9 Strategies to Rank Better on Google’s Search Result Page

“How can I get my website ranked at top of the Google page?” That’s the most common question professional SEO services and digital marketing services providers receive from their clients.

In this changing digital landscape and rising competition, ranking at the top of the search engine results page can mean an increase in website traffic and revenue.

If you are looking for the answer to the same question, we have got you covered. This blog post discusses the steps that can enable any business to rank at the top. Read on to know more.

1. Organize and work smart

No work can ever be successful without a strategy. The same applies to SEO and ranking on Google. Before starting efforts to improve search engine rankings, create a solid plan and organize your efforts. 

Strategize your work in such a way that you rank for a huge number of keywords with a minimum effort. Begin with keyword research and methodically select the target keywords. Make sure to select less competitive keywords that are extremely domain-specific.

2. Begin with a seed keyword and grow it into a keyword theme

A seed keyword is a short keyword that is the most obvious search term relevant to your topic. Generally one or two words long, they tend to have high competition and high monthly search volumes. Discovering high-quality seed keyword is a mix of research and brainstorming of ideas.

Effective keyword seeds are broad, but not too much. Find a seed keyword to grow it into a keyword theme. For example, if you own a pizzeria, the keyword “pizza” is extremely broad. A more precise term such as “pizza in Richmond Town” or “delicious pizza near me” can be a good idea.

After finalizing the seed keyword, turn it into a keyword theme by listing all relevant terms. This will help in ranking for multiple keywords and expanding opportunities. Long-tail keywords can help a lot. Professional SEO services and digital marketing services can help in discovering seed keyword and turning it into keyword themes.

3. Stay up-to-date with Google’s algorithm updates

Google updates its algorithm many times in a year and it does not announce every update publically. In recent years, the search engine behemoth has updated its algorithm a few hundred times. The main reason behind the frequent updates is to maintain websites’ authenticity and stop black hat SEO strategies.

But there are some major algorithms updates that every webmaster needs to know and remain updated. Those include mobile-first updates, core updates, and page experience updates. Regularly checking on Google Webmaster Central can help in staying up-to-date with the major updates and planning the SEO strategy accordingly.

4. Provide value

Google provides guidelines and clues regarding how they evaluate content. Understand it and create such content that has a healthy mix of authority, trust, utility, and user experience. Ensure the content you create—be it website content, infographic, or blog article—is well-researched, relevant, and add value to visitors and target audience.

5. Focus on completeness instead of length

With long-form content getting popular in recent years, many are joining the race to create detailed and extensive articles and blogs. It is, however, the completeness of content that will make it rank high on the search engine results page. When it comes to content, quality matters more than quantity. Complete content:

• Answers a user’s query
• Provides supporting evidence
• Provides additional relevant answers
• Is authoritative and trustworthy
• Offers high-quality supplemental content

Keep all the above factors in mind while creating content so that they answer all queries of visitors and target customers. A professional SEO services provider can help in creating high-quality and complete content.

6. Google’s E-A-T principle

Google’s E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) is one of the major key ranking factors. Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines evaluate the quality of content by looking at various aspects. Some of them are:

• The information presented in the content
• Use of facts and statistics to support claims
• The overall quality of the content
• Grammar, punctuation, and style

To produce high-quality content, it is crucial to keep the search engine’s E-A-T principle in mind and understand what type of content the target audience will prefer to read.

7. Internal linking

Like external links, internal links are also powerful ranking factors. They enable search engines to find, crawl, and index a website better. By that, the website and pages have a greater chance of ranking high in search results. The websites that use keyword-rich and descriptive anchor text in their internal links point out the important web pages to search engines.

8. Improve the CTR

Even though there is insufficient proof to determine if Google uses clicks as a ranking factor, more of them certainly means more qualified traffic. The websites that manage to improve their click-through rate (CTR) are more likely to improve their search engine ranks. The search engine provides some main levers to influence click-through rates. Those include titles, snippets, meta descriptions, links, images, and video results.

9. Be the first and last click

This means that when people type your seed keyword and find your website on the search engine result page, it should be the first and the last result they click. The key is to ensure that your website link on the result page is attractive enough to entice them to click on it and it has such useful and valuable information that they don’t need to leave your webpage and visit any other website. The question is how to be the first click and the last one? There are several ways to be that, which include:

• Use catchy and attractive title
• Use keyword-rich snippets and meta description
• Use short and crisp URL
• Match user intent 
• Give complete information
• Be authoritative and display a high level of trust
• Provide a distinctive user experience

To conclude

Getting a high rank on Google can mean the difference between success and failure in business operations. Amid the intense competition for the top rank on the search engine result page, doing the right things is extremely important. The above nine strategies can help businesses rank better.