A website that doesn’t rank on the top 10 of the search engine results page or SERP is essentially invisible. In fact, one research study conducted by HubSpot shows that 75% of online searchers will never go past the first page of the SERP.
You can follow countless strategies to improve your Google ranking, but if you’re unaware of SEO basics, your efforts will not provide positive and long-term results.
For your website to rank on the first page of Google, it’s vital to follow SEO best practices as these lay the groundwork to increase the visibility of your website. After you master the SEO best practices, you can implement more advanced approaches.
With that, here are three best practices for your site’s search engine optimization:
- Improve Your Site’s Loading Speed
Google aims to provide the best experience to its users, which is why it uses site loading speed as one of its ranking factors. According to statistics, 40% of online users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Before making any changes to your website, benchmark your site’s current loading speed first. You can use the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google to determine if your site is fast or slow and then access a detailed report on how your site can improve.
You can improve your site’s loading speed in different ways, namely compressing images, using lightweight themes, and minimizing HTTP requests.
- Build Backlinks
Backlinks are important to SEO because they signal Google and other search engines that another resource finds your online content accurate enough to use it within their website. In fact, one study from SEMrush mentioned that backlinks could make or break a site’s Google ranking.
Guest posting is an excellent way of building backlinks to your website. For this tactic to work, you need to find websites that accept guest posts (preferably one that operates in a complementary industry to your business) and then create a written content that links to a relevant article on your website.
- Produce a Compelling Title Tag and Meta Description
Your title tags and meta description are vital for your website optimization. Website optimization is the process of using advanced strategies to improve the performance of your website to grow revenue, drive more traffic and increase conversions.
Title tags are the clickable headlines that appear on the SERPs and are critical to your site’s website optimization, and as such, Google ranking. You can improve your site’s title tags by including your target keywords, keeping it concise, and writing a title that is accurate with the search intent.
A meta description is a summary displayed below the title tag and can influence click-through rates. When writing meta descriptions, make sure that it’s unique for every page of your website, provides an accurate summary and uses an action-oriented copy.
Get Help With Your Site’s Google Ranking
The competition for improving your Google ranking is intense regardless of the niche your business operates in. And while the best SEO practices mentioned in this article are excellent starting points, you might need additional resources to help you achieve your goals.
To learn more about SEO best practices, contact us at Connection Model today. We can help you with website optimization so you can rank on the first page of Google.
Written By: David Carpenter
