With the existing competition levels, can your website rank on top in the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page)? What strategies can you use to achieve it?
Ranking on top #1 in Google is pretty much every website owner’s dream. It may seem like only giant websites can do it. However, that is not the case. Although there is no magic switch for that, anyone with a website and a smart strategy can do it!
In the digital marketing world, you need more than high-quality content, excellent products, or the amazing service you are providing. When it comes to developing a strategy behind your online business, the SERP strategy is the most important one.
Most businesses understand this. Hence there is always huge competition. So, in this article, we shall understand how to make a winning SERP strategy that can help you navigate through the enormous competition.
Top Strategies that will help your Website Crawl up in the SERP
Assess your Website and its Current SERP
You need to identify and acknowledge where you stand in the SERP rankings before you start to sketch a plan. This is more important for newer websites. There are several tools to help you with this; one such tool is WMS for SERPS.
Once you start the assessment, research the factors in your website that hold your website back from ranking on the top. It could be the domain authority or spam score.
Depending on the identified problems, plan out the things that you should focus more on. Devote your time and effort to the problems that are demanding a resolution.
Aim to increase Domain Authority
Domain Authority and its counterpart Page Authority is a metric Google uses to rate the reliability and reputability of a website. Any Search Engine wants to provide its user with consistent, relevant content for its users. So, it is safe to say that websites with quality content usually get higher domain authority.
Most of the pages with high domain authority have been around for a very long time, and they have thousands of webpages and visitors. On that note, you can presume that it requires a lot of effort to increase your website’s domain authority.
It takes a tremendous effort to increase a website’s domain authority from, say, 92 to 93. However, it is easier for new websites since it is easier to increase domain authority from 2 to 4.
Choose your keywords wisely
To rank higher on the Search Engine for any keyword, you have to choose it wisely. Choose keywords with high search volume and low competition.
Although you can choose keywords with high competition, the chances of the webpage appearing on the first page of Google will be pretty slim. With all these in mind, you should ensure to optimize each page for the chosen keywords.
Additionally, each page should have a primary target keyword to avoid issues such as keyword cannibalization. Keyword cannibalization is when a website accidentally targets a specific keyword across various webpages.
Focus on search intent
It is easy to understand and implement what Google considers quality content. Also, Google has a clear guideline for that; it is known as E-A-T.
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor. Nevertheless, it helps you in influencing the content you create for your website.
Since Google is a semantic Search Engine, it connects visitors to answers. Therefore, always target the topic and not only the keyphrase. Your webpages should have a detailed outline of phrases and subtopics semantically connected to the content.
Make your website mobile-friendly
For your website to rank on top, it needs to perform well on mobile phones as well, if not better than on computers. We know that more than half of the traffic comes from mobile phones; therefore, it is vital to rope this feature in for the benefits.
Also, from 2020 Google rolled out algorithm updates to mobile-first indexing. This means websites crawl using smartphone Googlebot. You can see if your website is mobile-friendly using tools such as WhatsMySerp.
If your webpages are developed using CMS platforms like WordPress, more chances are that the websites are mobile-friendly. If not, your websites can be made mobile-friendly using SEO tools.
Building Backlinks
Backlinks are vital for Google to determine the ranking of a webpage. Hence, strategizing backlinks is the most crucial factor in creating a winning SERP.
Create as many unique backlinks as possible. Keep in mind that backlinks from individual sites impact the search engine rankings of your webpages.
One of the best ways to increase the number of backlinks to your website is by content marketing. The better the content you create, the more people are going to link to it.
To sum it up
Strategies elaborated above are key in making a winning SERP strategy. However difficult it may be to pinpoint the exact factors for top SERP ratings, these factors really do impact your website’s SERP ranking.
Moreover, do not forget to keep yourself constantly updated on all the new tools that could help you reach your aim of #1. It can easily be accessed through WhatsMySerp. Read more articles at europeanmagazine.
