If you want your blog to be ranked in Google’s top 10 for your target keywords, you need to be aware of the competition. It’s not enough just to put up a blog and expect it to do well.
To rank well on Google, you need to be consistent and provide value to your readers.
Here are the ways to soar your rank:
1. Research What’s Currently Ranking in the Top 10 Results for the Keywords You Want to Rank On
Your blog should be ranked in the top 10 by Google because it is a high-quality source of information that is frequently updated.
The search engines want to send users to websites that can be trusted to answer their questions in the most effective way possible.
You can use tools like Ubersuggest to understand how people search on Google and get ideas about what kind of content to write. For example, if you search for “investment banking,” you may find other related keywords such as “investment banking salary,” “investment banking analyst,” and “investment banking jobs.”
Ubersuggest and Google can help you find out what makes the top 10 results successful. By analyzing the results, you can improve your ranking. Through Ubersuggest, or by typing the keywords into Google, you can analyze the results that already feature in the top 10 to find out what makes them successful:
- How long is the content?
- What topics do they discuss?
- What type of domain are they (if they’re .edu, they can be difficult to beat)?
Google employs a sophisticated algorithm to determine which pages rank at the top of the rankings, so examining the competition provides insight into what it is looking for.
2. Optimize for On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing the individual web pages on your site to improve their ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you want to rank for a certain keyword, then you need to use that keyword frequently in your content to show Google that the keyword is central to what you’re writing about.
You can do this by including keywords in:
- headers
- meta descriptions
- image files
- page content
- alt text
- URL
Remember that your user should come first, rather than just filling your text with keywords. If you stuff keywords into your text it will look unnatural and turn human readers off.
Google understands how important it is for users to have a positive experience, so a big part of your on-page SEO is making sure your website meets their needs. People want a clean and fast user experience, so it’s important to take care of the following as well:
- don’t keyword stuff
- optimize images
- break your page down into easy-to-read sections
- avoid thin content
On-page SEO refers to the actions you take on your blog to improve your search engine ranking. It’s important to optimize your on-page SEO regularly to ensure your blog is visible to your target audience.
3. Optimize for Technical SEO
Google wants its users to have a positive experience, so it looks at factors like load speed when determining which websites to show in its search results. You can improve your chances of appearing in Google’s search results by making sure your website loads quickly.
There are many tools available to help you understand how Google views your website and make improvements. Programs such as Ubersuggest and Google Lighthouse can provide valuable insights into your site’s performance and guide you through making changes.
4. Get Backlinks
The Google algorithm looks at who is linking to your blog to help determine the trustworthiness of your site. If you have links from high-quality, authoritative websites, Google is more likely to trust your site.
The more people that link to your website, the more Google will trust your information. This is because it shows that other people trust the information on your website.
This is because Google’s algorithm interprets links as votes of confidence and popularity, which boosts the authority and credibility of the linked-to website. Google’s algorithm is improving at understanding the meaning of content, but links are still one of the most important ranking factors. This is because the algorithm sees links as votes of confidence, which makes the linked-to website more credible.
5. Create Helpful Content
What is valuable content?
Blogs can be valuable to readers for various reasons: They can address problems, answer questions, be entertaining, or some combination of these things.
It is essential to grasp your target audience and what they desire. If you are aware of what information people want and how they search for it, you can formulate content that will make them happy.
Here are my nine ingredients for great content:
- Original content: Always put your own take on things, and don’t rehash old ideas.
- Headlines are key: Make your headlines concise yet catchy and draw people in.
- Make it actionable: Give people the information they need to take action.
- Provide answers: Providing good answers to search queries is the reason search engines send people to you.
- Be accurate with your reporting and sources: Use reputable sources and check your information.
- Be thought-provoking: Encourage people to explore the subject further.
- Don’t just rely on text: Use images and video to appeal to more people.
- Cut out the fluff: People want you to get to the point.
- Keep updating your website and blogs: Keep your information relevant and up to date.
If you want to produce content that is high-quality on a consistent basis, it is not going to be easy, but using an editorial calendar can help you to plan out your schedule.
6. Use the AIDA Model
The AIDA marketing model is a helpful tool to use when drafting blog posts. The model is broken into four distinct stages – awareness, interest, desire, and action. By following this structure, you can produce well-organized and effective blog articles.
How are you going to grab people’s attention? This could be with amazing titles or cool images.
The final step is to see if you have been successful in the other steps by testing how well you can get people to explore your site, become a lead, or make a purchase.
7. SEO friendly blog design
Building a beautiful website can help improve your search engine ranking as much as having a well-designed site architecture or creating high-quality content.
Keep important content above the fold
It is argued by some that the following is not important since people are trained to scroll; however, I have seen it proven time and time again through my own tests and the tests of others. The important information should be kept in the top 768 pixels then. 80% of people’s time is spent above the fold while only 20% is spent below according to research.
The user is looking for the one thing they want. This brings us to sliders, which are popular. I don’t like sliders because they often confuse the user. For example, when a user arrives on a page and the space at the top of the page is taken up by a slider, the user has to search for what they want.
When deciding whether or not to use a slider on your website or blog, consider how important it is that users see or interact with it when they first arrive.
Keep the number of links on a page under 100
Although Google suggests that pages contain 100 links or less for the sake of design and user experience, Matt Cutts published a page with almost 200 links, proving that this number does not play a role in search purposes.
Google used to index only 100kb of a page, which was around 100 links. Now it can index pages much larger than that.
If you include more than 100 links on a page, Google may view your page as spam.
Create hub pages
One of the best ways to improve your site’s SEO is by creating a hub page of your best content. This will help get your content out of the archives and deliver more value to your site.
You could also categorize your content in different ways, for example by dividing it into beginner, novice, and expert advice on a particular topic, and then linking to all that content on a single page. Another way to categorize your content would be by themes, like Problogger does on its Archive page.
Limit your ad space
Too many ads on your blog will slow down the load time, which will hurt the amount of traffic your site receives.
Users hate ads and will avoid sites with too many of them. If you must use ads, look at your analytics to determine the two or three ads that get the most responses, and then get rid of the rest.
Design your site for speed
After evaluating your site speed, you should take measures to improve it if necessary. This can be done by optimizing your images, using a content delivery network, and compressing your files. Google has found that slowing search results by even 400 milliseconds can reduce the number of searches by half a percent.
In the world of SEO, speed is not as important of a signal as the relevance of a page. However, like with most things online, speed can become an issue if not addressed. Therefore, it is important to fix as many speed-related issues as possible.
Keep your images small
Saving images as .jpgs and text as .gifs can help speed up a website’s page download time. If an image is not in .jpg format, it can be converted using a tool.
Images, stylesheets, and flash files take up a lot of space, so it’s a good idea to store them on more than one server. This way, they can be downloaded faster. A Content Delivery Network like Akamai can help with this.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a group of servers that store cached versions of your website’s content, like scripts, text, and images. This can increase your website’s bandwidth and reduce stress on your server, both of which can improve your site’s loading speed.
Design your navigation for UX and SEO
Links reinforce the structure of the site by allowing spiders to quickly and easily travel from page to page. The way a website is organized and linked is important both for users and for search engines. The way search engines “crawl” a website helps them understand the website’s structure, just like a site map. Links allow search engines to quickly and easily travel from one page to another, which reinforces the structure of the website.
Users usually navigate around a website instead of using the search function. However, I have seen instances where the design trumps the search function because it is difficult for search engines to access these features if they are written in javascript or flash. This is not recommended as it makes it harder for users to access the website.
Use breadcrumbs
Search engines find them useful because they provide a Webmaster with an easy way to pass the keyword spider throughout the site. Breadcrumbs are useful for both users and search engines. Users find them helpful for knowing where they are on your site, especially if they got there from a deep page. Search engines find them helpful because they give a webmaster an easy way to let the keyword spider go throughout the site.
Build beauty into your web design
User experience will have an increasingly important role in determining how well a website ranks in a search engine as sentiment search becomes more common.
Let’s say people find your blog through a search engine. They land on your page, look around, see that it is poorly designed, and then leave. If the user chooses to block the result, then you will not show up in future searches.
Crawl and validate your site
As part of your review process to determine how well your website is optimized for search engines, you need to crawl and validate your site.
You must validate:
- HTML/XHTML
- CSS
- Accessibility (Section 508 and WAI Standards)
- Dead links
- Feeds
- Multiple browsers
- Multiple devices
Test your site for problems, identify them, and prioritize them. Then fix the problems and retest. If necessary, fix the problems again. To get a user’s perspective on your site, have family and friends test it instead of using tools.
8. Optimize Blog Posts
People are looking for information online, and blogging is one way to provide that information.
It allows your target audience to find your content through a search engine, and it improves your blog’s ranking in search engines so that you can generate more organic traffic. There are two benefits to optimizing your blog posts for organic search: it allows people who are searching for that content to find it, and it improves your blog’s ranking in search engines, which leads to more traffic.
While creating online content, always keep the reader in mind first and foremost. In general, if you focus on the reader, the SEO aspect will take care of itself with little effort required.
Here are those steps:
Keyword And Focus
When marketing your blog posts, you will be writing about topics of interest to your target audience, as well as researching hot topics, trends and common questions in your industry. Conducting keyword research will help you to determine what terms your audience is likely to use when searching online.
If you are aware of the secondary keywords ahead of time, you can make sure to include them in your post.
Secondary keyword phrases might include:
- “modern living room design”
- “vintage living room design”
- “living room design inspiration”
A Great Title
Some people might say that the title of your blog is the most important part.
Your title needs to be appealing in order to get people to click on your content, whether it is from a link on social media, a search result, or anything else.
To make your title more effective, it should be intriguing to your target audience and relevant to the subject matter. Additionally, the title should be optimized for search engine ranking.
Conclusion
There isn’t one quick and easy way to make your blog appear as one of the top ten search results on Google. Instead, it is achieved by constantly taking the appropriate actions and providing the reader with content of value.