5 Steps You Can Do For A Better Google Ranking In
Now that you have a basic understanding of SEO, here are 5 easy steps you can implement to obtain a better Google ranking.
Step 1: Avoid Black Hat Techniques.
Black Hat SEO uses tactics specifically designed to improve search rankings and fool search engines into providing a higher ranking than a website would receive according to the search engine's algorithms. These techniques will give you a quick boost but the downside is far too great. If caught, penalties range from your website disappearing entirely from the rankings or your website moving down to four or five pages without warning. There are only 10 results per page in Google and the first page receives 80% of all clicks. Simply moving back a few pages will result in you effectively losing all your search engine traffic.
Step 2: Choose the Right Keyword
Choosing the right keywords to base your site optimization around is the most important step. Avoid general or generic keywords as they are usually not the best approach. Most times it is better to be specific and focus on niche keywords related to your service or product.
For example, let's assume you have a hair salon.
The problem is there are a lot of Hair Salons. So how do we get it in the top 10 pages? We need to find our niche and get more specific.
- We can optimize for a specific market
- We can optimize for a specific location
- We can optimize for a specific technique or service of the hair salon
Depending on the product or service you offer, your target market will change. Just keep in mind when you are looking for keywords, be specific. Also, the average search phrase is 3-5 words so remember you just don't need a keyword, you can search for keyword phrases.
An example is, that you can optimize your "hair salon" for "Los Angeles Hair Salon." If you live in a specific neighborhood in Los Angeles you can go with "Westwood Hair Salon" "Beverly Hills Hair Salon" or "Hollywood Hair Salon."
You can find out how many websites are competing with your keyword by simply doing a search on Google and writing down how many search results are returned. For the above example, "hair salon" returns 25,300,000 websites. "Westwood Hair Salon" returns 21,300 results. Obviously, the more sites there are competing with you, the harder to get into the top 10 results.
A good place to start looking for keywords if you cannot afford some of the software is Google Adwords Traffic Estimator. There are many software programs for keyword research. Of course, all the good ones due require either a monthly fee or purchasing of software. A simple technique to get you started is to optimize every page on your site for a different search phrase (2-3 words each).
Step 3. Your URL and Title Tag
Two of the most determining factors in Google's ranking are your domain name and title tag. For example, a domain name such as Hair-salon-Los Angeles (dot) com will usually get ranked higher than your company (dot) com assuming that they had identical keywords and content. Because most of us have already purchased the domain name, and keywords in the domain name would look too funny or unprofessional; the following tactic is useful.
Try adding keywords to the name of your pages. The title tag is equally as important as your domain name. Improve your Google ranking by using keywords in your title tag. Going back to our example of the hair salon, a good title tag would be "Your Company is the top hair salon in Los Angeles." Also, the closer to the front of your title tag the keywords are placed, the better.
Step 4. H1 Tags and Keyword Density
Tags are not used as much as they use to be with the advent of style sheets. However, Google's ranking algorithm still uses them. The Google ranking algorithm dictates that if you're using a tag, then the text in between this tag must be more important than the content on the rest of the page.
Keyword density is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the page content. Putting keywords in your page content can improve your keyword density. The ideal keyword density is 7-10% for each page on your site. There are penalties for overdoing keywords, so don't overdo it.
Step 5. Links, Links, and More Links
Backlinks are websites that link directly to your website. However, please remember building backlinks takes time and does not happen overnight. The more backlinks you have, the better. Your website will be ranked higher under the principle your website must be good if so many websites are linking back to it.
Submitting your site to many directories like Yahoo! And Bing is an important step to increasing the number of sites linking back to yours. Another great place for backlinks is Yelp! (If you're a restaurant) and other vertical searches and directories. Exchanging backlinks with other businesses you know is another great way to build backlinks. I would recommend emailing 10-15 websites each and every day to request backlinks or partnership links. Within 8 weeks you should have 50-100 sites linking back to yours.