Many of our articles rank in the top spot on Google, meaning lots of free traffic comes to this site and the authors who post here. To get your site ranked high in Google's search results, keep reading to understand how to increase your odds of hitting those coveted spots.
10 Ways to Get Ranked Higher in Google's Search Results
Here are ten things you can do to get ranked at the top of Google's search results.
1. Pay to Get Your Site on the Front Page of Google
The easiest way to hit the front page of Google is to pay them to display your site. With Google Ads, you can pay them to display your page at the top based on specific keywords. For businesses that get customers from searches, it's a straightforward way to hit the front page. Ranking organically is much more difficult. That's what we'll discuss in the rest of this article.
2. Fully Answer Your Target Audience's Queries to Rank High in Search Results
When people get what they search for upon hitting your site, the search engine will keep sending people your way. If you want your business to pop up in search results, consider what people search for when looking for your products or services. Like hitting the front page of Reddit, getting your business on the front page of Google does not happen accidentally. Answer your end user's search query thoroughly to jump to the top of the search results.
3. Use a Fast Provider & Theme
No one wants to wait around on a slow website. That's why I use SiteGround to host this site. Coupled with Thrive Themes and some custom work, our pages load quickly, which search engines love leading to many of the articles hosted on this site jumping to the first page. The Google SEO Starter Guide states that speed is critical for improving your search rank.
Check your site speed with Google PageSpeed and GTMetrix once you're on a decent host. You may wish to enlist the help of a developer as well since additional seconds lead to bounces. I hired one from Fiverr, and the speed improvements helped our authors climb the ladder in Google's search results.
You can also just write articles on sites like ours that are already optimized for search if you don't mess with all the technical issues of hosting your own site.
4. Use Headers and Alt Tags
Use properly formed headers (H2, H3, H4) and numbered lists if you want search engines to index your content. Add alt and title tags to any pictures to help search engines understand images. Labeling helps your rank on Google and makes it easier for visually impaired people using assistive technologies to read your articles.
5. Focus on the User Experience to Rank on Google
You must have excellent content and a great user experience to rank high in Google's search results. Think about searching from a user's perspective. When you search for something, click on it, and get ads in your face, or the website takes forever to load, do you continue or close the page?
When your users click on your link, immediately give them what they are looking for, or you will not rank very high with Google. Make sure your website is fast, looks professional, and quickly gets the users the information they are looking for.
6. Use Search Optimization Tools
Use the tools provided by the various search engines to ensure your page shows up correctly in Google's search results. Here are a few of the major ones you should be familiar with.
7. Link to and From Authoritative Sites that Support Your Keywords
Throughout this article, you'll notice that I've linked to authoritative sites with additional information on ranking high on Google. If you search for the query you want to rank with, you can get a list of top-ranking sites and include those in your article. It's also good to link to your site from articles on authority sites like ours. For example, here are some additional articles you may want to review related to this article.
- How to Rank Higher On Google In 2021 – Backlinko
- How to improve your local ranking on Google
- How to improve your Google rankings in 9 steps
- How to Rank Higher on Google (6 Easy Steps)
- How to Rank Number One on Google
8. Include Images and Video
People love images and videos. So do search engines! Consider including a video and pictures related to your topic to rank higher. Below is an example video that describes a few more ways to improve your SEO.
9. Be Patient
It takes time for articles and pages to rise to the top of Google or any other search engine. Take the steps mentioned in this article, then wait. Unless you're willing to pay for ads, you'll have to be patient for this to work.
10. Provide Value to Earn Your Top Spot in Google's Search Results
Providing value to your readers over the long haul is ultimately the best way to hit the top spot on Google. Search engines want to know your site is fast, stable, and answers users' queries.
