How to rank your website in Google search

Raising your website to the TOP of search results is not something out of science fiction, but a completely feasible process. It may not be easy and time-consuming, but with systematic step-by-step work (which, of course, requires financial investment, time and effort), good results can be achieved.

SEO optimization is a tool for developing a website and increasing traffic. It consists of a number of actions that will help improve the resource’s position in search results. Successful promotion raises the site to the top of Google, which makes the task of finding new clients much easier.

The main factors influencing website promotion in search

Below we will look in detail at some factors that can help you rank your site in Google search and see the effect of the work done in the near future. The main thing is to remember that SEO promotion it is necessary to carry out comprehensively, and not work on each of the factors separately.

Competitor analysis: getting to know your opponent by sight

In order for your site to take top positions, you need to become at least a little better than your competitors. They will tell you how to do this themselves. In order to know and understand who needs to be overtaken and how, they regularly carry out competitor analysis. The goal is to obtain data, highlight the disadvantages (which are best avoided) and advantages (which will benefit your resource).

To carry out the analysis, you first need to create a list of companies that occupy top positions in search results, and then devote time and attention to the following points:

1. Niche specifics

If a product or service is widely known, then there will be a lot of organic requests, which means you can get serious about promoting the site.

If, on the contrary, your offer is little known and there are few requests for it, then first you need to launch a media campaign. This way you can arouse user interest in the product, and only then you should start promoting the resource.

2. Indicators by region

You will be able to find out whether there is a demand for a product or service in a certain area. And if you find data on the interests and income level of potential customers, you can understand whether it’s worth offering the product here at all.

3. Quality of competitors’ resources

The following tools can be used to analyze sites:

Ahrefs

This is one of the most popular SEO tools, thanks to which you can analyze competitors’ sites, namely: backlinks, organic traffic, keywords, content and much more. This service will help you check broken links, conduct a resource audit and compare domains, which will help you form an idea of ​​your competitor’s site.

SimilarWeb

Here you can analyze in detail the activity of competitors and their audience. As soon as you enter the site address into the search bar, the program will provide data on traffic to the resource, its most popular pages, bounce rate, duration of user visits, traffic channels, key queries (which lead to the site) and much other useful information.

Serpstat

This service will help you find out the position of your competitor’s resource in search results in real time, as well as analyze traffic and keywords. The feature of the program is the “Site Tree” – a tool that accurately displays the structure of the site under study and the phrases by which the search engine ranks pages in the results.

All this information will become a good foundation for forming a strategy for website promotion on the Internet.

Working with a domain and its characteristics

Search engines evaluate several technical parameters:

• Domain age. The older the domain, the more search engines trust it, and the higher the likelihood that the resource will be in the top search results. It begins to count from the moment at least one page of the site enters the index.
• Domain information. It is stored in the WhoIS database. Here you can find out the registration date, information about the tenant or owner of the domain and the expiration date of the lease. If desired, this information can be hidden, but at least it is better to leave the contact information open, otherwise it will be a bad signal for search engines, and then the site will be more difficult to promote.
• Domain payment period. The minimum period is one year, the maximum is up to 10 years. But it’s best to pay in advance, so your resource will receive more trust from search robots and will be ranked better, without giving the impression of a “fly-by-night”.
• Server reputation. It is important that it is not blacklisted, so check this carefully before renting a domain. This way you will be sure that access to your site will not be blocked and you will be able to claim top positions in the search results. A server can be blacklisted for dubious activity or sending spam emails, and getting out of it takes a lot of effort and time.

It is important that each of these technical parameters is in order, otherwise it will be much more difficult to raise the site in search results. Therefore, take time for them so that there are no unpleasant surprises in the future.

Technical errors: their analysis and correction

In order for a site to take top positions in search results, it must meet certain technical criteria. Technical defects can be found on any resource; the main thing is to constantly monitor its performance and correct errors when you find them.

The most common technical errors include:

1. Incorrectly configured redirects

There are several types of redirects. 2 of them are common, 2 more are much less common.

301 – the site page has permanently moved to a new address;

302 – the page address has changed temporarily.

If redirects are configured incorrectly, this may lead to the fact that not all pages are indexed, and accordingly the usability of the resource will deteriorate.

2. Lack of micro markup

This is far from an optional element, but very important. The presence of micro markup has its advantages:

• Helps search engines understand the information on your site, which makes it more trustworthy;
• Allows the resource to stand out in search results;
• Allows you to design snippets on social networks and make them more attractive to users.

3. Presence of duplicate pages

If there are duplicates, it will be difficult for the search robot to understand which page is considered the main one, and this will also interfere with the promotion of your site.

4. Lack of HTTPS protocol

It is used to improve the security of data transmission. Many browsers block access to sites that do not use the HTTPS protocol and display a message that the connection is unsafe and it is better to leave this resource. Moreover, sites without HTTPS rank lower in search results.

5. Slow download speed

If your resource takes longer than 2-3 seconds to load, then most likely the user will leave it without waiting for it to load, even despite lucrative offers. Therefore, everything possible must be done to speed up this process.

High-quality semantic core

The semantic core is those user requests for which your resource is displayed in the search results. Therefore, in order to rank your site in search, it is necessary that these same queries be present in the content of your resource. And the larger the list of phrases, the higher the possibility of impressions.

Collecting a semantic core is where SEO optimization usually begins. It is compiled on the basis of already running queries and you need to take into account all the keywords: high-frequency, mid-frequency and low-frequency, distributing them evenly across the pages of the site and depending on the meaning. The most successful option is promotion for low-frequency queries. You will get fairly quick results and targeted traffic, without spending a lot of time and financial resources.

Key phrases, in addition to frequency, are also divided into:

• by level of competition (almost, as well as by frequency – high, medium and low competitive);
• according to the consumer’s purpose (conversion and information).

In order to assemble a semantic core, you will need the following:

1. Find the main keys in your niche using tools such as Serpstat or Google Keyword Planner, as well as search engine tips.
2. Supplement the generated list with key phrases that your competitors use.
3. Analyze the collected requests and remove non-targeted ones (for example, duplicates; requests for products that you do not sell; mentions of competitors).
4. Cluster and distribute across pages. And it’s better to do this manually, rather than using special programs. This will help you avoid mistakes.

Development of micro-markup of website pages

Micro markup – this is a code that indicates what kind of content is posted on the site page. It makes it easier for search engines to process information, allows them to more accurately analyze the site’s content and show it to the user in a convenient form.

In order to configure everything correctly, you need:

• Set up file txt. It will let the search robot know which pages of the site can be indexed, and which are still unfinished and need to be closed from indexing for a while.
• Set up a sitemap (Sitemap). This is the navigator with which search engines crawl the site. Here are links to all pages of the resource; content type; information about update frequency, alternative versions of pages and their priority. This file is important for new and large sites (from 500 pages) and news resources.
• Post content using Schema.org. Micro markup is done with tags and is needed to improve the quality of search results. Tags allow you to specify metadata, thus telling search engines what exactly is on a specific page of the site. If everything is done correctly, there is a chance that your resource will be included in the extended snippet.

If you pay attention to each of the points, the chance of ranking your site in Google search increases.

Creating quality content

Content is everything a user sees on your site. And it depends on him whether the user will stay or leave the resource forever. In addition, at the top of search results are those sites that content which most closely matches the user’s request, and therefore it should be of the highest quality.

Content comes in different types: text, images, video, audio, infographics. And it’s better if it is varied on your site, this makes it more attractive and arouses more interest among consumers, especially since preferences may be different.

In terms of quality, the content needs to be:

• If you want to succeed, then you should forget about copying texts from other resources.
• Competent, easy to read and adapted to different types of devices.
• Useful, complete and up to date. It should cover the topic completely and help the user solve their problem while remaining on your site.
• Beautifully designed and structured, have headings, subheadings and lists. This makes it more receptive to the reader.
• Contain key queries from the semantic core. Just remember that there should not be too many of them, otherwise the site may end up at the bottom of the search results.

External and internal links

External links

If there are no mentions or any information about a product or company on social networks, from users, or from bloggers, this only means that neither the product nor the company is worth attention. And accordingly, search engines will not give preference to sites that are not linked to by other sources.

If your resource has a high-quality link mass, then its reputation in search engines will be higher.

How to get quality external links:

1. Post on old and reputable sites with topics close to yours.
2. Publish quality content so that people want to share it.
3. Post links on social networks (this indicates that your brand is interesting to users, which in turn increases rankings).
4. Ask your customers to leave reviews of your product or services.
5. You can buy links on exchanges, but do not buy them en masse (as search engines will lower your position due to spam). You should also be responsible when choosing an exchange and work only with trusted marketplaces, such as Collaborator.
6. Constantly improve your site (after all, the better you become, the more people will talk about you).

Internal links

These are links that connect two different pages of one site. They are needed to improve interaction with the resource, determine the hierarchy and structure of the site, help with promotion and speed up indexing.

A large number of internal links does not harm, but remember that each new one reduces the weight of the others. That is, before posting it, think about whether it will really be useful for the user or is already superfluous.

How to work with internal links:

1. Fix redirects and broken ones
2. Use only useful and relevant links
3. Don’t worry about quantity
4. Use different anchors
5. Link old and new pages together

Search engines and their updates

Search engines are constantly studying sites, forums, blogs, following links, looking for updated or new pages and resources. They save all changes in their cache. And at a certain moment the database update begins. As a result, a new ranking of web pages in search results comes into force. This process is carried out to stop gray and black hat SEO techniques and punish their use. It happens that page positions change several times a day.

You always need to monitor changes in search engine algorithms and adjust your site to current requirements. This will help you maintain your position in search results.

Improving underperforming pages

If your resource is no longer new, then most likely there are pages that do not work as well as you would like.

Identifying and making changes to these pages is one way to quickly improve your Google rankings. Especially if you take into account the fact that editing or writing new content takes from several hours to 2 days maximum. The main thing here is to find those very ineffective pages. For this you can use a tool such as Google Analytics.

Give social signals

The popularity did not pass by the search engines either social networks. Preference is given to those sites that have active communities and groups. The more subscribers, comments, and likes your social networks collect, the more links to them your resource has, the more attractive it will be in the eyes of search engines.

Social signals include:

• Joining the community;
• Likes and dislikes;
• Comments and reposts;
• Links to the site on social networks.

It is important that you can independently and absolutely free create a page on any social networks, which will have a positive effect on the SEO promotion of your site. This step will also help you promote your website.

Improvement of behavioral factor

Search engines constantly study user behavior on each resource. This is how they evaluate its necessity and usefulness. Google looks at user transitions from search and their behavior on the site (time spent viewing pages; depth of page viewing; bounce rate and transitions to other pages on the site).

Therefore, in order to increase the site’s position in search results, it is quite important to motivate visitors to stay with you as long as possible. Because a page with a longer interaction time shows the searcher that it contains a high-quality and relevant result.

How to “bind” a user to your resource:

• High-quality, relevant, interesting and easy-to-read content;
• High download speed;
• Attractive snippets;
• Creating a “You May Also Like” link;
• Adaptation for mobile devices;
• Thoughtful linking;
• Creation of various interactive elements.

What can hinder website promotion?

Below we will talk about some banal, but very popular and common SEO mistakes that can become a stumbling block and slow down the process of website promotion in search engines. It’s not that difficult to get rid of each of them; you just need to devote a little time and your attention to it.

1. The test version of the resource was not blocked from indexing

Usually, an additional version of the site is created, on which it is convenient to test all changes. And if for some reason such a service version was not blocked from indexing (in robots.txt), then its contents will be perceived by search engines as duplicates of the pages that are being promoted, which will lead to a drop in rankings.

To avoid such a mechanical error, you can make the test version accessible with a password, so it will not end up in the index.

2. Error when using the Disallow attribute in the robots.txt file

By removing service pages or duplicates from the index by mistake, you can also exclude the necessary pages, or even sections. They will disappear along with the traffic and positions.

Therefore, always carefully check whether you have written incorrect directives in the file.

3. Filling in Title and Description exclusively for promoted pages

If you do not want to reduce the overall quality rating of the resource and lose additional traffic, then the entire site should have relevant and unique headings and metadata, even on service pages (“Contacts” or “About Us”).

Fill in the Title and Description for all pages. If there are a lot of them, you can use templates.

4. Internal links work through a redirect

It happens that when you click on a link, you first get to a non-existent page, and then to the one you need. This will not be a problem for the user, but search robots do not like this. This leads to excessive load on the server and a decrease in the site’s crawling budget.

This is easy to deal with – you just need to correctly configure the transitions on internal links.

5. Overloaded page code

Often, during the development of a site, the code becomes overgrown with unnecessary husk (service information, styles, scripts). But in order for page loading speed and indexing speed not to drop, it should be as lightweight as possible.

To solve this problem, you need to check and remove (if any) service blocks, CSS styles and scripts from the code.

6. Slow download speed

Loading speed is one of the main indicators. It is important both for users and for search engine algorithms. Those resources that do not have problems with speed are ranked better. And vice versa, if there is a problem, search engines drown such resources. And accordingly, you will receive low positions in search results, a decrease in conversion and the quality of behavioral indicators.

Using a tool Page Speed ​​Insights You can find out what exactly is slowing down page loading, and there you can find recommendations for improving it.

7. There is no information about prices for your goods or services

For correct ranking according to commercial plan requests, price information must be present on the site. The added price will help to achieve a significant improvement in positions, and therefore sales.

You can indicate the price on each product card, or create a price list on a separate page, or at least indicate that this information can be clarified with the manager.

Checklist for a “healthy” website

• The resource is loaded in no more than 1 second;
• Key queries are distributed organically throughout the text;
• The site is adapted for mobile devices;
• Search results contain rich snippets;
• New, useful and unique content is published on a regular basis.

If you can put a plus sign next to each item on this list, then your site is “healthy” and search engines rank it quite high.

To summarize

SEO is a process that does not stand still and has no days off or breaks. Constantly changing search engine algorithms, the development of competitors and users, the emergence of new services and tools affect the specifics of promotion.

In this article, we told you about the factors that influence website promotion in search, about possible errors that can interfere with promotion, and how to increase your website’s ranking in search engines. Remember that a resource will move faster if you work on it literally every day, constantly supplementing and improving it.

Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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