Rank Higher: How to Improve your Google Search Rankings

Ready to rank higher on Google, so you can get the visibility you deserve? You're in the right place. These efforts are known in the marketing world as SEO, which stands for search engine optimization. And that's what I'm all about, friend. 💅

Improving your rankings in Google search is not actually rocket science, despite what many agencies and gurus want you to think. In fact, my specialty in my programs is breaking these concepts down into manageable, digestible actions for my SEO students.

There are a lot of straightforward strategies you can use to fix your site and get found by the people who are searching for you - the problem is knowing when to use which ones, because there are honestly so many things that can be done.

How do Websites Rank High in Google?

First, you need to understand how websites get found and ranked in the first place.

Google (and other search engines) sends out crawlers to go and look at everything on the web. Think of these crawlers as private investigators.

They look at and memorize all of the pages they find, so they can understand which pages are relevant for which phrases. They compare all of these pages against each other using a ton of different factors to evaluate which pages are "high quality" or most relevant for different terms.

Then, when a user Googles a phrase, Google is able to instantly serve up the pages that match the user's search best. The phrase they search for is known as a "keyword" in the SEO world.

Translation? We need to create the best pages we can that serve searchers' needs in order to rank higher in Google. That is extremely simplified, but you get the point.

This means the core workflow for any effective ranking strategy is this:

Find keywords your audience is searching for > create content around those keywords > optimize that content alongside keeping your website itself optimized.

But within this flow, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of micro-steps and activities you can do to improve your rankings.

Those steps are what I'll be covering in this post.

I'm going to continually be adding to this list on a weekly basis, so come back and check this blog post later for more updates.

1. Target specific keywords

Many times when helping clients with their rankings, I can see they have some good direction with their general topics, but they have yet to find specific keywords within those topics.

If you don't know what search keywords you're targeting, how will you create content that will really help the user, and how will you create content that is specific enough for Google to understand which searches to show it for?

Hint: You can't. You need to have a specific keyword picked out so you can target it well.

If you're just starting to improve your traffic, targeting specific keywords is of utmost importance - because the success of all of your other efforts hinges on how well you understand what you're targeting.

How can you tell if a keyword is specific enough? You should be able to articulate exactly what your user is searching for when they enter a keyword. If you can't figure out exactly what type of content the user would expect to see when they search for the keyword, then it is probably not specific enough for you to target well.

General keyword example (bad): "real estate"

This is a very general keyword in terms of specificity, but it's often a keyword real estate agents and companies want to target. Because this keyword is so general, it has a few problems:

• It'll be incredibly competitive. When you search for this right now, Realtor, Zillow, and Wikipedia come up. Do you think your site is strong enough to compete with them on such a broad term?

• You can't serve its search intent well. Because you don't really know what the searcher wants when they enter that keyword, it will be hard to optimize any of your content for it.

Unless you're a massive company with a large budget, your efforts are better spent targeting more specific keywords.

Specific keyword example (much easier to target effectively): "homes for sale in [city]"

With this keyword, it is very easy to understand what the searcher wants, and therefor very easy to create a page that targets it and really makes the user happy. This is important because part of Google's ranking algorithm uses user experience signals, so you can't simply dupe the search engine and give the user something different if you expect your rankings to do well.

Now, I don't want you to think you should never target big or general keywords. I have been able to rank relatively small companies for massive, broad keywords with over 200k searches per month by executing a killer whole-site optimization strategy. But the keywords were still specific enough to understand exactly what the searcher wanted.

2. Define your target page

Once you find keywords you want to show up for, don't simply sprinkle them all over your website.

You need to define a target page for each keyword you want to rank for. On that target page, you need to optimize it to be about the topic you've selected, and you need to use keywords both in the SEO meta data and in the content itself.

If you haven't defined a target page, you'll probably struggle with page cannibalization, meaning you have more than one page on your website competing for the same keyword. This can cause Google's search crawlers to throw their hands up and go "I don't know which page to choose - so I'm choosing neither."

3. Create unique content

A common misconception for total newbies is that you can optimize a website by adding some perfectly-crafted meta data, or copying content from other places on the web to create your own.

When you're targeting a keyword, you don't want to simply copy and paste from someone else's content. That doesn't count as "creating content."

You want to create unique content that adds as much value and unique perspective to the web as you can, that hasn't already been shared elsewhere.

When you write content that targets a keyword, make sure your content is actually relevant, helpful, a thorough answer for the search you're targeting, and has as much of a unique perspective or backstory as you can manage to add.

4. Monitor and fix your website errors

Use Google Search Console and AHREFs Webmaster Tools to monitor and fix your ongoing website errors, like 404s, page loading problems, and indexing issues.

Once you've done the first 3 steps, these problems can hold your website back, especially if they're sitewide and slow down search engine crawlers from accessing and understanding the content on your website.

It's also believed that having a low rate of website errors makes Google think "wow, this website is maintained really well" and can add to the quality ratings for your site, getting you higher visibility and traffic.

5. Mobile optimize your site

In this day and age, it's essential to have a website that looks and works great on every device, no matter the size. This means your website needs to be responsive.

It's not just for usability - mobile-friendliness is actually a ranking factor.

Back in 2015, Google did a mobile-friendliness update to its algorithm taking this into account. And as of Sept 2024, over 60% of all website traffic is mobile.

Don't ignore tablet and mobile responsiveness if you want to improve your Google search rankings and traffic.

Come back next week for the next tip!