As compared to the success of online business veterans, you – an amateur in the world of online ecommerce – are facing significant troubles in getting your brand known by your target audience online. There is a lot of competition bottled up and every day, a new brand with a seemingly far better ideology pops up before yours on Google, taking up the glory of the entire Search Engine Rankings Page (SERP). Your competitor is all over Google – not because it’s better than your brand, but because its webpage ranking is.
Understanding Google’s Ranking Algorithm
You need to know the importance of ranking your webpage on the first page of Google. According to Infront Webworks, the first Search Engine Result Page (SERP) on Google has the capability to draw at least 95% of organic traffic from the entire web as compared to the mediocre 5% of glances obtained by the following pages. This means that ranking your webpage on Google is not only important, but is pivotal for boosting and scaling your brand amidst competition.
Google has a search engine ranking algorithm that owes its credibility to several ranking factors, all of which cooperate with utmost dedication and resourcefulness to outshine a webpage’s ranking without incurring any penalty in the process.
Google’s ranking algorithm is influenced by Pigeon, Hummingbird, Panda, and Penguin – updates that are responsible for ranking your webpage on the search engine in relevance to local search results, a user’s search intent, inclusion of broken links, and spam content, respectively.
According to Moz, Google’s search ranking algorithm updates at least 500 – 600 times in a single year. Keeping track of these changes alone is difficult, yet implementing them in your search engine ranking strategy is a completely different dilemma for at least 40% of digital marketers today.
Topping the Webpage Ranking
It is important to make use of your current ranking position on Google so that you can tap into the resources and tools for ranking higher accordingly. Follow the ways we have mentioned below to help you improve your webpage’s search engine ranking on Google.
1. Improve Your Webpage’s Loading Time
Pingdom is one of the many tools that can help you assess your website’s loading time. A performance grade of 50 is required to ensure smooth performance and higher webpage ranking
Your webpage’s loading time is another pivotal ranking factor used by Google. The slower its speed, the lower will be its ranking on the SERPs. While your page’s SEO and content matters for pushing your rank higher, if your webpage is buffering for even a couple of seconds, then Google will take this as an opportunity to push your rank lower.
When Walmart’s website slowed down from 1 to 4 seconds as per loading time, its performance lacked and diverted conversions as reported by WebPerformanceToday. With increase in every 1 second, Walmart not only improved its ranking on SERPs but also attracted a 2% increase in conversions.
2. Optimize Your Webpage for Mobiles
With the advent of smart devices and increasingly improving technology, around 60% of searches on Google alone are contributed by mobile users. Google’s Webmaster Blog stated that they might rank a website lower on its SERPs if it isn’t optimized for mobile users optimally.
· Install a mobile plug-in on your website if its domain is hosted by a CMS platform.
For instance, if you own a blog powered via WordPress for desktop, install the WPtouch plug-in for providing maximum accessibility to your mobile users
· Adjust your website by adhering to responsive web design (RWD) setups issued by Google.
Through this setup, you can add a ‘meta tag’ to the head of your content on your browsers. This meta viewport tag will garner smooth accessibility for mobile browsers by scaling the dimensions, width, and font sizes in relevance to the content to fit on the devices.
3. Enlist Your Business on Google
In order to improve your webpage ranking as a business, you have to make sure that Google accredits your brand in the first place. Google usually has a directory enriched with brands that are easily ranked and searchable on Google Maps. This helps in aiding your local SEO, and creates a connection between mobile and regional searches.
In order to make sure that your brand’s enlisted in the directory and pops up whenever a user mentions a target keyword relevant to your webpage, create a ‘My Business Profile’ on Google and update it regularly.
This will help users associate your brand with a much more hyper-local search. They will not only find what they’re looking for, but also the area where you’re located for enhancing connections between consumers.
4. Create Original Content Relative to Buyer Personas
First things first, analyze your target audience so that you can create content that they are interested in. If you don’t adhere to your users’ intent, they wouldn’t know about your brand and wouldn’t darken your hallway for shopping accordingly.
For instance, Alibaba kicked off its conversions and sales by opting for a unique approach to content creation and marketing strategies.
Create Buyer Personas
Analyze your target audience by enabling cookies so that you can create buyer personas out of their entered keywords on your website. For instance, suppose 25% of your users enter ‘shoes for kids’ as compared to 50% of those who searched for ‘shoes for kids aged 9-11’.
This not only provides you a detailed insight into your site’s metrics, but allows you to curate content and marketing strategies that somehow highlight the latter for higher website traffic and sales.
Research about Keywords on Google Keyword Planner
How are you going to search for the most actively interactive keywords on your website, after all? After analyzing and creating buyer personas, make sure you research on Google Keyword Planner (free tool) for new keyword ideas. This search will give you a detailed list of keywords, as per their rankings, providing you rich sources and ideas for creating relevant content.
5. Boost Your SEO with Long-Tail Keywords
Try to use the long-tail keyword approach for ranking your webpages higher on SERPs. Consumers prefer searching for their products specifically. Specific keywords have lower ranking and are usually not found easily while you’re searching for a more enthusiastic and recurrently searched volume of keywords.
· Make sure that the keyword phrases are not only specific to your published content, but also provide value to your brand
Suppose your brand promotes web design ideas, but if you can demarcate whether it’s for beginners, intermediate users or experienced personnel, you can outrank your current position by using ‘web design ideas for beginners’ as a natural keyword.
· Add keywords subtly in your content. While there is no target ratio for placing keywords, it is advisable to place them optimally and thoroughly throughout the content – make sure you don’t suffocate it with jargon
6. Improve Your On-Page SEO
Optimize your title tags, headlines, meta description, and content length for on-page SEO. While meta descriptions don’t add much to SEO, they are pivotal for a marketing point of view.
Create Original Content
Make sure your content is original and relevant, and doesn’t cater to replicas or duplicate content from a highly ranked website. Try to opt for new content formats other than text to escape the drudgery of longer reads and short attention spans.
Improvise your content by with the help of an ebook creator or fool around with typography (Canva) or visually-appealing content formats such as infographics and videos.
Conduct a Thorough SEO Audit
· Make sure your titles are neither too short nor too long, and show relevance to your content length each page. Add title tags so that they can be searched on Google without affecting your SEO
· Remember to draft your content properly and add keyword-infused headlines/headings in addition to images and crispy formats
7. Earn Backlinks
The higher your PageRank flow, the greater will be the opportunities available for higher ranking on Google. Google demands websites to vouch for your webpage’s credibility – it will scrutinize your content structure for an in-depth analysis of your internal link flow. Make sure you understand the importance of quality backlinks other than their quantity.
Write guest blogs or create content for niche websites that are ready to exchange your website’s inbound links for free content on their websites.
Make sure you address niche-specific websites for reaching out to a target market that adheres to yours as well. This way, you’d not only earn backlinks, but will also improve your webpage’s ranking accordingly.
Conclusion
Dare to outrank your competitor yet? In order to boost your webpage’s search engine ranking on Google, you have to first of all, tap into Google’s Algorithm Update Database to get an idea about how its ranking factors influence your page’s ranking.