that, you can shine in comparison to most of the competition. Structure data it’s important, because, in order to rank you high, Google must know what your page is about. What’s more, it’s must be written well and properly. Think about relevant, but catchy titles – if you can include some keywords there, it’s great, but don’t force them in, as it can only do you harm. Then, consider your meta description carefully. Technically, it’s not a ranking factor, but it really can increase your traffic. And that’s exactly what you want, right?
Of course, these are only the basics; there’s much more you can do later to boost your website ranking on SERPs. The basics are essential, though. And if you want to do it right, you have to be patient. Google grows smarter every day and it’s ruthless when it comes to cheating or spammy techniques. So it’s better to wait for the right results than risk everything for a shortcut that may or may not help you.