It’s a noisy, noisy world out there. One of the trickiest parts of getting found online is ranking high on search engines. To beat out the competition and pages that have years of SEO building under their belt, you need to employ smart, strategic tactics.
Old school tactics won’t work anymore. These days, a strong SEO strategy requires a thoughtful approach that falls in line with what Google wants from your brand.
How Google Ranks Your Website
Google’s algorithm is one of the biggest mysteries of the Internet. The team is constantly making updates to how pages are ranked. Tactics that worked five years ago could now damage your rankings and push you to the bottom of search results. Some examples of harmful SEO strategies include:
- Article spinning
- Paying for backlinks
- Stuffing keywords into content
Each of these tactics does nothing to serve your audience and everything to convince Google you’re interesting. The best way to stay in Google’s good graces is to focus your marketing efforts on strategies that serve your audience.
Google’s main goal is to serve their customers, the searchers. The more your marketing serves your audience, the higher Google will rank your website.
Here are three well-tested SEO strategies that will keep your website seeing the love from Google.
Start Your Blog
The only way Google can read your pages is if you fill it with content. This is where you can naturally incorporate your keywords so Google understands what your website is about.
Blogging doesn’t have to be hard. Many businesses shy away from it because they think there’s nothing to write about or their customers won’t want to read what they have to say. But blogging works for several reasons:
- Google wants to send visitors to content rich websites because they tend to be the most valuable to the searcher. The more content you have, the higher you’ll rank.
- Your visitors want answers when they arrive on your website. A blog is a helpful place to start a conversation and improve conversions.
- The more information you offer to your visitors, the easier it is for them to share it, which can increase the number of quality backlinks you receive.
The trick to smart blogging is to focus on quality over quantity.
One good example of a business owner who saw tremendous success with a quality blog is Marcus Sheridan. This pool company owner turned professional salesman at The Sales Lion, started blogging with answers to questions he heard from his clients. No one else in his industry was doing it at the time, but his business was unlike his competitors. He saw his business as an educator instead of a pool builders.
Making the same philosophical shift in your business can yield more traffic and more success. The concept is simple – be helpful and your customers will appreciate you for it. Start your blog with helpful intentions and as a byproduct, Google will thank you for it too.
Start a YouTube Channel
Google owns YouTube so it makes sense that posting content on this popular website will help you rank higher in search listings.
Like blogging, the quality of the content in your videos is more important than the quantity of videos you produce. Notice that I said the quality of your content. Video quality matters to the extent that your viewer must be able to hear and understand you. However, the message in the video is the most important measure of quality.
As you upload your videos to YouTube, there are a few things you can do to maximize your reach on search engines.
- Write long video descriptions. Don’t worry about being verbose. Use this as an opportunity to show Google what your video is about.
- Use video keywords. These are different than the keywords you use on your website. Search for the keyword you’re considering first. If no videos appear on the first page, use that keyword for your video and you could be the first one.
- Encourage subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the stronger a signal you will send to Google that you are producing something valuable. Make this the standard call-to-action at the end of each of your videos.
Network With Influencers
The secret sauce to getting ranked well on Google is still backlinks.
Backlinks are when another high quality website links to yours. The more you have, the more Google knows you’re putting out quality information their searchers will want to read.
Getting backlinks is tricky. They need to be incorporated naturally into the page or post where they appear. If not, Google could see it as a spammy backlink and punish you instead of reward you.
You also need the author of the page to remember your post and link to it in their writing. To do this, you need to make a lasting impression with the person doing the writing. This person should be an influencer among your target audience.
Network with these people online to establish your business as one worthy of being referenced. Share their content first. Backlink to their website and blog posts too whenever it makes sense. Show the influencer you’re invested in his or her field and you’ll be handsomely rewarded with backlinks.
This is a slow process and it takes time. Still, it’s worth it for the results.
Getting Started
The first step toward ranking high on Google is to understand how Google ranks websites. Once you have a general understanding of that, you can start building your online presence by driving search traffic to your pages.
What’s the hardest part about bringing search traffic to your website? Sound off in the comments below.
