Technologies like the internet and social media have changed how businesses operate. More importantly, they’ve significantly affected marketing processes and consumer buying behavior.

For instance, most people immediately search for a product, service, or business online after learning about it because the internet allows them to do all the necessary research with a simple tap on their phones. As a result, this has changed how people research and purchase products.

Changing customer behavior requires businesses to adapt marketing strategies to target ideal consumer profiles more effectively. Since the internet has become so prominent for researching and purchasing products and services, businesses must ensure they have a robust online presence so consumers can learn more about them and their offerings.

Thus, websites have become the centerpieces of organizations and their digital marketing strategies. However, the internet has billions of websites. How do users find your website over the others?

Various strategies can help reroute customers to your website. However, the most effective method is SEO. Remembering every website’s URL is simply impossible. Therefore, most customers search for specific products, services, or businesses on search engine websites like Google and Bing. These search engines then redirect customers to these websites by showing search results.

Ideally, you’ll want to appear on the first page of Google or Bing’s search results. However, getting there isn’t easy. Search engines don’t show specific websites on the first page randomly. Instead, a lot is happening behind the scenes.

Having your website rank high in SERPs requires focusing on your SEO efforts. Most people’s SEO knowledge is limited to utilizing keywords or incorporating free stock photos for better image SEO. Fortunately, that’s where this article proves helpful because it’ll share some crucial tips to help you improve your website’s Google ranking in 2023.

Helpful Tips to Improve Your Website’s Search Engine Rankings

Here are some helpful tips to improve your website’s ranking:

1. Improve Website Loading Speed

It’s no secret that website loading speed matters. Let’s assume you find a website on Google and click on the link because you think it’ll have helpful content. You wait for ten seconds, and the website’s page elements still don’t load properly. You’ll get frustrated with the experience and think the website was poorly designed, prompting you to return to the Google search page and click on another link instead.

Users feel the same way. Research shows that most users lose interest and patience after five seconds. Therefore, your website traffic suffers if your website loads slowly. Moreover, users jumping ship to other websites also cause your bounce rate to increase considerably.

Google and other search engines view high bounce rates unfavorably, causing them to lower your website’s ranking in their SERPs.

Consider compressing your website’s images for faster loading times. In addition, your hosting service also affects page loading speed. However, more importantly, ensure you delete unnecessary third-party scripts from your website.

2. Utilize Featured Snippets

Featured snippets can considerably boost your website’s ranking in SERPs. You might be unfamiliar with featured snippets, but you’ve likely seen them during a search query.

Text boxes appear at the top of Google’s search results to answer your search query. For instance, let’s assume you search for a ‘poached egg recipe’ on Google. The search engine’s first page might show a featured snippet at the top containing more information on making a poached egg. The text box will likely contain a summarized version of what you must do to poach an egg and a website link below successfully.

It’s important to understand that featured snippets don’t feature fresh content. Instead, Google uses relevant content for a specific search query or keyword from indexed web pages.

According to research, featured snippets get eight percent of clicks. Therefore, you’ll want to ensure you utilize featured snippets to your advantage.

3. Build Credible Backlinks

Many consider backlinks the most crucial aspect of off-page SEO. Their importance is apparent to anyone familiar with SEO, but it’s important to remember that quality matters more than quantity when building backlinks.

Let’s assume your website focuses on pet insurance. In a bid to get as many backlinks as possible, you might decide to obtain links from a food blog. Google and other search engines will consider these backlinks suspicious and irrelevant because your niches are so drastically different.

In addition to obtaining backlinks from relevant sources within your niche or industry, you must also ensure you get backlinks from high-authority sources. Websites with higher domain authority have greater traffic. More importantly, they have already established credibility and authority with search engines. As a result, a link from such sources shows search engines that your website is also credible, improving its ranking.

Backlinks also help your website get referral traffic. You can obtain backlinks through various methods. Guest posting remains extremely popular. In addition, many SEO experts also recommend publishing original content with factual research and statistics for the best results.

4. Develop an Excellent Keyword Strategy

On-page SEO might seem relatively straightforward compared to off-page and technical SEO. However, that doesn’t mean it’s less important. You’ll often hear SEO experts talk about keywords. While keywords might not be as important as they were in the early days of the internet – before Google and other search engines used other factors such as page loading speeds or responsive web design to rank websites – they’re still incredibly important.

An excellent and well-thought-out keyword strategy can make a world of difference to your website’s search engine rankings. You’ll have to research keywords for traffic and intent. In addition, ensure your keyword strategy also includes short and long-tail keywords. The latter are particularly effective because they target consumers with specific search intent. Researching keywords is also crucial because they’ll inform your content strategy. You’ll want to create content based on how well you can incorporate these keywords.

Finally, it’s also important to include localized keywords in your keyword strategy because local searches continue to become more common. Most localized keywords are location-specific or use terms like ‘near me.’

5. Focus on Mobile SEO

Research shows that nearly 60 percent of all internet traffic originates from a mobile device. This number will continue to increase. Therefore, making your website suitable for smartphones is vital. Google adopted mobile-first indexing in 2020, meaning the search engine’s crawlers now browse and index mobile versions of a website instead of the desktop version. Hence, you’ll want to ensure your website has a responsive design that adjusts the layout to each phone’s resolution, screen size, etc. Moreover, ensure your website’s mobile version displays the same content and information as the desktop version.

Conclusion

SEO remains one of the most effective ways to reach new users and consumers. Moreover, most digital marketers agree that SEO is the best way to obtain traffic organically. If you’re looking to use SEO to improve your site’s ranking and get more customers, consider adopting the tips mentioned in this article. Most SEO efforts take some time before showing results. However, properly executing these tips will provide benefits.