How To Improve Your Google Ranking: Five Key Steps For Growth

It can be very frustrating for a business owner to see their website not ranking well on the Google search results, despite numerous tips and tricks to try and get on to the first few pages of the search engine.

You may have spent a lot of time, effort and money on your website but don’t seem to be going anywhere fast. Nothing you seem to do is working, and you really can’t understand what the issue is.

Well if that’s the case, take a look at our guide below and discover what you can do to set a new course for your website and finally learn how to increase your Google rank the right way. We have five awesome steps to take to get you back on track.

Step 1: Discover SEO Keywords That Are Underperforming

Many SEO experts suggest first trying to get your page to the second results page of Google, and then attempting to boost that a little further to the first page where most clicks happen. However, whilst that may seem like a sensible plan, it’s not always the best way to approach this, not only because it can be difficult to boost a page a full 10 or more ranking spots, but just because your keywords are on the first page doesn’t automatically mean you’ll receive more traffic.

The keywords that are underperforming can soon add up in your favour, so don’t always try to compete for the top spot with the most difficult, costliest and competitive keywords out there in your sector.

Step 2: Select A Keyword You Want To Rank Highly For

Once you have your keyword list selected, skim it for those SEO words that you’d most like to rank for. You can look at keywords that are already performing well, but there is likely to be a lot more that have the potential to help you rank better.

We don’t mean that you should be putting all of your efforts into keywords that offer no value, or that are hard to rank for, but there are a couple of indicators that give you an insight into which are the best ones to choose.

• Select keywords which have large amounts of traffic already, and remember they don’t necessarily correlate with a page ranking.
• Choose ones which have a search volume that’s higher than others, because a single increase in ranking exponentially increases the amount of traffic.
• Use keywords which have a low difficulty score, as it takes a lot of effort to rank those on the upper end of the scale. Look at your keyword research and prioritise the ones which are easier.
• Give priority to keywords that have a great business value, so that the organic traffic which reaches your site is more likely to convert than just use it as an information source.
• Don’t discount non-branded SEO words, for example ‘Adobe PDF Reader’ will always trump the search results and direct to the Adobe website as it’s their own brand, you simply cannot win here.
• Those keywords which do not have SERP are placed before you, the featured snippets section features some of the most common keywords, so don’t try to compete here.

Step 3: Understand Why Your Competitors Have The Upper Hand

There are hundreds of ways in which a page can outrank yours even if you’re doing lots of things right, this is because Google uses a wide range of criteria in its algorithms to give users what they think is the best result list.

Don’t let it get you down, there are a handful of factors that you should be paying most attention to without getting caught up with minor issues. Things such as the authority of your website and page, as well as the number of domains referring to you.

You also need to create your content with search intent in mind. The whole point of Google is to give you the most accurate search results for your query, so from the billions of words and phrases you could possibly search for, Google attempts to give you exactly what you’re looking for the first as quickly as possible.

For example, Google understands that if you type in ‘what is link building’ you are not in the mindset to purchase link building from a company, you’re still in the stage of gathering information as opposed to ‘how to buy links’, which suggests you have transactional intent. Put yourself in the mind of the consumer and discover what they are searching to reach your site.

Step 4: Choose Your Battles Carefully

The trick here is to gain the advantage over your competitor where it really matters. You will soon see how you measure up to your competitor after sufficient research, so aim to fill in the gaps.

If your website is poor on SEO content, get writing blog posts and guides. If you don’t have many referring domains, then look into guest posting or carefully replicating the links gained by your competitors. If your site is loading slowly, upgrade your hosting plan so Google can see its true loading potential and give your ranking a boost.

Step 5: Keep A Close Eye On Your Ranking

It can be easy to think that some quick fixes will solve your site issues when it comes to ranking, but it’s important to see the changes taking effect over time, and dedicate resources to seeing what is working and what isn’t – then tweak accordingly.

You need to be sure that the actions you’ve taken are actually working. Track all of your keywords with dedicated online trackers, many of which will display on a graph just how well you’re doing.

When you’ve got a handle on how your main keywords are doing, expand the monitoring to lesser keywords and track their progress, adjusting as you go. You may need more blog posts in a certain area with specifically targeted SEO pages to help you escape being outranked.

At Key Business Marketing, we offer a range of services, including content creation, SEO, PPC and social media management. Get in touch with us today to discuss your marketing needs and unlock your business' potential.