Best Way to Improve SEO Ranking

 

You would like to be better found in Google, but how do you actually do that? And how easy is that? In order to be found better, we need to understand Google both how it works and the way it ranks results.

To improve a certain search result you have to deal with SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

10 Tips for Better Search Results

 

1 - Use 1 topic per page

Even if you forget all the tips mentioned here, try to remember this valuable tip: use 1 topic per page.

This is probably one of the most important tips for getting to the top of search engines!

Before you want to create a new web page, you should think carefully about the main topic in advance. What is the core of the page, what is the main search query, what are people looking for, what is a potential customer looking for? As soon as you know that, you should check if there is already a page on your website that deals with this subject! If so, in most cases it is more convenient to expand the existing page! If not, skip to the next tips.

2 - Use relevant search terms

When you know which keywords you want to use, there are a number of places on your webpage that you can use with the keyword that can have a positive result on the findability in google. These have been tested over and over and are sure to result in shifts in organic search results.

Use the correct search terms or keywords that people use when they search for the theme you are writing about. Knowing who your guests are is critical. What is someone looking for Think of marketing, for example? You can use marketing terms here that few people understand, and don't actually search for. If you want to reach a "normal searcher", use simple words instead of advanced marketing terms, use the word runny nose, or pain in my head, without the official medical terms if you were to write about it. This of course applies to any industry, marketing or not.

The correct marketing terms through a Google Keyword research:

Keyword research is one of the most important parts of writing a good article. That is, if you want the article to be found well, and with the right intention. Some paid tools to do keyword research are: Ahrefs, Moz Keyword explorer and Cognitive SEO Keyword explorer. Unfortunately, these keyword tools cost more than $ 100 per month. Although I only mentioned 3, in reality this list can be a page long. But most likely you will only read this blog if you start with search engine marketing, and you don't have a big budget yet.

Free keyword tools:

Fortunately, there are also cheaper and even free tools to help you get better positions.

First of all you have of course Google Ads keyword planner, and Google search console. If you have a Gmail account you can activate it for free, and I would always recommend it if you are involved in online marketing. PS. If you don't have any active Google Ads campaigns you will unfortunately not be able to view the "exact search volumes", but only the rounded numbers. So instead of a search volume of 340 you now see 100-1000. That's a shame, and Google did it on purpose. Search engine agendas revolve around money.

To read more about keyword research, check out our Keyword Research article.

3 - Write long (er) content!

Everwritten a mountain of a blog?

If you specialize in something, you will be able to write a lot about a subject. And that is what Google wants, unique content that the visitor can benefit from and can rely on. Therefore, try to be the best in 1 topic you write about, so that your piece of content is longer and better than the results that can now be found in the search results.

Give the search engine a hand

Google will be able to measure visitors' statistics how visitors respond to your content, and use that as a measurement tool for ranking all search results. If your visitors trust your website, the search engine will be able to tell!

4 - Optimize navigation and site structure

Not only the visitor likes clear navigation, search engines also appreciate this. If you

Breadcrumbs (breadcrumbs) on your website, use them too. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to work with all WordPress themes.

Therefore try to use a URL structure that visitors can understand and see and read where they are on the website.

Unfortunately, this is sometimes difficult to implement with e-commerce websites, where the CMS system partially fills this in for you, and that is not convenient. In any case, try to avoid generic names and numbers such as / category / item10-30398df as much as possible. Mijnwebwinkel, for example, is a well-known system that in my opinion does not work ideally with search engine optimization!

Extra TIP Link from your homepage:

If 1 or a few pages are the most important for the visitors or yourself, make an internet link from the homepage to the page!

Extra TIP 2 Use text links:

If you want to link from one page to another, don't use images as a link. Pictures do not say anything about the page being referred to! Google likes text because it cannot read photos. So use TEXT as much as possible when referring to other pages on your website, so that the link provides "context".

5 - Update your content!

If you already have a website with a lot of information on it, first see if it is useful to optimize the current content!

Build confidence by keeping your content up to date

You can already win a lot if you keep content up-to-date. Suppose you wrote an article about the 10 most beautiful cities in Europe 5 years ago, it is wise to take a closer look at that page and update the information where necessary and thus revitalize it. It is much easier and faster to get to the top with an 'older' page than with a new one.

In the search results you sometimes see a date. If your date is a few years older than your competitor's, it will be to your disadvantage!

6 - Use and receive related links (relevant links)

When you link from one page to another web page on your website, use descriptive texts such as anchor text for your hyperlinks. In the text I can therefore make a much better link to the SEO Specialists page with the text SEO specialist, than with a text click here. Or with yet another example: SEO Course instead of: read more.

"Click here" is not rated by Google. You can read this in the Google Webmaster Guidelines that they have on their website. Try not to select too much text and use it as a link. This also applies to backlinks. So if you link to your website, try to make the link descriptive.

Also read the article on backlinks in our dictionary for more information. Good quality links help with better findability in search engines. Many companies also offer link building, but this is very time consuming and is even more difficult to demonstrate than all the work involved in search engine optimization.

Tip: try to get backlinks on relevant pages, and not on websites and web pages that have nothing to do with the content of the web page! Preferably from pages that are already high in the ranking!

7 - Optimize your website speed!

In July 2018, Google rolled out the new Speed ​​Update. That is why it is now EVEN more important to improve the speed of your website. If you're doing SEO for WordPress, you can easily use a few plugins for this. Here are some tips to improve your speed:

Optimize your images! You can do this in 3 steps.

1.       Reduce the file size of the images. As an indication, I would try to keep the file below 100kb. If you need high resolution, please use low resolution on the website, and a link to the large resolution.

2.       Use the correct file type. PNG files are much larger than JPG files. Therefore, it is much better to use .jpg for regular images.

3.       Use a lazy loader such as A3 Lazy Loader. Especially if your website uses a lot of images, this is highly recommended. Normally your browser would load all images when you open the page, but a lazy loader will not load the images until they actually come into your screen when scrolling.

Use a caching plugin.

If you have a WordPress website, you can choose from many caching plugins. Some are free, and some are paid. I myself use WP Fastest Cache in combination with A3 Lazy Loading. WP rocket is a well-known but paid plugin. Another one that is super popular among the speed geeks is Swift Performance.

Learn more