Organic SEO: Steps to Improve Your Google Ranking
Anyone with a website can greatly benefit from understanding search engine optimization (SEO). It helps your website rank higher on search engines like Google. You want to get to a point where your potential customers can find you in search results. And, while it isn’t rocket science how to configure an organic SEO plan, it does take time, consistency and patience.
There are certain tasks that you must do to help your website move up in search results. Most are not difficult, but all are necessary to reach your goal to rank higher.
Working consistently on your organic SEO will eventually make your website more visible on search engines when people are looking for a product or service that you provide. When you show up on search results, you have more of a chance of potential customers clicking through to your website. You have to stand out from your competition. When you rank high on search engines, your chance of being seen is also very high, and you also show that you’re a stable and credible business in your community.
Like I said, the results don’t happen overnight – organic search engine optimization takes time, patience, and consistency. And, there is certainly no guarantee that you will be in the number one spot on a search engine results page (SERP), but this blog will give you a better understanding of how you can help your website move up in search results.
So, let’s get started. Here are some steps you will need to take, some tips, and things you may not know about creating your online success:
Your Domain Name
Your domain name does play into your search engine ranking. The age of your domain name is important to search engines. The longer your domain name is around, the more legitimate and solid business you have.
First Things First
What Do Your Customers Want From Your Website
This is an important first step to organic SEO. First, what are the most important words and phrases (keywords), your potential customers will use when they’re looking for your product or service in a search online?
Next, ask yourself what are the most important services you offer? What need does your service fill? Consider a wide variety of both similar and diverse terms to get you thinking about how people are searching online. One way to get ideas is to type relevant words and phrases into your own Google search, and look at the related searches that drop down before you press enter.
Example of search drop down.
Do your due diligence to thoroughly research keywords. This will help you figure out what words and phrases people are using to search for your products and services.
There are a few things to look for when researching keywords: monthly searches, keyword difficulty, and competition.
Monthly volume of searches and keywords can be found a few different ways, but the easiest and most comprehensive way is to create a Google Ads account, and use the Keyword Planner. If a keyword has higher monthly searches you’ll want to keep that in mind for one of your keywords. It also can mean though, that that keyword has higher competition.
Keyword difficulty is a number that lets you know how difficult it will be to rank for a certain keyword. The higher the number, the more difficult it will be to rank on that keyword. There are a few sites online that will tell you keyword difficulty of a word or phrase.
Example of Keyword Planner for keyword research.
An ideal keyword has high monthly searches and a relatively low keyword difficulty. Once you find some keywords that make sense for your business that have a relatively high search volume and a relatively low keyword difficulty, it’s time to research the competition. However, you’ll first want to understand how local searches affect organic search engine optimization.
Understand Local Keyword Search
What effect does local search have on search engines? Here’s an example: You are in Fort Myers and you are looking for a real estate agent. When you search “real estate agent”, Google takes into consideration where you are located when you search for certain words, and will show you relevant listings from businesses that are near you.
Many people, though, search specifically for services within their area. Utilizing keyword phrases such as “real estate agent Fort Myers” instead of just “real estate agent” can help you face your local competition better. Setting up your Google My Business page (and keeping it current) is also a tool that will help your business pop up in local searches. It’s free- it just requires a physical address for your business.
Who Is Your Competition?
Search the keywords you ultimately choose, and see who comes up in a local search. Search incognito by clicking Ctrl+shift+N so that your previous searches will not come up and skew your results.
Now, once you see some results, click on their website. Are they using the keyword (s) in their website content? And, if so, how many times? This will give you a barometer for how many times you’ll want to use that same keyword in your website when you start to configure your organic SEO.
DA and PA
One other important thing to note is a website’s domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA). This is a number from 1-100 that indicates the strength of a website’s domain or a specific page. DA and PA are two of several factors that go into how a website ranks in search results. The higher the domain authority, and page authority, the better the chance of the website rank moving up in search results. These numbers are determined by a few things, some of which you, unfortunately, will have no control over…such as the age of the domain name. But, there are other factors as well… website content and keywords, links, backlinks, site maps, and proper use of page url’s .
Like we said, there isn’t much you can do about how long your website has been around, but it is important to note this factor if you ever want a new website for your business. It’s more important to keep an old domain and re-design the layout than it is to start from scratch. A page authority isn’t always the same as the domain authority, but they’re both determined in the same way. New websites on an old domain will still have the domain authority to back it up, but their page authority starts over. It is still better than changing the domain name.
Find a website or browser extension that will tell you the domain authority of a URL. This way, you can accurately look at your competition and see if your domain authority can stack up to the competition, or if you need to start working on links and backlinks, which we will cover later.
Add Keywords To Your Website Content
So, you have your keywords. Now it’s time to decide which pages of your website you want to optimize for higher search engine results.
The home page of your website is usually a good place to start. It typically holds a lot of pertinent information about you, your business and/or your product or service. It will lead your visitor to where they want to go. If you have other informative pages on your website that you think will also be helpful, you may want to choose those pages also, or in some instances…instead of your home page.
Always keep in mind the number of times your competitors use the keyword(s) you’re going to use. A good rule of thumb is to have each keyword or phrase you want to rank for on your website at least 5 times per page.
Keep in mind, there is a fine line between having the right amount of keywords on a page, and keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is when you insert your keyword in places where it doesn’t make sense just to have it in your content as many times as possible- and Google frowns upon it. Write content to add keywords and phrases where they make sense.
Update your HTML
While you are updating your website content, you’ll also want to implement changes in your HTML (the back end of your website), specifically, in your H1 and H2 title tags, as well as your meta descriptions and URLs. You’ll want to put your most relevant keywords in these sections of your website HTML. Search engines take into account the words in these sections when giving the searcher relevant webpages in a search result.
H1 and H2 title tags are names for the two most important types of titles in your website. H1 tags are your main titles – usually large and/or bold on a website, and at the top. H2 tags are secondary titles that clarify your main title, or might be the titles to different page sections. To utilize these sections effectively, you can use the format “Business | Keyword” as your H1 tag. For example, if my business name was “S2R Studios” and my keyword was “website design in Fort Myers,” my title would look like: “S2R Studios | Website Design | Fort Myers”.
Meta Description
Your meta description is a short blurb about a particular page of your website. This is a great place to insert keywords easily. However, you also want to include helpful information for potential site visitors to draw them to click on your website. This blurb will appear in search engines results under your H1 title tag and URL of your webpage.
Utilizing keywords in your URLs will also help with your rankings. Each additional page you add is a place to insert a keyword, as long as it is relevant to the actual page content.
You most certainly do not have to be a coder in order to accomplish this! If you have a WordPress website, you can simply get a great plugin like YOAST. This plugin is powerful, and will give you the tools you need to make sure your keywords and descriptions are set correctly and in the right place. It will also give you all the information you need to make sure that your content is written well on each page so that it is easy to read for a good user experience (another biggie in Google’s world), and it will give you tips to make it better as well! There are lots of SEO plug-ins out there…this just happens to be our preference.
Speaking of Links
Popularity of a website can be increased by upping the number of links and backlinks to your page. Links to your pages from authoritative sites or from other pages of your own site indicate trustworthiness, which Google will reward you for. Links are a big part of organic SEO. Use the content on your website to link to other relevant pages on and off your site.
Inbound links are links that keep viewers on your website. You can link to one of your blog posts or to relevant information on other pages of your own website. Search engines use links to determine how a page should rank, so don’t skip this process.
Backlinks
Backlinks are just as important, if not more important. They are just a bit more difficult to get. When it comes to building your domain authority (DA), this an important step is building relationships with other quality websites that will link to your website. Maybe you do business with them, or they are in the same business as you in another area, or they post relevant info. Maybe it is as easy as getting backlinks straight from Google products!
Anchor Text
The quality of your inbound and backlink anchor text is important to note as well. Anchor text is the text that is used to hyperlink to another page of your website or to another website. The anchor text should relate to the content of the page. Never use anchor text that is irrelevant.
Also, for outbound links, always link to relevant websites and relevant topics from trustworthy, credible websites. A link from a respected and well established site is better than a link from a friend’s personal blog- although, that doesn’t mean that a link from a friends blog that has relevant content is bad to have : )
Start Blogging…With WORDS
Writing a blog for your website not only helps with organic SEO, but it also provides valuable information for your potential customers and website visitors. It will also increase the length of time a user stays on your website. Writing blogs about your industry provides a place for you to insert your keywords plenty of times, and it keeps the information relevant and helpful- and fresh! And, it makes you look like the industry expert that you are. A well-written blog makes you look credible because of your level of knowledge. Blogs that you want to optimize for keywords should be 500 to 1,500 words.
In addition to your keywords, include several inbound links in your blog posts. Blogs are typically a great place to include links to other blogs, social media, and your website pages.
Track How You Rank
How will you know if your efforts are successful? First, remember this all takes time. It won’t happen overnight. You must be consistent in your efforts.
Knowing how your SEO is performing can help you make the necessary changes over time to keep your rankings moving upward. Look around for a keyword tracking tool to help you track how your SEO is performing. Know that is it typical for your ranking to fluctuate. Look for a general upward trend from month to month that shows that your efforts are successful.
Don’t Go It Alone
Implementing organic search engine optimization is a lot for one person to take on. It’s especially difficult if you’re not familiar with things like keyword research, backlinks, and HTML. Taking the time to teach yourself about SEO can be rewarding, but hiring a company that specializes in website design and SEO will help save time and effort so you can do the things you need to be doing to grow your business.
Hopefully, this will get you on the road to making your online presence better ad bigger than ever! Need help sorting it all out? Give us a call today!