5 simple SEO strategies to improve your ranking

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) affects the online visibility of your website. Good SEO means more page traffic and higher chances of selling your products and services to a wider audience. No matter how great your products are or how well designed your website is, without an SEO strategy, your chances of ranking on Google or any other search engine are slim.

How important is SEO?

Sure, you’re already doing other marketing to bring your audience to your website. They spend money on ads and may work with content creators to post links to your page. But that is not enough.

If you get traffic from other sources, great! But did you know that organic search is five times more valuable than Google ads? This is because over 90% of website traffic comes from search engines.

Users who come to your site from a search engine have a higher chance of converting because they specifically searched for your brand, product, or service. On the other hand, someone who landed on your page after encountering your ad may not have intended to look at your site before.

Unlike organic search, this is by design. Paid marketing efforts may interfere with another person’s experience. Also, any website that is too deeply rooted in the Google search page can lose its credibility.

Related: 7 reasons why SEO is important for every startup

What is an SEO strategy?

An SEO strategy improves your website’s search engine rankings to increase your organic traffic. A complete SEO strategy should consider three types of SEO:

• On-Page SEO: Focuses on your website’s content and makes sure it responds to your specific search query. Some critical factors affecting on-site SEO are the quality and uniqueness of the content.
• Offpage SEO: Focuses on strategies outside of your website to improve its credibility and ranking. Link building is the backbone of off-page SEO strategies.
• Technical SEO: Technical SEO looks at the backend aspects of your website to improve your ranking. Good technical SEO means your page load time is fast, all your pages are working, and structured data is in place.

Related: That is why SEO is important for every business

Simple SEO strategies to improve your ranking:

1. Content is everything

While Google has made significant changes to its algorithm over the past year, content has long been a priority. Consistently posting engaging content is the most important factor influencing your ranking. This means that not only should your website contain a lot of keywords, but you should also produce quality content that is unique and provides value to your readers.

Google checks the quality of your texts – beyond any SEO technique. They need to go beyond normal calls-to-action and stand out from other similar sites.

If you have an ecommerce business, creating a blog to complement your main site can answer questions from your audience and help you rank higher in search engines.

One of the factors Google considers is the freshness of your content. Having a blog makes it much easier to update your website with new content. In addition, a blog can help you reach a wider range of searches and increase average visit length.

There is debate about the ideal length of a blog, but according to a 2021 HubSpot study, the ideal blog post length for SEO should be between 2,100 and 2,400 words.

2. Make a list of keywords

Keywords are no longer the core of an SEO strategy, but they are still essential for optimizing your page. Use a keyword search tool to find a list of keywords related to your niche.

If you are a new business, it would be a good idea to target low competition keywords for a higher chance of ranking, and it would be a good idea to drive more organic traffic to your site. Of course, these keywords need to make sense for the type of content on your page.

3. Know what your audience is looking for

Many will make the mistake of creating content to improve page rankings – this technique will backfire. You end up with a page full of keywords that aren’t relevant to your business. Consider creating an accurate buyer persona to understand what your target audience wants. After that, you will know what motivates your audience and what content can address their needs.

4. Build quality links

A backlink is when another website links to your website. This is one of the most important factors affecting your ranking and a great way to get organic page views. This means that you cannot rank with on-page efforts alone.

Top websites can get backlinks organically, and building connections with reputable sites is essential. One of the best ways to get backlinks is to send a real contact email to sites you linked to.

While email blasts work, they become less effective as many marketers overuse them. However, there are plenty of resources online to unleash your creativity and come up with creative ideas for setting up an outreach campaign. Make sure when running an outreach campaign that you are polite, sincere and always try to add value first.

5. Do not upload large files to your site

Images and videos undoubtedly increase the value of your content and can help attract more visitors to your site. However, these files can be large and affect the loading time of your page.

Page load time is one of the factors that affect your page ranking and it also affects your mobile friendliness. Check out these factors and what managers can do to stay on top of things.

Many plugins and tools can help you reduce your file size without sacrificing quality. Never upload high-resolution images. As a best practice, stay within 500 KB.

Related: 10 essential SEO strategies for business owners to increase their traffic

Summarize

As with any business strategy, it will take time to see results. And instead of aiming for the stars, always make your SEO goals more specific to fit your business needs. This makes it easier for you to track and measure your progress.

As the algorithm is constantly changing, you also need to stay up to date with the latest changes to ensure you are familiar with best practices.