Here is 11 things you can do to improve your website SEO ranking. All of these factors are important. I suggest you start by blogging while applying the other 9 ranking factors. If you do so your website should rank well within your niche.
Google has as many as 200 ranking factors. Everyone of them matter. I’ve selected 11 I believe will impact your SEO efforts the most.
- Use Terms People are Searching for
- Make a SEO Plan
- Start Blogging
- Break up Your Content With Header Tags
- Fast Load Times
- High Quality Content That is Optimized for What People Are Looking for
- Image Alt Tags
- Inter Linking
- Make Your Website Mobile Responsive
- Add an XML Sitemap
- Make Sure Google is Indexing Your Website
Use Terms People are Searching for
This is provably the most important thing you can do for your website. All the other factors are very important, however if you do not do your research and use relevant terms and terms people are using to look for your content, you might as well not have a website.
Optimizing your website for the terms people are searching for in supper important. This is the starting point of any SEO project.
Make a SEO Plan
Use what you learned about what people are looking for to make a plan. Without a plan you could wonder all over the place. Make a plan and work your plan.
Start Blogging
Blogging is important to a site’s SEO ranking. Content is king. Blogging is important because if you have no content the other 9 factors are meaningless.
Make sure you keep on track by first researching your niche to determine what terms people looking for. Then write top quality relevant content that people want to read, content that has value. And don’t forget to use those search terms in your articles.
Break up Your Content With Header Tags
There is 6 different header tags. H1 is the most important and is the title of your article. Every page of your website should start with an H1 tag that is rich with search terms people are looking for that are relevant to your website and the article you are writing. Each page should contain one one H1 tag.
When you are ready to add the header to the next section it should be an H2 tag. Then if you need a subsection make it an H3 and so on.
Fast Load Times
One of the ranking factors for Google is website speed. There is several things you can do to improve your website’s speed.
- You can obtain a secured certificate and set every page of your website to HTTPS.
- You can optimize the file size of your media. Smaller file sizes will mean less to load into your visitor’s browser.
- More server resources. A better hosing platform such a virtual private server (VPS) that is using solid state devices or SSD as they are commonly referred to should do the job for most web applications.
High Quality Content That is Optimized for What People Are Looking for
The bottom line is you want people to convert. That means you are looking for business leads, subscribes to your newsletter, or you want them to read your content. To do so you need your visitor to stay on your website. To do so your content must be relevant. To make your content relevant, write it for the visitor you want to attract and for the subject they are looking for. To do this you much research what people are looking for and use those search terms in your content. This will increase the likelihood that your content is the right match for your visitors and that you are attracting your target audience.
Image Alt Tags
Make sure all your images have good quality alt tags that contain search terms that are relevant to your article. Each alt tag should be relevant to the image it is representing. While Google considers alt tag content, the tag is there for screen readers for those who may not be able to see the image. Always make your alt tags and other content for the visitor first and then the search engines.
Inter Linking
Interlinking serves two purposes. It tells Google which are your more important articles and it helps visitors stay on your website. Both are very important.
Keep people on your website is one of the metrics Google uses for ranking. Ranking is all about relevancy and one way Google determines relevancy is time spent on your articles and you site in general.
Linking from one article to another tells Google which content is most important. Your important content should be linked to by other articles. The content with the most links tells Google it is your most important content.
Make Your Website Mobile Responsive
One of the ranking factors google uses is if a website is mobile responsive. More than half your potential visitors are on a phone or a tablet. There will be less desktop computers as time passes. That will mean more mobile devises. Being mobile responsive is a must do.
Add an XML Sitemap
Having a sitemap is a must. All websites much have an XML sitemap. Google uses your sitemap to find your content. You will want to add a link to your site make in your Google Search Console.
Make Sure Google is Indexing Your Website
If you website is not being indexed you will have no visitors. It is important you register a Google Search Console account so you can verify your website with Google and ensure your website is indexed.
The Google Search Console provides a wealth of information about your website.
Conclusion
Each factor is important. Some are more important that the others, like doing research on what people are looking for and blogging. If you do your research, make a plan and then focus on blogging and apply the other factors to your blogging campaign, your website should rank better for your chosen niche.