Ranking higher on Google searches is essential for any website or business looking to increase their visibility and drive more traffic to their site. Millions of websites are vying for the top spots. Getting your website to rank higher on Google can be challenging.

However, by understanding the factors that influence search engine rankings and implementing the right strategies, you can improve your website’s visibility. And drive more traffic to your site. Our guide has you covered. In this article, we will explore some of the key elements that you should focus on when trying to improve your search engine rankings on Google.

But before we get to the optimization steps, we need to cover two topics. The first is a short rundown on what factors Google uses to rank websites. The second is a brief look at what search engine optimization is.

Black cellphone in someone's hand showing the Google search page.

Table of Contents

Google Search Ranking Factors
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
How To Rank Higher On Google Searches
1. Optimize Your Website’s Content For A High Google Ranking
2. Use Keywords In Your Website’s Meta Tags
3. Create Backlinks To Your Website To Rank Higher On Google
4. Optimize Your Website’s Load Time
5. Use Structured Data Or Schema Markup
6. Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) To Improve Your Google Ranking
7. Use An SEO Plugin To Rank Higher On Google
8. Monitor Your Website’s Performance And Improve Your SEO
Conclusions

Google Search Ranking Factors

Google uses a complex algorithm to determine the search ranking of websites. While the exact details of this algorithm are not publicly disclosed, Google has provided information about the factors that it takes into account when determining search rankings. These factors can be broadly categorized into two groups: on-page factors and off-page factors.

On-page factors:

• Content: Relevance, quality, and authority of the content on a website.
• Keywords: The use of relevant keywords in content, title tags, and meta descriptions.
• User experience: Ease of navigation, mobile optimization, and website speed.
• Structured data: The use of structured data to provide additional information about the website to search engines.

Off-page factors:

• Backlinks: The number, relevance, and authority of other websites that link to a website.
• Social signals: Presence and activity of a website on social media platforms.
• Branding: The strength and visibility of a website’s brand.

One of the most important factors in determining how well your website will rank on Google is the quality and relevance of its content. Google’s algorithm is designed to return the most relevant and informative results to a user’s search query. It’s important that your website’s content is well-written, informative, and relevant to the keywords you’re targeting.

Google also considers other less known factors like the geographic location of the user and the device they are using. Google’s algorithm also changes regularly. The weighting of these factors can change over time. Thus, it’s important to stay current with the latest Google algorithm updates.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs) through a variety of techniques and strategies. These techniques include using keywords and phrases in the website’s content and meta tags, building backlinks. It also involves ensuring the website is mobile-friendly and loads web pages fast.

The goal of SEO is to increase the quantity and quality of website traffic by making it more likely that a website will appear at the top of search engine results for relevant queries.

SEO is an ongoing process that requires time and effort. By following these tips, you can improve your website’s chances of ranking higher on Google. And drive more traffic to your site. Keep in mind that SEO is an ever-changing landscape. You should keep yourself updated with the latest SEO trends.

How To Rank Higher On Google Searches

Whether you’re a small business owner, a blogger, or a digital marketer, this guide will provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to improve your website’s search engine rankings. Take the time to read, understand and then implement the following steps for your website. Then watch how your SERP rankings improve.

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1. Optimize Your Website’s Content For A High Google Ranking

One of the most important factors in determining search engine rankings is the quality and relevance of your website’s content. Google’s algorithm is designed to surface the most relevant and high-quality content to users. To optimize your website’s content, make sure it is well-written, informative, and provides value to your target audience.

Use keywords in your content that are relevant to your business or website, but make sure not to overuse them as this can be considered “keyword stuffing” and can hurt your search engine rankings.

Additional Ways To Optimize Your Website’s Content For Search Engine Ranking

Conduct keyword research: Identify the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to your business and target audience. Then use them in your website’s content and meta tags.

Use long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords are specific, longer phrases that are less competitive and more likely to be used by people who are ready to make a purchase.

Optimize for voice search: As voice search is becoming more popular, it’s important to optimize your website for voice search by using natural language and long-tail keywords.

Use meta tags: Use title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags (H1, H2, etc.) to help search engines understand the content of your website and its relevance to a user’s search query.

Create high-quality, unique content: Create content that is informative, engaging, and relevant to your target audience. This will help attract backlinks and increase the chances of your website appearing in relevant search results.

Optimize images and videos: Use alt tags and file names to help search engines understand the content of your images and videos.

Optimize your website’s structure: Ensure that your website has a clear structure and that it is easy to navigate. This will help search engines understand the content of your website and how it is organized.

Use internal linking: Use internal links to help search engines understand the relationship between different pages on your website and to guide users to other relevant content.

Use external linking: Use external links to link to high-quality and relevant external websites. This will help improve the credibility of your website and could help attract backlinks in return.

2. Use Keywords In Your Website’s Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags that provide information about a web page to search engines. The two most important meta tags for search engine optimization are the title tag and the meta description tag. The title tag should be a concise and accurate description of the page’s content. Make sure to include relevant keywords in your title tag.

The meta description tag should provide a summary of the page’s content and should also include relevant keywords. By including keywords in your meta tags, you can help search engines understand the content of your page and increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Use header tags or H tags which are HTML tags that are used to organize the content on your website. By using H1 tags for the main headings on your site, and H2 and H3 tags for subheadings, you can make it easier for search engines to understand the structure of your content.

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3. Create Backlinks To Your Website To Rank Higher On Google

Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links from other websites that point to your website. These links act as a “vote of confidence” for search engines. They indicate that other websites consider your content to be valuable and relevant.

When a website has many high-quality backlinks, search engines like Google consider it to be an authoritative source. And will rank it higher in search results. Backlinks play a crucial role in SEO and having them from reputable and relevant websites can help improve a website’s search engine rankings.

How To Generate Backlinks To Your Site

Create high-quality content: The best way to get backlinks is to create content that is valuable, informative and relevant to your target audience. When people find your content interesting and useful, they are more likely to link to it.

Guest blogging: Reach out to other websites in your niche and ask if you can write a guest post for them. This will give you an opportunity to link back to your own website.

Social media: Share your content on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This will make it easy for other people to share and link to your content.

Broken link building: Look for broken links on other websites and offer to replace them with a link to your own website.

Reach out to influencers: Reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to share your content or link to it.

Use social media for influencer marketing: Reach out to influencers on social media platforms and ask them to share your content or link to it.

Utilize link building tools: Use link building tools to find websites that are linking to your competitors and reach out to them to see if they would also be interested in linking to your website.

It’s important to note that getting backlinks should be done in an ethical way. Avoid buying backlinks or participating in link farms. It could harm your website’s ranking in the long run.

4. Optimize Your Website’s Load Time

Website load time is another important factor that can impact your search engine rankings. Google’s algorithm takes into account the time it takes for a web page to load. If your website takes a long time to load, it can negatively impact your search engine rankings.

To optimize your website’s load time, make sure your images are properly optimized and that you are using a fast web host. There are also plugins that can help you do this.

Make your website mobile friendly. With the increasing number of people using mobile devices to access the internet, it’s important that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Google has implemented a “mobile-first” index, which means that it will prioritize websites that are mobile-friendly in its search results. You can test your site’s mobile friendliness here.

View of Google's mobile-friendly test page. — Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Page

Use a plugin like W3 Total Cache to speed up your website. This plugin helps your website load faster by caching your website’s pages and images.

Analyze your website’s speed with free online tools. Websites that load faster are favored by search engines, as well as users. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix to analyze the loading speed of your individual webpages. They will help you identify areas that need improvement. A fast website will easily help you rank higher on Google searches.

5. Use Structured Data Or Schema Markup

Structured data, also known as schema markup, is a type of code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand the content on your website. By using structured data, you can provide additional information about your website, such as the name of your business, the types of products or services you offer, and your location.

This information can then be used by search engines to display more detailed and relevant information about your website in the search results, which can boost your website’s SEO.

To implement structured data, you can use schema.org, which is a set of standardized code that can be used to markup different types of content on your website. You can also use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper which is a tool that can help you generate the structured data code for your website. Here is a detailed guide for adding structured data to websites.

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How To Use Structured Data To Boost Your Website’s SEO

Rich Snippets: By adding structured data to your website, you can create rich snippets, which are enhanced search results that include additional information such as reviews, ratings, and prices. These rich snippets can make your website stand out in the search results, which can increase click-through rates and drive more traffic to your website.

Video Markup: Google will often display featured videos in search results. You can provide video structured data information, such as the description, thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration. Videos can appear in Google search results, video search results, Google images, and Google Discover. So, this is a great way to give your site more visibility on Google.

Local Business: If you’re a local business, you can use structured data to specify your location and contact information, which can help your website appear in local search results. This can increase visibility for local customers and drive more foot traffic to your business.

Product Markup: If you have an e-commerce website, you can use structured data to markup your products. This will allow search engines to display product information such as prices, reviews, and availability in the search results. This can make your products more visible and attract more potential customers.

Event Markup: If you have an event website, you can use structured data to markup your events. This will allow search engines to display event information such as dates, locations, and ticket prices in the search results.

Article Markup: You can use structured data to markup your articles. This will allow search engines to display information about your article such as the author, the publication date, and the headline in the search results.

Finally, don’t forget to test your structured data and fix any errors in the code. There are several online tools that test your code for errors. The one we recommend is Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool.

Google's Rich Results Testing Tool showing test results and structured data code. — Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool

6. Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) To Improve Your Google Ranking

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are a type of web page that are designed to load quickly on mobile devices. They use a simplified version of HTML and JavaScript. They are cached by Google to ensure that they load quickly even on slow networks. AMP pages can be used to improve the user experience on mobile devices.

Here’s why AMP pages receive a boost in search engine rankings:

First, AMP pages are designed to load quickly on mobile devices. We have seen earlier that load time is a ranking factor that Google considers when determining search engine rankings. This is because Google wants to provide users with the best possible mobile experience. Fast-loading pages are a key part of that.

Second, AMP pages are valid HTML pages that conform to certain technical specifications. This makes them more easily crawlable and indexable by Google. This will improve your ranking because Google can now easily understand the content on your page and how it relates to a user’s search query.

Finally, AMP pages are also eligible to appear in the Google AMP carousel. This is a carousel of AMP pages that appears at the top of the mobile search results. Your pages now have a higher visibility, and your click-through rates increase. Which will ultimately boost your ranking.

You can use a plugin to implement AMP across your Web pages and posts. The AMP plugin from Google is simple to use and set up for most sites. It is automated so you don’t need to be able to write AMP code for using it on your website.

Overall, implementing AMP pages can be beneficial for your website’s SEO as it will help improve the user experience and make it more visible to Google users.

7. Use An SEO Plugin To Rank Higher On Google

There are several SEO plugins available for WordPress and other popular website builders that can help improve your website’s search engine visibility and ranking. Here are some of the best SEO plugins that are widely used and popular among users:

Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO is one of the most widely-used SEO plugins for WordPress. It helps you to optimize your website’s content for search engines and provides you with an easy-to-use interface for creating and editing meta tags, titles, and descriptions.

All in One SEO Pack: All in One SEO Pack is another popular SEO plugin for WordPress. It provides a wide range of features, including the ability to optimize your website’s content, create meta tags and descriptions, and generate XML sitemaps.

Google Site Kit for WordPress: This plugin allows you to track your website’s traffic, content, speed and monetization. It lets you see how people are interacting with your website. This can help you understand which pages are performing well and which ones need improvement. All on your WordPress dashboard for easy access.

View of the Google Site Kit Plugin showing a website's search traffic in a white and blue graph.

Broken Link Checker: This plugin scans your website for broken links and notifies you if it finds any. This can help you maintain the quality of your website and keep it running smoothly.

SEO by Squirrly: SEO by Squirrly is a plugin that helps you to optimize your website’s content for search engines by providing you with real-time feedback on your content’s SEO.

Rank Math SEO: Rank Math is a plugin that helps you to optimize your website’s content for search engines by providing you with a wide range of features, including the ability to optimize your website’s content, create meta tags and descriptions, and generate XML sitemaps.

It’s important to note that it’s not always necessary to use all these plugins. It’s better to use the ones that you really need, as some of them can slow down your website if they are not properly configured.

8. Monitor Your Website’s Performance And Improve Your SEO

Monitoring your website’s performance is important not just for SEO. It can also help you identify issues that may be impacting the user experience, such as slow load times or broken links. This can help you to make improvements that will improve the overall performance of your website, which can lead to increased engagement, conversions, and revenue.

Additionally, you can also identify potential security threats, such as hacking attempts, and take appropriate action to protect your website and your users’ data. Finally, monitoring your website’s performance can also be helpful for SEO, as page load speed is one of the ranking factors for Google, so a faster website will likely rank higher on SERP.

How To Monitor Your Website Performance

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track the traffic to your website. It provides detailed information about your website’s visitors, including where they came from, how long they stayed, and which pages they visited. This information can help you identify areas of your website that may need improvement. Allowing you to make data-driven decisions about which changes to make to your website to improve its SEO.

Google's Analytics page of a website showing colored charts plotting the website's data. — Google Analytics

Use webmaster tools: Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are free tools that allows you to monitor your website’s visibility in Google’s search results. They provide information about which keywords are driving traffic to your website. As well as any errors or issues that may be impacting your website’s ranking. They also provide you with information about any crawl errors, broken links, and backlinks. By using this information to identify and fix problems, you can improve your website’s performance in search results.

Google search console of a website showing performance data displayed in a colored chart. — Google Search Console

Monitor your website’s loading speed: As discussed above, use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to measure your website’s loading speed and identify any issues that may be slowing it down.

Monitor your website’s mobile-friendliness: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and that it meets Google’s mobile-friendly guidelines.

Conclusions

Ranking higher in Google searches is essential for any business or website that wants to increase its visibility. And attract more customers and visitors. The key for how to rank higher on Google is to optimize your website for both users and search engines. This can be done by conducting keyword research, creating high-quality, unique content and building backlinks. You should also make sure that your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly.

It’s also important to monitor your website’s performance and make adjustments as needed to improve your SEO. By using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs, you can track your website’s traffic, bounce rate, and keyword rankings. You can also use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to measure your website’s loading speed and identify any issues that may be slowing it down.

If you use most of the steps outlined in this article, your website will slowly start to rank higher on Google searches. If you are looking for the quickest way on how to rank higher in Google searches, here are the top three steps to do. Optimize and distribute your keywords throughout your pages and posts. Use AMP for your website to speed it up. Mark up your pages with relevant structured data to help Google understand your content.

Finally, it’s important to note that SEO is a complex and ever-changing field. There are no shortcuts to achieving high rankings. The best way to ensure your website ranks well is to create high-quality, relevant content. And regularly monitor and optimize your website’s performance.

Shaun Mendonsa, PhD is an influencing expert and pharmaceutical development leader. He writes on the topics of influence and persuasion, and develops next generation drugs in human pharma by advising international pharmaceutical CROs and CMOs. He can be reached at smendonsa@master-influencer.com.

Keywords

Schema Markup, Structured Data; Rich Snippets, Google Search Console; Backlinks; Google Analytics; AMP; Google Search; SERPs

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How To Rank Higher On Google: The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your SEO

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