Following last year’s Google Hummingbird update, along with the saturation of the market and Google pushing their organic search results further down the page in favor of their paid listings, it is becoming increasingly difficult to be noticed online without paying Google for the privilege. These tips may not make your website the first one to appear in the list, but they just may help your Google ranking move up a little.
No matter what you do to improve your Google ranking, make sure you make a site that you want to visit. If you’re gaming the system, sooner or later Google, like Facebook, will figure it out and change their formula. You’ll end up plummeting in the top Google search results and wonder why.
6 Tips to Improve your Google Ranking
Unique and Relevant Content
Quality content is the number one driver of your Google ranking and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for the user, not for the search engine. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh.
Tag your content and media
Make sure that your site is optimized for the search engines and that all meta tags and robot tags are constructed properly. These tags are not visible on your web page but Google looks for this title tag and it’s one of the most important on page elements for Google. If you have been placing images on your website without bothering to place ALT tags, now is a good time to add them. An “ALT tag” is just a way of putting a brief description of what your picture shows.
Redirect your URLs
Often website owners don’t realize that www.example.com and http://example.com are seen as different pages by search engines. This can result in any links that you receive being diluted between the two pages. The solution to this common problem is to tell Google that you want all the links and clicks from www.example.com to be counted towards http://example.com. This can be easily implemented by using a permanent 30 redirect link from one pages to the other.
Push Social, especially Google+
In the “post hummingbird” Google search world, social referrals are now counted as indicators of “content quality”, but not as internal links. The only exception for this is Google+, the foundation layer for all of Google ranking going forward. If you share content out on Google + and people indicate they like it by clicking on the Google + button this will help with Google ranking of content. So if you don’t have you +1 button intergraded to your site yet, be sure to add it.
Comment on Relevant Sites:
Commenting on forums relevant to your industry is crucial. Commenting and adding a link back to your content on forum posts and blogs is a great way to increase links to your website, and is a great way to drive some new viewers to your website. Users who over-indulge in self-promotion will be perceived as spammers which may result in your efforts to be simply ignored, or, even worse, your website being added to blacklists.
Build Links with Bookmark and Directory Sites
As we all know, one of the factors that contribute to a page’s Google ranking is the number of links pointing to that page. One way to increase the number of quality links to your site is by submitting it to as many social bookmark sites that you like. Also, submit your site to as many directories as you can, especially to those with high page rank like DMOZ or Yahoo directory or to any smaller directory with lower page rank.
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