Ranking Higher On Google – How To Improve Your SEO

– The goal of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is:

• To get your website ranking in the top positions of the organic search results …
• For high-volume, relevant keywords …
• So that people searching for the keywords will click through to the website …
• And be attracted by the products or services on offer – as this is what they were searching …
• Resulting in increased leads, sales and revenue.

How To Rank Higher On Google

The way to achieve a higher ranking on Google organic search results is through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

It is important to keep in mind that SEO only impacts organic results, which are normally displayed below the paid search results. Placements at the top of the page on Google are achieved through Paid Search campaigns on a PPC (pay-per-click) model. Paid Search normally has higher click-through rates than Organic Search, but can work out to be more expensive for higher volume keywords. For smaller businesses or lesser searched keywords, a PPC (Google Ads) campaign may be a more cost-effective way to generate leads. And for businesses who would like to maximise the potential of Google Search, we would recommend both Google Ads and SEO. To find out which form of advertising would work best for your business, ask us for a FREE Google Ads Audit and/or a FREE SEO Audit.

Note that we often use “Google” and “Search Results” interchangeably. Search results is the generic term covering all search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo etc. However Google are by far the dominant player with 94% of market share in NZ (as per the latest statcounter statistics).

How To Improve Your SEO

The steps required to design and implement a successful SEO strategy are:

1. Keyword Selection:

   Find high volume (frequently searched) keywords, relevant to the products and services being offered. Note that this step is the most important, and often the most overlooked. If we’re not targeting the right keywords, then either we’ll get no traffic (as there is no search demand), or the wrong traffic.

   Keyword selection is where SEO agencies often take short-cuts. Low volume or less relevant keywords are less competitive and therefore easier to rank. We often see other SEO agencies with guarantees of “first page results or your money back”, or reports claiming success with lots of first place rankings. However if the keywords are not generating any website traffic, this is producing no benefit to the customer.

2. On-Page Optimisation:

   This step can include one or more of the following tasks:

   • Page Organisation: Each page on the website should have a clear message and be targeting a defined set of keywords.
   • Page Optimisation: The following on-page elements should be configured to reflect the target keywords:
     • Page Title
     • Meta Description
     • Header tags
     • Page Content with sufficient keyword density – i.e. content mentioning the target keywords.
   • Other Website Optimisations:
     • Page and Image size
     • Image Alt tags
     • Image geo-tagging
     • Sitemap
     • Website speed.

3. Link Building:

   Create blogs and directory listings on high-authority 3rd party websites to link back to your site. This increases your website authority in the eyes of Google and therefore leads to improved rankings. Note that this process can take time for Google to index the 3rd party blogs, and for your website authority to increase. Improvements to organic rankings can be expected to be seen over a timeframe of weeks and months, not days.

4. Measuring / Reporting:

   As mentioned above, the immediate goal of SEO is to improve organic keyword rankings, with the ultimate goal being to increase traffic for relevant keywords, leading to increased leads and sales. SEO reporting should therefore include all of these aspects:

   • Google Analytics reporting: to measure overall organic traffic to the website, with conversion numbers if conversions are being tracked.
   • Search Console reports: to see what keywords people were searching for to see your website. We see the number of clicks, impressions and click-through-rate for each keyword.
   • Keyword Rankings Report: to see current organic positions of the target keywords, and monthly change.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t an exact science. Google is constantly updating the ranking algorithm, introducing new ranking factors or changing in the weighting of different attributes. But with the correct process and the right techniques, it is possible to improve rankings and achieve exceptional results. For more information or a FREE SEO Audit contact the expert team at Adcelerate.

Some of our successes

• Truck Hire company in Auckland:

  730% increase in organic website traffic in one year, from 108 website visitors in January 2020 to 895 website visitors in January 2021.
  

• Asbestos testing company in Auckland:

  1,700% increase in organic website traffic in one year, from 5 website visitors in June 2020 to 91 website visitors in May 2021.
  

• Childcare operator with 16 North Island centres:

  260% increase in website contact enquiries from organic traffic in two years, from June 2019 to May 2021.
  

• Electrician in Auckland:

  244% increase in leads from organic website traffic in less than two years, from 16 leads May 2019 to 55 in Jan 2021.