With almost 2 billion websites on the Web today, how are you going to find yourself a place at the top of Google SERPs!? Seems almost impossible right? But, the good news is that if you have the right strategy and the right things taken care of, you’d be there in a while.

You may have read several articles about what Google considers as ranking factors to rank a page, but out of the long list of things you may have combined from all those articles, how do you know what is fact and what is fiction?

Every blog seems to speak about its own perception about what Google considers as a ranking factor, and it’s up to you to believe or not believe what you read. However, one thing is for certain – Google is always constantly adjusting ranking signals to best meet the needs of searchers.

Google has always wanted to present only the best answers and solutions to every searcher, which can come about if you follow the few below-mentioned tactics for your business website.

  1. Publishing high-quality content

Content has been, and continues to be king. Your content should be relevant and informative. It should also be engaging and helpful to the searchers. Only if the searchers find your content appropriate and useful, will they stick on for longer, and may even move further into your website to know more.

This will increase time-on-site and reduce bounce rates, thus indicating to Google that your page is worth considering.

What comprises high-quality content?

  • The content should be well-written and long-form.
  • The content should contain appropriate keywords, which can be searched through competitor research and data mining, to find long-tail keywords, synonyms, and keywords related to the topic, all of which may have an average search volume, but a high click-through rate.
  • The content should be more aligned with searcher intent.
  • The content should always be fresh, meaning that it must be audited and appropriately updated at least once every three months.
  1. Optimizing page speed

How long would you wait for a website to load when you’re browsing for something? Nothing more than 3-5 seconds, isn’t it? How do you then expect your visitors to wait any longer for your website to load? The slower your site loads, the more visitors and revenue you’ll lose. Ultimately, you’ll also lose out on your ranking.

How to optimize your website speed?

  • Keep the content to the minimum.
  • Use only the most required images, videos, and other graphics.
  • Optimize every image and video you upload on your site, to load faster.
  • Eliminate all JavaScript and implement CSS.
  1. Optimizing on-page elements

Just as much as page speed optimization is important, so is on-page optimization. This deals with the “behind the scenes” components of your content and SEO, which include metatags, header tags, internal linking structure, etc. Optimizing each one of these elements can boost up your ranking.

How to optimize on-page elements?

  • All your metadata like title tag, page descriptions, and every other information should be relevant, attractive, and informative.
  • Schema markup can tell Google more about your content, which is why you must be very careful with these hundreds of different types of information you include.
  • Understand RankBrain and search intent behind each query you want to rank for, and you’d be able to snag a featured snippet.
  1. Enhancing user experience

User experience is of utmost importance. After all, what you’re doing is only for your users. You thus need to make your website absolutely user-friendly. If you don’t think about user experience, users are going to stop engaging with your website, and you can clearly calculate the resulting outcome. Conversely, getting user experience right can bring you great benefits.

How to get user experience right?

  • The layout should be attractive to keep the interest of the users alive.
  • Include different pages for different sections so that users go to only the page they want information about, without wasting time reading through other irrelevant text.
  • Improve your website’s architecture with easy navigation to help users search what they are looking for easily, without having to navigate too much to get to their expected page.
  • Security if of high regard. Not switching to the secure HTTPS version wont harm your website, but it’ll certainly affect your rankings and output. that’s because Google, in 2014, announced HTTPS as a ranking signal. Further, it started flagging websites as “not secure” in the URL bar, when they weren’t HTTPS. This would warn the visitors and prompt them to bounce off the page almost instantly.
  1. Making your website mobile-first

Google announced mobile-first indexing in the year 2017, but after a slow and long process, it was officially finalized in March 2021. If you have a separate mobile website for mobile users, Google will first index and rank that URL, instead of the regular desktop version. But, it has been seen that more websites are opting for a single responsive website rather than two separate mobile and desktop websites. This is because responsive websites will be considered equal to mobile websites while mobile-first indexing, and will also prove to be an optimized choice for better user experience.

How to make your website mobile-friendly?

  • You can create separate desktop and mobile websites, with the latter designed in a way to look appropriate and attractive on a small screen, making it easy for mobile users to browse through even those tiny tabs.
  • Another option is to go responsive, by having a single website work suitably on both larger desktop screens as well as smaller tablet and smartphone displays.
  1. Working on your links

By links, we mean both internal and external links. Internal linking can help users and search engines with getting more detailed information about something they’re looking for, while earning relevant and authoritative external links can prove to the users and search engines that your website is reliable and trustworthy.

How to improve your linking strategies?

  • Your links must help users find more detailed information about what they’re searching for, on other connected pages.
  • You must build a roadmap around specific content topics.
  • You must be able to manage link flow to identify where your traffic goes once it gets onto your site.
  • Approach leading names in your industry, or influencers, to promote your brand by linking to your pages in their content and blogs. However, make sure to do this naturally, without buying or exchanging links.

Conclusion:

With the above 6 basic approaches, you can certainly create an awesome website – awesome for both users and Google. And, for a more comprehensive, sophisticated SEO strategy that can take into account every aspect of improving your website performance, you could always partner with a professional SEO company in India, to take up the responsibility.