Lifehacks 

SEO and How To Build Your Website Rankings Faster

Joe Ford

Search engine optimization or SEO is more than just using the appropriate keywords to increase your website ranking and to achieve your goals in the soonest possible time. However, you can’t increase your ranking in a single night; it takes a lot of patience, effort, and consistency. There are key techniques to get it right the first time, and digital marketing specialists like Agency 101 can help you.

If you want to learn how to build your website rankings faster through effective SEO strategies, here are some of the ways: 

  1. Publishing Relevant Web Content

The number one aspect to be successful in ranking your website is publishing relevant content. Google and other search engines aim to help online users find solutions to their questions. With that being said, your content should be high-quality, whether in the form of texts, images, infographics, audio clips, or videos. Remember that the best web pages are written for the online users, and not for the search engines.

You can apply SEO by:

  • Identifying and targeting a keyword for each page.
  • Putting yourself on the shoes of the user and think how the user might search your specific page.For example, if your e-commerce business is about smartwatches, use relevant keywords such as “best smartwatches” or “cheapest smartwatch.”
  • Repeating the keywords several times, once or twice in the first paragraph and conclusion, and twice to thrice throughout the article.
  • Highlighting the keywords by using italics, bold, heading tags, and emphasis tags.
  • Writing a content that reads naturally. Don’t sacrifice good writing just for the purpose of SEO.

Update your web content on a regular basis to increase your site’s relevance. 

  1. Know How to Manage Metadata

Each web page contains a space in between the head HTML tags where you insert the metadata or information about your web contents. The most important information on your web page is the title metadata. It is responsible for the web page titles that are displayed on the top of a browser window. The metadata is also the headline found in search engine results. Choose the keywords very carefully and make sure they are relevant to your web content.

For those who have a CMS site, this area is populated by the UMC web team. Here are some ways on how to manage your metadata:

  • Header Tags. The headline or header labeled as H1 and the secondary or subheader labeled as H2 are header tags. Header tags are crucial because they are used to communicate to search engines and tell what your website is all about. Google recognizes the copy in the header tags as more important elements of the article than the rest. Use header tags with short-tail keywords and most importantly, long-tail keywords.
  • Alternative Text Descriptions. Alt tags or alt text allow search engines to find your web page through relevant image searches. The alt text is the meta tags for images; It is also called alt tag or short for alt attribute on an image tag. Its main purpose is to describe images to website visitors who are unable to see them. This aspect is crucial to search engine optimization, most especially for people who are using screen readers or text-only browsers.
  • Title Metadata. The title metadata or meta title is a metadata equivalent of the main article topic. The meta title enables search engines to relate your article with a particular keyword. It has no character or word limit but the ideal meta title should have at least one keyword, and it should be a good rephrase of the article title.
  • Description Metadata. The description metadata or meta description is a short textual description that browsers use in your web page return. It ideally contains 144 to 156 characters without spaces. Description metadata is basically a summary of the entire article, giving readers a short and sneak view of the web content.

Meta tags are the basic elements of SEO. Search engines read them to compare if the keywords and the description are all related with the visible content. They compare the metadata with the keywords present in the webpage. The meta description should be related to the content and the site’s niche. That’s why you want to do everything to bring your webpage a higher in the search engine results pages or SERPs. 

  1. Utilize Authority and Relevant Links

In making content for your website, aim for 2,000 to 2,500-word content because this word count would rank the highest among search engine results and link your site to authority sites to provide your reader with more in-depth information, and boost your score. However, you have to make sure that the keyword density and other technical assets are still balanced.

Many website use “click here” links, however, it has no search engine value. Use rich keywords to improve your search engine ranking. Using descriptive links can make your website ranking faster, adding value to your audience. Google penalizes websites that appear to promotional which can hurt the site’s SEO ranking. 

  1. Enhance Web Learnability and Usability

Web learnability and usability pertains to the accessibility and user-friendliness of your website to enhance user interface or UI and user experience or UX. It is essential for users to navigate your website easily. UI/UX designers primarily focus on the user experience by designing and developing easy-to-navigate software for a website, application, and other interactive devices. Add clickable call-to-action so visitors can interact. Take advantage of optimized image sizes, minimize redirects, and reduce plugins to increase your web page load speed; you can also use caching plugins and make sure that the code is streamlined and clean.

It’s important that you use typography and font size that are easy to read. A user-friendly website promotes more focus on your products and services because less time is spent on figuring out how to navigate a site. It also prevents frustration and disappointment, leading to web exit. Prevent errors to your site such as ‘404 Page Not Found’ and broken links.

  1. Take Advantage of Social Media

Social media refers to social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where people post, “like”, and share digital contents (e.g. text, videos, and images) based on their everyday experiences. Social media marketing is an excellent way to increase your rankings faster. It is essential for digital marketing because most online shoppers are also social media users, and many products and services gain high profits through social media ads. All you have to do is to create a fan page and post links directed to your website. You can take advantage of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest to make users aware that your site exists.

Here’s how you can utilize social media for SEO purposes:

  • Choose an appealing and appropriate name for your Facebook fan page.
  • Create a custom fan page based on your business on vanity URL.
  • Use relevant keywords in strategic locations of your fan page.
  • Include your address and phone number.
  • Backlink your sites to your fan page on current channels.
  • Optimize your Facebook fan page by regularly updating your status. 
  1. Helpful Tips to Increase Your Website Ranking
  • Use different multimedia such as slideshows, images, audio, and videos.
  • Test the readability of your content such as Readability-Score.com, Readability statistics in MS Word, or the Readability Test Tool.
  • Use tabs, sliders, structured grids, progressive layouts, rollover elements, modal windows, mega drop-down menus, and accordions for content organization and interactivity. 

Conclusion

Now, you are more aware and knowledgeable about the effective SEO strategies you can use to build your website rankings faster. With these tips in mind, you’ll be confident that your site will eventually gain more visitors, readers, leads, and loyal customers. Be consistent, and you’ll achieve your short-term and long-term goals for your business.