In terms of SEO, most businesses’ ultimate goal is to get on that highly coveted first page of Google.
In fact, did you know that a whopping 91.5% of Google traffic never leaves the first page?
Fortunately, if you have been trying in vain to obtain that elusive top spot, there are several tried and tested techniques that can help dramatically improve your site’s ranking on Google.
From assessing your current ranking to checking the mobile-friendliness of your site to carrying out regular SEO audits, keep reading to find out how you can rise in the ranks of Google without breaking your marketing budget in the process.
-
Assess your current ranking
You cannot hope to successfully improve your site’s ranking if you don’t know what it is at the moment. Therefore, your first step should be to find this information out.
There are several free online tools that can help you to do this, or if you have been targeting specific keywords in your content, you can manually enter these into Google and see where your site comes up.
-
Carry out an SEO audit
Although most businesses understand the importance of SEO for improving a site’s ranking on Google, not nearly enough business owners carry out regular SEO audits to see what is and what isn’t working for them in terms of SEO.
That being said, conducting a full SEO audit can be time-consuming and complex, so most brands choose to employ an SEO agency to do this for them.
A full SEO audit should include on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
-
Track your metrics
Tracking vital metrics such as how many visitors find your site via Google and what keywords generate the most traffic can help you to easily determine which aspects of your SEO you need to improve upon.
The simplest way to keep track of all your different metrics is to set up an SEO dashboard in Google Analytics. You can even connect this with Google Webmaster Tools to get even more valuable data.
-
Make your site mobile-friendly
Up to 70% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices, which means that as a business, you need to make sure your site is as mobile-friendly as possible. The easiest way to achieve this is by ensuring you have a responsive website. This means a website that can be viewed on both desktop computers and other devices such as mobiles and tablets.
If you are not sure how mobile-friendly your site is, Google offers a simple tool to help you, the aptly named Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
-
Conduct keyword research
You may already be doing this as part of your SEO efforts, but the real question is, “Are you doing it effectively?”.
Keyword research is crucial if you want first-hand information on your target audience and what they search for online when it comes to your niche. However, many businesses are failing to carry out this vital SEO practice adequately.
There are several key aspects to keyword research, including:
- Local SEO
- Keywords based on your website content
- Keyword suffix terms
- Keyword phrases
- User intent
You should also utilize Google AdWords to check how sought-after your chosen keywords are and how likely they are to work for you.
