Improve Google Ranking | 10 SEO Tips

As a SEO Agency we are asked again and again: What can we do ourselves on our website if we want to improve our Google ranking? There is quite a lot that everyone can implement themselves for SEO optimization. We limit ourselves here to everything that involves onpage SEO, i.e. takes place on one's own website. Offpage SEO with link building is excluded.

1. write high quality texts

High quality texts are the most important factor for Google rankings. This is especially true when you create SEO texts specifically for your online marketing. Make sure that the texts are error-free. Also, look at the content on a mobile device so that it looks perfect there. Include valuable links to other internal and external pages.

2. increase the user experience on your website

The longer visitors stay on your website and the more pages they look at, the better Google judges your website. These factors are considered the most important ranking factors of all. So you should tailor the content to the needs of your users. The more valuable the information is, the better you will perform. Also, think about what elements you can add to enrich the user experience. Infographics and videos are excellent here.

3. set one (!) keyword per page

Each website should be optimized for only one keyword. This can also be a combination of two or three words that are frequently searched for. To find out which keywords are optimal here, you can perform an SEO analysis of the words in question. Tools like Google Trends are helpful here.
It is almost impossible to optimize a website for several good keywords. The only exception are thematically very close terms. An example of this is singular and plural. People often search for both. Basically, it is important that you use the keyword in different variations in the text.

4. place the keyword in the right places

After you've determined the optimal keyword for a page, it's a matter of placing it in the right places.
Ideally, the keyword should be fully or partially included in the URL of your website. If you don't have speaking URLs yet, this is an important To Do for your programmers. Also, the keyword should appear in the page title.

The meta description is the third place where the keyword belongs. It usually consists of two complete sentences. Google mostly uses the meta description to view in the hit list.

This leaves the actual content to improve the Google ranking. Here it is ideal to have the keyword appear in the headlines as well as in the text. Important: Readability and usability must not suffer. The whole text should be easy to read and not seem like an accumulation of one particular word. If your keyword, once in a headline, once at the beginning and end of the text and two or three times in between, it is ideal.

5. answer questions - the booster for your Google ranking improvement

Surely you have noticed in the Google hit list that there is a block with the heading: Similar Questions. Here is a great opportunity to improve the Google ranking for your keyword. It does not have to rank in the list, but can also be listed here with the questions.

Many users use Google's voice search, especially on mobile devices. Questions are very popular. How does ... work? How does ... work? How long has ... been available?

Make sure these search queries find your website by including terms relevant to voice search in your website content. You can also phrase headings as questions. And make sure that the sentences that follow are recognizable as easy-to-read answers. With a bit of luck, they will rank for your desired keyword.

If it works perfectly, Google will show your answer to the question in "position zero". This means a special answer field above the search result number 1. This not only has very good traffic, but also pays positively to the authority of your company.

6. update your content regularly

If you are not yet satisfied with the current Google ranking, you can update the content. If it goes well, you will improve the ranking. Basically, Google does not like outdated content. Therefore, a regular update is very positively evaluated. Especially if you have many pages, an update schedule is helpful. It reminds you in a fixed cycle (e.g. every six months) to check the page. If necessary, you can update the site or add new links. You should also take the opportunity to check whether all external links are still working properly. Links to empty pages will be evaluated negatively by Google.

7. form content cluster

For your most important keywords you create a content cluster. This means that you optimize a central page for this keyword and treat additional sub-topics with further pages. Each of these additional pages gets a link to the main page. Google understands that this is the most important page on this topic and ranks it higher accordingly.

A good way to build a content cluster is to use a blog. As part of your search engine optimization, you write articles about your most important keywords here from time to time. In this way, you reliably rank content better and better in Google.

8. set links with appropriate text

Always use descriptive links. "Click here" does not add any value. Your internal links (and even more so for the external ones) should contain your keywords. Google then knows that the target page is the right one for this keyword. On top of that, you also help people with disabilities or screen readers to use your website.

9. use alt tags

Every image and video should have an alt tag. Google does not look at your website. The Google Robot reads through the source code. If you offer it an alt tag to an image, it knows what it is. On the one hand, this can lead to this image ranking well for your desired keyword. And in addition, you have placed it perfectly on your page one more time. Last but not least: Here, too, you help people with disabilities to get along with your website.

10. improve the speed of your website

Google likes fast pages. And your users like it too. You can see how fast your website is with the help of PageSpeed Insights find out. You will also find out where the biggest construction sites are. It is also worth looking at individual sub-pages. The result can sometimes differ greatly from the homepage.

In editorial, you can make the most difference by optimizing your images. Use a compression tool if your CMS is not able to compress files by itself. This can massively speed up the loading time of your website.

Summary

If you want to improve your Google ranking, you have a whole range of measures in your own hands. First of all you don't need SEO Agency for this. If you feel that the results could be even better or your capacities are not sufficient for these SEO measures, we will be happy to support you.