In today’s world, businesses need quality online content to survive. Google has become the global search hub where everyone goes to find services, products, and answers to their questions. Google creates its own hierarchy of websites based on your site’s content and how relevant that content is to your prospect’s query.
Businesses can use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help control where they stand in that hierarchy. While Google doesn’t provide us with their exact criteria on how they rank sites, with SEO research and testing, your business can predict the best ways to get your links to the top of the results and bring in quality traffic.
Getting Your Top Ranking
While real people work for Google, a programmed bot evaluate your webpage, deciding whether or not it fits into your prospect’s search criteria. Images and graphics provide a nice visual for the prospect, but Google doesn’t see that as a proper additive to your SEO content.
From most important to least, Google prioritizes your website’s content:
- The title of your page
- The URL of your page
- The meta description
- The headers within the page
Headers differentiate sections within the content. The smaller your headers get, the less important they become to Google (as in H1, H2, etc.). Make sure to put the most important keywords and phrases into your largest header setting.
Using Keywords Correctly
Keywords are key (ha, funny right?), but it’s important to know how to use them correctly or else risk punishment from Google. There are two types of keywords: short-tail (one to three words) and long-tail (more than three words).
Google wants your users to find the right content for their search, and that means shoving or stuffing keywords into your webpage to get traffic is a big no for them. You want to use keywords naturally throughout your website’s content in order to draw in users, not just garner clicks.
Consider this: if your business sells plant pots to flower shops, your prospects may look for “affordable large clay plant pots.” That means only using “plant pots” in your content pages isn’t going to earn you a top spot. Being as specific as possible with keywords and phrases helps raise the chances your link will be at the top of the first page when searched.
Creating the Best Title
The title of your page is extremely important to your Google ranking. It can be tempting to keep your title short and sweet, but using more keywords is better.
You might also add your company name into the title; just be mindful of the content for the rest of that page. For your home page, having your name at the beginning of the title makes sense. Your company might not necessarily help the searcher if they are not aware of you, but once they’ve clicked your link, they will be more likely to remember you and search directly for it in the future.
Aiming Meta Descriptions to Your Target Audience
The meta description gives your audience a quick and efficient synopsis of what your webpage is about.
When searching, users are overloaded with many links that could possibly answer their search question. Your ranking plays a big part in where they’ll click, and your meta description helps describe your webpages in more detail before they click. Do your best to fully encompass your website’s content in the meta description to convince the searcher that your page will answer their question best.
Providing Unique and Reliable Content
When creating content for your website, you want to have your keywords and the questions people may ask when searching for your content listed out. Once you have this information — set it aside! You want to write the content for your site and then place in the keywords where they fit best. If you write only with the intention of placing keywords all throughout your page, you can be in danger of keyword stuffing. Google will not only punish you for this, but prospects coming to your page will become disinterested and most likely feel like they’re reading a spammy piece that doesn’t really provide them with the answers they’re interested in finding. Create great content that answers questions, and your prospects will come!
It can be daunting to research SEO tactics and how they change over time. No matter the change, we know that these tips above will always be relevant when creating content and amping up your Google ranking for your organization’s website.
Contact us to learn more about SEO research and how it can improve your business’s web presence.
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