Ever experienced a SERP shock? Then you definitely know how it feels to see your website’s ranking drop all of a sudden. There may be tons of reasons for this decline- losing backlinks, redirections, Google updates, or algorithmic penalties. While it’s important that you determine the reason for the drop, what’s more important is to find out how to boost that ranking again. SEO ranking improvements take time and focused efforts. But with the right techniques you can be up there, reigning the SERPs in no time. So, here are some proven techniques that can help you boost organic traffic and improve your search engine ranking.
10 Techniques to Drive SEO Ranking Improvements
1. Improve Site Load Speed
Websites that rank high on SERPs, especially on the first page are those that load significantly faster than others. This is because people are increasingly accessing websites over mobile devices, on the go. They want quick results to their queries and problems. So, make sure your page load speed is optimal, because this is one of the key determinants of your SEO ranking.
2. Prompt Clicks with Sitelinks
While optimizing your title and description for clicks, also remember to add sitelinks to prompt more people to click your links. Sitelinks are links to your web pages, displayed below your site in the search results. You can do this by creating a Table of Contents with ‘jump links.’ This technique can improve your Click Through Rate (CTR) and boost your overall ranking.
3. Use Good Content to Create Better Visibility
Content always rules. Your prospective customers are searching the web for information about something, or solutions to their problems. In effect, it’s the content you provide them with, that makes a difference. So, the more content you provide, the better are your chances of getting noticed online. However, don’t forget that more content also means qualitative content, because poor or thin content can have the opposite of the desired effect.
4. Focus on Keywords with Commercial Intent
Keywords that get a good number of searches are good. But they’re not good enough anymore. Search volume is important, but search intent is even more so. Therefore, identifying and focusing on keywords with a high commercial intent can simply turn around your SEO game.
5. Build Site Authority with High Quality Backlinks
The quantity, and more importantly the quality of links are indications for Google about your website’s authority. Get backlinks to your website from authoritative, popular, and relevant websites. Acquiring new backlinks can be quite challenging and time consuming. But with a good link-building strategy, creativity, and persistence, it’s definitely possible to get links from authoritative websites. Guest posting, reaching out to bloggers, and providing links on your social media profiles are a few effective backlinking techniques that you can take advantage of.
6. Harness the Power of YouTubing
To grab a good spot in SERPs you sometimes need more than articles or blog posts written using the right keywords. An informative video based on the same keywords can lead to faster SEO ranking improvements, since YouTube videos can help you reach the top of search results in no time.
7. Tap Local SEO
A huge number of searches on Google are for local businesses or local vendor suggestions. To tap this market, focus on target keywords with a high local intent, such as “book stores near me” or “cleaning services in my area”.
8. Recycle Old Content
Some of the content on your website may have lost relevance over a period of time. This type of content fails to cater to user intent and pulls down your google ranking. So, reprocess the content by adding more relevant and current topics and keywords. This way you can give searchers exactly what they’re looking for. This can elevate user experience and give your ranking a big boost.
9. Repurpose Content
Creating content from scratch every time is not just extremely time-consuming, but it is also an inefficient approach to SEO. If you already have a lot of content, repurpose it into different formats- Turn your blog post into an interesting YouTube video, create a funny meme from an existing video/image, or write a blog post based on a popular video from your channel. This way you can make the most of the content you already have, while also getting the SEO ranking improvements that you’re aiming for.
10. Optimize Your Keyword Strategy
Find low-competition, yet popular keywords to target. The best way to do this is to target new keywords that not many sites are trying to rank for. This way you get a chance to compete with fewer people, and your site can quickly rank higher.
SEO ranking improvements do not happen overnight. They take time, consistent effort and a lot of patience and perseverance too. But with these 10 techniques you can get your website to quickly occupy prime SERP real-estate and before you realize, this can also translate to better business outcomes.