Written by Jack Dawson
In spite of the impact social media has had in online marketing, getting ranked on search engines is still one of the best ways of driving traffic to your website. People will always rely on search engines to find information online. Even so, improving your organic search performance on search engines, and more so Google, is not a simple thing to do. Google keeps on changing its ranking algorithm and keeping up with these changes can be confusing. All in all, there are a few practices that can help you get started on the right foot when striving for better organic search performance.
Get on the Quick Answer Box
The Quick Answer Box is a box located above the first organic search results. It mostly pops up when you make any ‘how to’ or ‘what is’ search queries. Being featured on the quick answer box is one of the fastest ways of boosting your organic search performance. This will improve brand recognition, increase your brand authority and also improve your ranking.
Although it offers great benefits, getting in the Quick Answer Box is not an easy thing to do. There is a lot that goes into it including managing your online reputation. You will also need to use proper keywords, target the ‘how do you’ and ‘how to’ keywords and give in-depth answers to frequently asked questions.
Define your keyword list
The mistake most people make is that of only considering keywords when they are already working on their content. Forcing keywords into your content will not benefit your organic ranking efforts. You need to start by making a list of keywords that are relevant to your products and services. Do not forget to check the traffic that each keyword gets using the Google Keyword Planner. You should then focus on the keywords that get the highest traffic and ones that are most relevant to you.
With your keywords at hand, you can start working on your content. The content you provide must be of the highest quality. In determining ranking, Google looks at how visitors are interacting with your content. If your content has a high bounce rate, your ranking will definitely be impacted in a negative way. Create content that provides value to your customers.
Writing content that is compelling and of high quality attracts interest and compels your audience to share it and also link back to it. Great content has the best chance of going viral and Google constantly rewards such content when it comes to ranking.
Use keywords sparingly
Keywords are what Google looks at when determining the worth of a page. The more quality and relevant keywords a page has, the higher its ranking will be. However, this does not mean that you can keyword stuff your content. Doing so will make your content be taken for a spam page. Spam pages are usually flagged and seldom appear on the search engine ranking. Your keyword density should always be less than 10%.
Build quality links
Link building has always been one of the best things you can do to boost your organic search performance. There are many methods you can use to build quality links. The first is to create a blog and make sure you link it to your website. This will increase the number of inbound links that you have.
Second, share your content on social media and create links to your website. The best thing about using social media is that your posts can be shared thereby adding value to your inbound links. What is more is that you will be able to drive traffic from social media users even those that are not yet following you.
A third option is encourage other webmasters to link to you. You can create links to related blogs or product pages and allow the webmasters to link back to you. You can also participate in online forums where after making your contribution, you provide a link that redirects to your website.
Needless to say, the more quality links you have, the higher your organic rank will be. All in all, you have to be careful when building links. If you link with a website that has a bad online reputation, their negative reputation will rub off on you and your ranking will be affected. Make sure you know who you are linking with.
Optimize the page titles
This is a simple strategy that most people tend to overlook. The HTML title tags usually define the title of a page. Google considers the title tags to be the second most important when it comes to the on-page SEO elements. Your page title needs to be concise, no more than 70 characters long. They should also contain relevant keywords at the beginning. Including your company name in the title tag will also help.
Compelling Meta descriptions
More and more people are learning of the importance of creating compelling Meta descriptions. This has to be concise and explain clearly what a page is about. They should be no more than 150 characters in length. Great Meta descriptions will compel users to click on them. They will also boost your search engine ranking if they have relevant keywords in them.
Steer clear of black hat practices
Although it is possible to gain more traffic and a better ranking with Black hat SEO, the results will be short-lived and they will end up haunting you for a long time. Not understanding the rules of SEO can also cause you to be flagged for black hat practices. Keep up with the SEO rules and always avoid taking short cuts.
Have a mobile friendly website
Investing in a mobile friendly website will also boost your organic traffic. Google introduced a mobile-friendly ranking algorithm that impacts mobile search results significantly. The best thing is that you don’t have to run two separate websites. A website with a responsive web design will be sufficient.
There is no surefire way of boosting your organic traffic permanently. Rules keep on changing and you have to keep on making tweaks to keep up. Search engine optimization is a continuous process.
Author Bio
Jack Dawson is the head of growth and SEO at a web designing company based in New York. He is also an award winning blogger, a lecturer and an industry speaker. You can also find him on LinkedIn.
