As Google is the most popular search engine in the world, securing a high ranking on its results pages is crucial (though you should still pay attention to Yahoo, Bing, and other major engines).
Why? Reaching a good position will help your business find the right audience, generate leads, and convert visitors into customers.
But if you’re unhappy with your current ranking, how can you achieve a better one?
In this post, our Orange County digital marketing pros share five tips to help you.
Work Hard at High-Value Content
Search engines prioritize sites that provide visitors with amazing content that’s relevant and helpful. If your content is vague, unclear, and generally unengaging, your ranking may suffer.
Assess your strongest competitors’ content for an idea of how they engage users, and consider working with professional content writers to populate your site with solid copy. This could yield better results than trying to handle it all in-house.
Take a More Structured Approach
Your site should be clearly organized and easy to navigate. If it’s not, crawlers will find it more difficult to index than they should and confused visitors may leave in droves.
Use a strong linking strategy to connect relevant pages and establish a clear site hierarchy. Crawlers will have a better understanding of your site and how pages connect. Crucially, users will find what they need sooner rather than later.
Audit Your Site for Issues that Could Harm Your Ranking
Audit your site to identify any broken links and other flaws that could harm your ranking.
If crawlers run into any errors when exploring your site (e.g. 404/Page Not Found), this can affect your ranking in the long run. They may be unable to index your site correctly, which could lead to lost opportunities (especially if issues affect key pages).
Increase Your Backlink Count
If your site has little to no backlinks, that’s definitely an area to focus on. Backlinks are a key ranking factor: they show search engines that your website has enough value and authority that other site owners want to link to it. The more you have, the more credible your site will be in the eyes of search engines.
However, securing backlinks from well-known sites isn’t easy. Remember when we talked about creating high-quality content? That’ll help. Your content should be so relevant and valuable that other sites consider it a strong resource. This is why original content that establishes you as a thought leader is so helpful.
Add Descriptive Alt Text to Images
Using alt text for images is crucial for good SEO and improving your ranking. These tell search engines what images contain, whether they’re product pictures or photos of your offices.
This enables crawlers to index your images properly, allows you to rank for relevant terms, and helps bring visitors to your site. Always use clear, specific language when describing images to avoid confusion.
Taking the Next Step to Improve Your Ranking
Increasing your site’s ranking can be a long, difficult process, but it could pay off in a big way when you generate more leads and boost conversions.
Need help from the experts?
Our Orange County digital marketing agency is here to help you improve your search engine visibility, reach, and performance. To learn more, get in touch today!
