Search engine results page, otherwise known as SERP, is a revered place for website/business owners. Experts say that top-ranked websites generate around 39% CTR (Clickthrough rate). That’s why there’s no wonder why so many businesses aspire to be one of the first few results in SERP.
But, when you consider the fact that Ads take up around 51% of SERP, the competition becomes even higher. So, how do you tackle this and make your website rank higher on SERP? In this article, you’ll find seven tips and best practices that’ll boost your website right to the top of SERP. So, let’s dive into it to read tips in detail.
High-Quality Content Creation
High-quality content creation is one of the first things that you should focus on when trying to place your website higher on SERP. Now, Google owns around 86% of the search engine market. And according to Google, high-quality content means:
- Unique and specific.
- A blend of text and visuals (images, videos).
- Focused on user experience, not on ranking higher.
- And focused on informational value and actionable text.
That means after the target audience is done reading this text, they should be able to take the next step, which would be to act on the information provided in this article. So, keep these things in mind when creating content, be it videos, written text, images, infographics, social media content, etc.
Optimizing On-Page Elements
On-page elements are necessary to make the content appear. Now, it’s important to remember that around 75% of SEO is off-page, and 25% is on-page. But it’s the final quarter that brings SEO full circle and helps the brand rank higher in SERP.
That’s why, when setting up a website/blog and writing content, there are a few things that you should take care of, such as:
- Keyword Optimized Meta tags and descriptions.
- URL structure and formatting such as slug, captions, etc.
- And headers, tags, and keyword placement for LSI and semantic keywords.
This way, you’ll be able to focus on creating a viable on-page strategy that helps you boost SEO performance and the likelihood of your pages getting indexed by Google’s crawlers.
Writing Original and Unique Content
Unique and original content is essential to make any sort of impact. When you are writing website copy, blog content, or even social media captions, your target should always be to create unique and plagiarism-free content. That means your content needs to feature the following:
- Original ideas and Plagiarism-free text.
- Exclusive headlines and unique value.
- And citations of sources used for information.
These citations will also help as backlinks—but we’ll come to that later. For now, it’s important that you focus on the importance of original content and avoid the consequences of plagiarism on SERP ranking. That’s why it’s better to:
- Find and remove plagiarism from your content.
- Rewrite plagiarized text or replace it.
- Or rephrase plagiarized content, then cite the source.
Now, all of this can be a stressful element of content creation, and that’s why there are better alternatives. In other words, a writer can simply use a plagiarism remover tool. This will save them ample time so that they can focus on other SEO elements.
Moreover, a plagiarism remover will also make the content more citable and allow the user to cite the source as a reference. Thus, improving interlinks and backlinks at the same time.
Generating High-Quality Backlinks
Speaking of high-quality backlinks, they are an essential factor in making any website appear higher in SERP. However, your content or blog should be worthy of being featured on other, more domain-dominant platforms/websites.
For that to happen, you should focus on a few things, such as:
- Guest blogging and collaboration opportunities to improve backlinks.
- Creating shareable and link-worthy content, as mentioned before, should be actionable and informative.
- And focus on monitoring and disavowing toxic backlinks or zombie pages.
These zombie pages can affect your ranking negatively, and getting rid of them will make it easier for the search engine crawler to go through your website. Thus, improving the chances of a high SERP rank.
Harnessing Social Media Presence
Social media networks are now considered to inject instant traffic to your website/blogs but this is not considered organic traffic. Now, there’s another positive plus for this, as improved traffic also means more leads. But how exactly does that help you harness social media presence for better SERP ranks?
You will have to keep a few yet key things in mind, such as:
- Sharing and promoting content on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
- Encouraging social sharing and engagement by offering discounts, offers, sign-up, and other participation opportunities.
- And focus on bringing traffic to your website.
Improving Website Speed and Performance
Website speed and performance play a vital role in converting leads. According to HubSpot, the first 5 seconds of a website’s loading time will impact conversions the most. That should tell you the importance of increasing website speed and performance. Here’s how to do that:
- Optimize media files that include images, videos, animations, icons, etc.
- Using content delivery networks (CDNs) to improve website speed.
- Hosting a website on high-speed servers.
- And Optimizing websites for slow internet connections.
This will ensure high-speed loading times for the website on all platforms.
Mobile Optimization
Mobile phone optimization is another key to success in the online world, and that’s why you should focus on optimizing your website for handheld devices like phones, tablets, etc. So, here’s what you’re going to need:
- A platform-responsive design with cross-platform support.
- Supportive images and resolutions of the website.
- The adaptability of each page.
- And implementation of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
This way, your website will load swiftly on all mobile phone devices and increase organic traffic from mobile phones.
Conclusion
These are the top strategies to ensure your website stands out and ranks higher in SERP. It’s important to understand that all of the top websites in the first few search results are working hard to be there. So, you need to take every extra step you can to go one-up on them.
