How to Rank Higher on Google (2020)

As a website owner, it’s what we all want, the coveted first spot in the Google search rankings. That’s where most clicks end up going after all. Who wouldn’t want to their site in a position to get more visitors? But that’s the big question, how to rank higher on Google in 2020?

There are a lot of pretty simple techniques that you can use to help your website rank higher on search engines. Let’s take a look on how you can rank higher.

Tactics to Improve Search Engine Rankings

There are a lot of different tactics that improve search engine rankings, but we’re going to focus on the key methods that we find are most effective:

• Write better website copy
• Improve your on-page SEO
• Start high-quality link building
• Monitor your website performance

Using these methods on your own website should help you get over the hump and increase your online presence. If you need additional help, contact our SEO specialists to improve your search engine ranking. And if you feel ready to get started on your own, let’s get started!

Write Better Website Copy

Most people think they can’t just start writing good copy. That’s not the case. Writing for an online audience is not the same as writing a college thesis, it’s acceptable to take a more personal approach when writing for the internet.  So don’t fret too much about making sure it’s the next Hemingway novel.

What does it take to write good online copy? Just think about search intent throughout the writing process. The information that you’re trying to serve your audience needs to be highly relevant to the search that they made.

Choose the Right Keywords to Rank Higher on Google

The whole thing starts with choosing the right keywords for your niche. What is a niche? Think about what services your business provides and where it is located. For example, if you sell mortgages in Los Angeles, CA then you would look for corresponding keywords. Also known as Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords. Not necessarily synonyms but related to your main key phrase. Utilize the keyword planner that Google offers to help.

Informative Content Marketing

While writing your content, don’t overstuff your keywords into the copy. It’s not about the amount you use, it’s more important that you provide informative content and become an authority in your space. You need to create a resourceful blog post with 5,000 words or more, that people can come to rely on. Beyond that, consider making colorful infographics worth sharing, recipe cards if you’re a food blog and even go as far as producing Youtube videos. That may seem daunting, but the groundwork will set you up for success.

Write Your Content for the Human Eye

Your copy should not be written for the search algorithms, but for the human eye. It needs to be engaging and helpful so your audience spends a longer time on site. Don’t try to fool the system and fill it with keywords. Instead, focus on creating highly educational articles that are worth spending the time reading. If you can bestow some knowledge, that will reward your website in the search results. If you aren’t a great writer, don’t worry, just try to write a 500-word blog daily to start. Expand your word count from there and you’ll learn how to write ultimate how-to guides in no time.

Improve Your On-Page SEO

You control what happens on YOUR website, don’t forget that… but what does that mean?

There are a lot of things that you can do to a website that will make it easier for Google to read. Okay, not trying to confuse you even more, but it’s important that you understand how to improve your on-page SEO and rank higher on Google.

Interlinking and How to Do It

Properly interlinking your website is a quick way to make your site crawlable by Google. This means creating a logical path throughout your website from the homepage through all of your pages. When linking within your own website, feel free to use very specific anchor text without concern of any Google penalties.

Create Informational Meta Titles, Descriptions, and Heading Tags

The text that appears in Google search results is based on the information you provide through meta titles, descriptions, and heading tags. Having well-written and relevant copy for these aspects of your site is crucial. This is the content that will be pulled by Google for search results.

Sitemaps and How to Check Crawlability

Providing Google with a sitemap will give the robots that crawl websites a clear path to follow. This is one of the quickest things that can be done to help your site rank. You can check the current crawlability of your site through Google Search Console (opens in a new tab).

Start High-Quality Link Building to Rank Higher on Google

Once you have the content created and published and your website, it’s time to start the process of generating links back to your website. But unlike the good old days where search engines gave you “link juice” for every backlink you added on the internet, Google has cracked down on shady black hat practices and now only gives you credit for links coming from high-quality websites. In fact, link building from questionable websites can actually hurt your website more than it can help it.

So how do you make sure your incoming links are going to provide value and ultimately generate more traffic? Firstly, make sure all incoming links are coming from websites or pages within a website that is relevant to where they link to on your website. You also want to make sure that you link to more than just your homepage, as having a diversified link portfolio is key to maintaining a good backlink profile. You also want to evaluate the quality of the website that is proving the link back to your website. There are a plethora of tools out there for you to use, but we highly recommend SEMRush or SEOMoz to analyze the Domain and Page Authority.

Monitor Your Website Performance

So now you’ve done all the work, but how do you know if it’s working? That’s where monitoring your performance becomes an essential part of the process. Most people would agree that Google Analytics is the best place to find this data. It provides detailed data on incoming traffic sources, which pages visitors spend the most time on, what products they prefer, and literally thousands of other helpful analytics. Once you’ve analyzed the information, you can then optimize your website to add more effort towards what’s working and reassess the factors as to why certain strategies are not working.

If you need additional help ranking higher on Google, contact us here.