Are you observing drop in your Google ranking? You must be really worried about that. Website ranking is an important part of SEO. Everyone is trying to increase their Google ranking but it is a long game. There is no shortcut to improve your visibility on the internet. We all are aware of the importance of keywords and good quality content but this is not it, there are other factors too that affects the ranking. So, If you are trying to boost your Google ranking then bear with me till the very end of this article.
John Muller once confirmed that the improvement in your site’s ranking takes time. Even if you make drastic changes to your website it will take some time to reflect the improvement in ranking. He also mentioned that it is not advisable to sit back after you upgrade your site but you have to do continuous improvements in your site. Continuous improvement is essential to get your site that desired ranking.
Now you must be wondering how long it takes to get the results. Then you have to go through these stats which were given by Ahrefs from a study they conducted
- The average age of a page that ranked first and in top 10 was 3 years and 2 years respectively.
- Only 22 percent of the pages that ranked in top 10 were less than a year old.
- About 6 percent pages among all made it to that top 10 search engine results for at least one keyword within a year.
- Among the top 6 percent pages, most of them got in to the top 10 from nowhere in 2 to 6 months.
So, we can conclude these findings by saying that about 94 percent of the pages never made it to the top 10 rankings within a year.
6 Methods to boost your Google ranking
So what are some proven methods that can help to boost your Google ranking? Let’s see them
1. Mobile Friendly website
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of the SEO. The mobile version of your website directly affects the rankings. Now that we know the population of mobile phone user has overtaken the number of users of personal computer. It is not recommended to ignore this factor. Google has also made it clear in the past that it does look for the level of optimization of the mobile version of your web page. And as mobile search volume has been greater than desktop search volume this becomes an even more important point. Websites are now ranked on the basis of the performance of the website on the mobile phone. If users do not have a good experience on their mobile phone then your ranking might fall.
Use responsive website design in order to provide a good experience to the user. Make sure your website is smooth and quick to load. Ensure the links are visible and clickable. The website is clearly visible and easily navigable on the mobile platform. The key point here is to provide the same experience across all the platforms.
Related article: Possible reasons and solution for Google ranking drops
2. Loading speed
This is another important factor that affects site’s ranking. New internet generation is not patient. They wants everything quickly and when it comes to internet they need high speed browsing. So, you can’t lose that audience just because your site’s speed is slow. And Google has also made this factor important when it ranks sites. Your site should load quickly, because people expect a loading time of 3 to 4 seconds. There are some methods that can increase the loading speed of your site.
- Reduce the size of the pictures and videos
- Make sure your website is well optimized with a great design
- Website should be optimized for mobile
- Have a better hosting service
By making sure your website is loading quickly and smoothly especially on mobile phone then the chances of your website to rank high increases. Websites that loads slowly will have high bounce rate and hence will have lower ranking.
3. Share your content on Social media
Social media is such a huge platform where you can reach a big audience that will draw traffic to your website and which will contribute to improve the ranking. Social shares give visibility to your content. When a large audience on social media sees your content then you will most likely to get many clicks on your website. More the traffic on your website, higher will be the ranking. When you are creating a high quality content then people will not just read it but they will share it as well.
4. Add voice search feature to your site
Who wants to type when a search can be made by simply speaking. This is a fact that voice search is very popular among audience. If we go by the report of GlobalWebIndex, 20 percent online adults use voice search at least once a month. These voice searches will help the user to find your content easily and they will not leave your site early. This will directly help your site improve ranking. Optimize your content with phrases and keywords the users are more likely to use. See from your user’s eyes. People prefer to use conversational phrases, they will not speak what they type in the search engine. So instead of saying ‘best Chinese restaurant near me’ they will say ‘what are some best Chinese restaurants in my area?’ So try to make your voice search feature conversation optimized.
5. Publish high quality content
So users have come to your site by clicking the link on social media but they will not think twice before leaving if the content is not good. Everybody is looking for some high quality authentic content. Give them something interesting and informative. Content is also important because keywords are an important part of it which enhances the visibility of your website. To publish great content keep the following points in mind while preparing your content
- Try to have a long content. Your content should be at least 1000 words long. If it is up to 3000 words then it would be great.
- Make sure the content is free of spelling or grammatical errors. Use some good quality words and by that I don’t mean use big fat words that make anyone to take out their dictionaries which nobody wants to do now. So use some good and easy to understand content.
- Include images and interesting animations or graphics.
- Use effective keywords in the right numbers. Don’t over use keywords as that will not be of any help.
- Make sure the keywords are relevant to the content.
6. Include proper links
Every SEO strategy is incomplete without links. Links are an important ranking factor. Get some quality links from high-authority. Having great inbound links will improve your site’s ranking. Don’t buy links. Include internal links which will distribute the traffic. Internal links enhances the user experience. Don’t forget to remove internal and external broken links, they affects user experience negatively.
To wrap up
All these things are important to keep in mind while planning your SEO strategy. It is of utmost importance for every brand or business to have a great website so that they stay in top few of Google rankings. User friendly experience is necessary because Google cares about it. Follow the above mentioned points to boost your Google ranking.
