In this post, we will discuss 7 strategies to do on your blog for better rankings. There are many strategies for getting more rankings for your blogs but sometimes they can be overwhelming and you’re lost where to start. Each strategy claims to be effective and actionable.
Although, some of these are proven effective, however, you need to find those that will work out for you right now. Furthermore, we need strategies that will be dealing with people’s ever-changing needs and ways how to work with the recent Google algorithm update to refine search queries. As you read on, you’ll get the best strategies to increase your rankings in 2020:
1. Keyword research and more
The first thing to do is keyword research using the best tools you can find. You can use a paid tool such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to check on what keywords your competitor use, otherwise use a free tool like Google Keyword Planner or Jaaxy to find related keywords.
You can simply search for keywords on Google and find similar keyword results on the bottom page. List all of these keywords down and enter each one of them into any of the tools mentioned before.
You’ll be able to find one that has low competition that will get you higher rankings easier. Make a blog post about that topic and you can make use of the related keywords you’ve listed earlier.
Google Keyword Planner can somehow give you an idea about the difficulty level based on domain authority. You can use a free domain authority checker such as Moz Open Site Explorer or Website SEO checker to get reports on a website’s strength.
If a website ranks above 50, it could be challenging to overtake it but with the use of these tools, you can formulate a way how you can increase your website rankings.
Click here right now for our review, my personal help, and instant access to our free training videos where we'll show you exactly how we did it ourselves starting out as complete beginners without ANY prior knowledge or experience in marketing online whatsoever!
2. Keyword Frequency vs Natural Language Flow
I did mention Google’s algorithm update earlier which you probably heard of, it is called BERT, also known as Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. BERT will affect how you make your content. Unlike before when you primarily use keyword repetition to get better rankings, now to get better rankings you will need to level up your game a little bit.
Google will still scan your pages for the same keyword that is being searched, but this time, BERT made search results more relevant and specific to what people need. For example, if you search for “mobile phones”, it will most likely show you results where to possibly buy them.
This is because Google will understand it like a human would and will assume that you are looking to buy a mobile phone as opposed to showing results of any content with heavy mobile phone keywords frequency.
As a blogger, you would want to focus on natural word flow rather than keyword repetitions. However, no one’s stopping you from using the same keywords multiple times, it is still necessary for SEO value.
So when you’re creating your content, you still want to make sure that there’s enough keyword frequency but also that it has common synonyms related to the keywords. You’d want to make content with rational and natural language flow, strong supporting context, and detailed editing.
3. Be Keyword Friendly
Keywords can do a lot more than placing SEO value on your content. You can strategically place them on your title, Meta description, and on your H1 tags as well. Keep your URLs short but they should include your keyword or possibly a couple of words that apply to your main keyword. You can also add your keyword after a subfolder.
It’s also helpful if you have titles that have words that people use on their search queries but if you don’t, that’s okay. Google will still be able to pick up your content even if it’s not using the exact keyword on the search query. It is already smart enough to figure out what your website is about so you can still use synonyms, stop words, and other similar words.
4. The Power of Link Building
Backlinks are considered one of the major factors to help your website to be found. Google uses these as a measurement to confirm your website’s trust. You can’t simply publish content and wait for someone to link to it, it doesn’t work that way. You should have quality backlinks to define your ranks on the Google search query.
Remember that with Google, it’s about quality, not quantity. So, if your links are on websites that are not related to your niche, then they are measured by Google as low-quality backlinks. On the other hand, if you have your links on websites similar to your niche, then they are measured as high quality and relevant.
Also, you would want quality links coming from trusted and various sets of sources. Some of the best strategies in doing link building are the following:
- Guest Posting – Aside from connecting with other bloggers with related niches to yours, you can also connect to an already established audience. One thing to ensure is that the host blogger should include a link to your blog or website somewhere in the post either at the beginning or at the end. In return, you can also invite others to guest post on your website which promotes a mutual and ongoing guest-posting relationship.
- Interview Experts and the best Influencers – Many experts and influencers are willing to be interviewed. It doesn’t have to be a meet-up interview since you can also conduct the interview over the phone or through a video conference. Aside from providing additional significant information on topics that the audience is already interested in, the experts and influencers can also provide links to your site through their websites or social media accounts. Finding the right person to interview is also crucial to achieving your goal. You have to find out someone open to an interview at the same time that person is relevant or an expert to your niche with a good social media standing and followers.
- Be Updated – Another effective strategy is getting higher rankings is being updated with what’s happening right now. People love to read what is currently trending. Create posts that talk about recent events which can be about politics, news headlines, pop culture, and other topics that can attract more audience. Lists, rankings, infographics, and charts are some of the best ways to make your content more trendy and appealing.
- Back up your Content – Supporting your content with research and data increases its credibility offering more value to your audience. You can link your research to statistics or data through backlinks. Although this strategy requires a lot of time and effort, it still results in high-quality backlinks and higher rankings.
Social media platforms are a good source of website visits. You would need to maintain active connections to help in increasing your online popularity.
You just need to find the right social media platform where you would have a large potential audience. It is also necessary to develop a strategic approach to how you will target this audience and the content you think will capture their interest. Here are some important things to consider as well:
- Free posts – Before you start promoting your content on Social Media, first you have to build the audience’s trust by showing them that your content is valuable to them. This would mean sharing your content free which could include guides, research, and interviews with experts and other influencers without a gateway. Once your audience finds out what your content can offer, you can then start posting links to your content or your website. Sometimes it takes a little bit of consistency and multiple free posts before you’re able to move them to your website.
- Join Social Media Groups and get involved – You can find social media groups that are already interested in your niche or your content. When you join these groups, don’t be excited to post your link right away. Similar to what was mentioned above you need to at least introduce yourself first and build a good impression among the other members by posting many helpful comments. After doing this for a while, depending on how large and active the social group is, you can then post your link and make sure that you’re sharing relevant content and of course, see to it that you’re also following the admin’s rules when posting.
- Automate your posts – Since you’ll be sharing content regularly, you would need to find the right tool to help you automate them. Good thing is that there are a lot of apps and tools you can use nowadays, such as Hootsuite, IFTTT, Canva, and many more. Most of these apps can be used across multiple platforms and have free trials in case you would like to try them out first. After making a post, don’t leave yet because it doesn’t stop there. You would want to build a personal connection with your audience by responding to their comments.
- Simplify your response management – When you’re managing several social media accounts it is difficult to switch back and forth to each platform to respond to all of the comments of your audience. Again, you can improve this using the available tools and apps such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social that can combine your accounts in one platform so you’ll be able to manage them properly and efficiently.
- Use the right tone – Depending on the platform you’re using; it is important to use the right tone when making posts or communicating with your audience. You can be friendly on Facebook or Twitter but can have a more professional tone on LinkedIn. It is also critical that you remain consistent to avoid switching to different tones and styles that can confuse your audience. Having a uniform communication style can also help improve your audience experience and give more value to your brand.
6. Maintain A Mobile-Optimized Website
This strategy should always be included on your checklist as more people are using mobile phones to do a lot of things including searches and reading blogs. When creating your post, think about how it will accommodate your audience’s navigation habits using a mobile phone.
You would want to ease their scrolling by using small images wrapped into the text rather than large ones that can interfere with text and make reading difficult. Your formatting choices can also affect your reader’s experience so use formatting styles wisely. Use subheads, white space, or bullets and lists when applicable.
7. Speed is still a Ranking Factor
Slow-loading websites decrease your chance of getting more traffic. Google has prioritized mobile loading speed as it shifts the focus to mobile-friendly optimization. This means that aside from your website’s loading speed, you would want to improve how fast your website loads using mobile devices and tablets. You can start by keeping images at a minimum size without sacrificing the image’s clarity.
You can also use file formats that have lesser weight such as Jpeg, WebP, etc. Then check for broken links on your website simply by testing the links yourself or use a broken link checker to help you find and fix them.
Some of the other things that can help improve your website loading speed could be a little complicated and sometimes tedious which may require a professional website developer to do them for you.
When these strategies are executed properly, there’s a higher chance that you’ll receive better rankings for your blogs. Google can evolve into something more advanced to improve search results.
However, this should not stop you from learning how you can turn this to your advantage and apply them to your blog posts. All it takes is careful planning, implementation, and consistency to get a step ahead of your competitors.
If you need help on how to get started, check out my #1 recommendation on building a successful business online. You can get access to hundreds of training videos, 24/7 support, professional consultations, private access to training guides, tools, personal private assistance, my personal help, and much more.
PS: Click here to review my #1 recommendation in detail.
See the 4 steps to working online from home & earn residual income
I am recently going back over some of my old articles I wrote on a website. One of the things I am redoing and taking a fresh look at is SEO and keywords. So when I came across your article I knew I am on the right track by redoing them. When I first started 2 years ago I knew next to nothing about keyword research but I started using Jaxxy and it couldn’t be easier. My problem is backlinks, do you have any easy way or tool for this?
Google looks at your website in its entirety and ranks your posts and pages taking that into consideration, so it is good that you are working on your old posts and cleaning them up. I spend most of my time there now than focusing on fresh content.
There are many ways to get valuable backlinks to your website. If you join WA for free and reach out to me inside Wealthy Affiliate through private messaging, I would be happy to help you out on that and several other ninja tricks to help boost your website.
Talk to you soon.
Thanks for sharing these tips! I have been looking for ways to get high ranking or my blog which I have to say is super hard but I am trying every day. The theme here to your tips seems to be the keywords which I agree. It has been what everyone told me to do for the SEO. Which social media do you think is best for weight loss niche? I find that FB has become more irrelevance so I am focusing mostly on Instagram and Pinterest. Mobile and speed are another good one. I think more than ever now that consumers tend to buy things online for 51% isn’t that crazy? And they are also less patient for page loading as well.
I can spend hours on showing you what you need to do to get top rankings in the search engines, but it would be easier to direct you to the source where I am getting all my knowledge from, and that is with Wealthy Affiliate which you can take a look at my review at the end of my post.
I will be happy to work with you as you follow the training and complete each task at the end of each lesson. it may be a little overwhelming at the beginning, but you have experts and people just like you, who go through the training daily.
I am getting lots of traffic with Pinterest, but if you can access the Pinterest training within WA you would know what steps you need to do to get maximum exposure and traffic. and I would be there to help you along the way.
Take a look and let me know,
David