Make your website rank higher in Google & other search engines
In this guide we are going to go through all the ways you can improve your website and potentially get it ranking higher on search engines such as Google. We've listed the most important factors when optimising your website below with an easy to use guide.
Ok first things first and probably one of the most important parts is researching your domains as its your brand.
If you've already got a domain other factors in terms of SERP (Search Engine Rank Position) include the domain name, your domain age and domain authority have a big impact on your overall ranking.
You can check your current ranking using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tools, we've added some recommendations at the end of this blog.
Choosing a local web hosting provider in the same country can not only help your ranking but also lower page loading times for you and potential customers.
Consider choosing a provider within the same country, you may also want to ask your hosting provider for the IP address as some IP's can be flagged as spam, resulting in all outbound email being blocked.
Test the IP's using MX Toolbox.
Security is very important when it comes to your own website as you may be handling sensitive checkout information for clients or customers, therefore an SSL is required.
Google also has rolled out to have all websites running an SSL certificate on their website to encrypt the site owners information and has made it a ranking factor within its search engines algorithms.
Further steps such as cPanel and DirectAdmin offering a free SSL have recently been introduced and Lets Encrypt providing free SSL's too!
It's become a big deal which is why we also offer a a free SSL with all our hosting plans.
Google recently updated it's search algorithms to include a separate ranking alorithm for mobile websites.
If you currently have a website which is not mobile responsive this will be having a big impact on your ranking.
We would suggest buying a professional theme or updating your site so that it is mobile friendly.
If you are on a budget you can select a responsive free theme from the WordPress free themes section.
It's Very important should you want to rank your website correctly that your page title should be made clear for Google, Bing and other search engines to correctly identify the topic and keywords for ranking accordingly.
You can also set your URL structure if you are using the WordPress content management system by going to settings >> permalinks >> post name.
Keep your meta title under 60 characters so the full length is shown on Google search results.
Put your keyword in the meta title but don't use it more than once.
Google doesn't like keyword stuffing if you are using the same keywords words multiple times, this can have the opposite effect, damaging your website ranking.
Try to make your description engaging, content that will pull in visitors and is related to the page such as offers or unique selling points.
Try once again to include your keyword within your description and keep it under 160 characters so the full content is shown on Google search results.
Without proper heading tags search engines cant identify your topic, heading tags are one of the most important search engine optimisation (SEO) requirements.
HTML tags range from h1 which is your page title through to h6 which is least important.
We recommend learning HTML basics to help with your ranking
Your content is how your readers see you so its best to try and keep your content easy to read, steps such drafting down your content ideas can help keep a clear mind including topics of discussion.
Include images to break up your text as potential readers don't like to see endless pages of unbroken content, add paragraphs for easy reading.
Google loves content and in a nutshell the more the better, as a minimum requirement try and add at least 1000 plus words of quality content as this can have a positive impact on your ranking position.
You can also use Word Counter by pasting in your text to check how many words are on your page.
As mentioned in the contents section images help break down your content and make it more interesting for the reader.
Optimising your images helps reduce page load time using plugins such as WP Smush, resizing your images if they are too big and changing the format of your images in a simple application such as MS paint.
Export images as PNG & JPEG can help speed up your page load time.
These help Google and other search engines describe your images and rank your images under Google's image tab.
Alt tags also help improve your SEO score and rank your images which can potentially increase traffic to your website.
Heres an example how to add your alt tag
alt="name of image"
Ok now that you've completed your website up and running, you now want to get it onto search engines for potential customers and more traffic to come to your website.
A sitemap or sitemap.xml file tells search engines what pages are on your site and the location (URL).
You can add a sitemap to your website in several ways, using either a sitemap generator or manually creating one yourself if you're not using a contenemt managemt system like WordPress.
If you're using WordPress you can create a sitemap by going to plugins >>> add new.
Type "XML sitemap". You now have the option to choose one from the list.
Install and activate then check with the plugin that it has generated your sitemap.
If you need to create a sitemap but you aren't using WordPress, you can use the XML sitemaps website.
Enter your website, it will then crawl all your pages.
View sitemap details, you can now download your sitemap.
Following the steps above you can now upload to your websites home directory.
This is usually added along with your sitemap.xml file and uploaded to the same location as your sitemap.xml file which is in your home directory of your website.
With this file you can set the crawl rate and exclude pages from search engine bots if you don't want them to be seen.
Your robots.txt has advantages and disadvantages as potential hackers may look at this file if you are trying to hide sensitive information and gain access, so be careful what you want to hide!
Your website is effectively useless unless you add it to all the relevant search engines.
The easiest way of doing this is to use Free Web Submission, this automatically allows you to add your site to 50 search engines and directories in minutes!
Alternatively you can use Google webmaster tools and Bing webmaster tools to add your website manually.
Google webmaster tools is a great tool for checking
To add your website use the "add property", enter your domain and verify using one of Google's verification methods.
Backlinks help increase your domain authority (DA) and by doing so will start increasing your domains ranking.
Back linking is also a long-term commitment to get your domain to the top of search engines.
You can also create your own free account with SEMrush, includes free helpful backlink statistics for your domains and loads of other tools including keyword tracking and project analysis.
The difference between a do-follow or no-follow determine whether you get "link juice" or not.
Do-follow links passes on the link juice to your domain, whereas no-follow links do not.
You can check which of your backlinks have do-follow and no-follow with one of the tools at the bottom of this blog, we'll use Moz as an example.
Complete your registration and head on over to their link explorer page.
Type your domain then select lost and found from the left.
A graph will show all your new links in green and lost links in red.
Bad backlinks won't do your website any favours, in fact it can harm your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position).
It's always good to research any websites first before adding a backlink to your site using any the tools we've mentioned so far, you can check if a website has a high spam score by using SEMRush or even a simple checker like Check Page Rank.
Look for websites that have a good reputation, are within the same niche and have low spam score.
Try and get valuable links from the same type of websites as yourself, leading to focused traffic coming to your site.
Adding anchors to your site helps rank specific keywords.
Pages with empty anchors can still give you link juice but it's recommended to add your keywords.
A good idea would be to use SEMrush or another backlink tool to research other websites which are ranking on page one of Google such as a competitor.
Research your competitor with SEMrush to see how their anchors show on their website.
You may also want to use Ahrefs keyword difficulty tool.
The Ahrefs keyword tool will show you how hard it is to rank on the first page of search engines.
So now that you've probably implemented some of the features outlined above you should notice a definite increase in your rankings.
Google usually takes 30 days for Google to crawl and update or you can use Google Webmaster Tools to request indexing.
Using all of the information above and integrating them into your website you'll notice a definite increase over time.
Here are a list of useful links to help you your website rank higher in Google and other search engines
Using all of the information above and integrating them into your website you'll notice a definite increase over time.
Remember to update your site regularly with new content to keep visitors coming back, crawl updates pages with Google webmaster tools and request indexing so that it updates on search engines.
Include offers or regular business and website updates to keep visitors returning.