Google is a search engine that brings the best information from different websites to your search engine result page. It has maintained its popularity over the years because of its top quality. Every website owner constantly looks for ways to rank on the first page of google – so, how do you do it?

The honest truth is, there are two approaches you can adopt to boost your ranking with – on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO deals with the steps you take within a page on your website for it to rank well. These factors include the content’s relatability, images, inbound and outbound links. It is simply the steps you take to make your content as efficient as possible for the reader.

Off-page SEO deals with the external efforts you do outside of your website for a page to rank. These efforts can be through your social media efforts and other websites linking to your website.

As a website or blog owner, you’d want your webpage to be seen by potential customers when they search for a term, right?

You might have been like me when I started blogging. All I did was post articles, once or twice a month. But all the traffic I was getting was through my efforts on social media – nothing from Google!

I once tried to search for my page title on Google to see what was going on. But I couldn’t find my article until I got to the 4^th page!

To say I was frustrated was an understatement. Who would ever see my post when it was on the 4^th page?

There’s a joke that says, “the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2nd page of Google.” – Because nobody goes there! But my post didn’t even make it to the 2^nd page!

I started to learn more about SEO and how my page could appear on the first result page, I started to learn about how I could gain organic traffic through my writing capabilities!

It took me some time but I finally, I got the hang of it.

I was able to learn that, we are in fact, the ones at fault. There are things you must avoid, like the plague, to increase your ranking! If not, Google will continue to bury your article, just as they did mine!

Just as you keep your best clothes in your wardrobe and stuff the faded and old ones away, that’s how Google picks out the best articles.

So, before I talk more on the quick ways to rank on Google, here are some things that are a straight no-no, a list of things that can get your website blacklisted, which means your page ranking will in fact decrease, not increase! – and that’s not what we want!

• Keyword stuffing
• Content that doesn’t match the title
• Errors and poor grammar
• Poor content organization
• Bad UX design
• No outbound or inbound links
• Not optimising your title with keywords
• No images

All these make your page look like old clothes to Google. When you just post anything, anyhow, Google loves to make your article seem like irrelevant info, (No matter how long you’ve spent writing it!)

Your page title is the first thing everyone notices on your page. In a Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The boldest thing anyone sees is your title (after the Google logo, of course!) So, try to make your title as catchy and relevant as possible.

Google uses your Click Through Rate (CTR) to know how relevant a search result is. The frequency to which people click on your post when it appears on Google search is quite important.

The more appealing your title is, the more people click on your page, simple! And the more your website is opened and read, the better for your Google ranking. You can improve your Click Through Rate with:

• A catchy title
• A keyword optimised meta description

1. Get straight to the point

Make sure your title is accurate and concise. Your title must have the main details of your page content. Viewers are meant to know what your page is about within the short seconds of reading your title.

Your title should look like:

“10 Surprising Ways to Lose Weight in 30 days”

Don’t use a title like this:

“I remember being fat all through High School and everyone made fun of me. See the 10 steps I followed to lose weight and get my life back in just 30 days”

Firstly, this wouldn’t rank at all on Google. People are in a hurry! Such a title would be perfect as an Email subject, but not as the topic for your blog post. It is called a title for a reason, it’s meant to be descriptive and short!

A study shows that people look at the first 3 words and the last 3 words when reading headlines. If you cannot capture their attention within the first 3 words you will lose them.

Try to make your title range from 6-10 words. The reason is, most Google searches are done through a mobile phone and with smaller screens. Google shows just 60 characters or less and then puts an ellipsis (…)

You can still use longer sentences for blogposts but try to put the relevant information in the first 6-10 words. That way, they know what you’re saying right off the bat. It could look like this:

“10 Surprising ways to lose weight in 30 days: The Complete Guide to achieving your dream body”

2. State the Value They Would Get from The Post in Title

When your readers see the value, your page has to offer from the title, it would be easier for them to decide to click on your page. Thereby boosting your Click Through Rate. Titles like; How to, Best ways to, etc. State the value in the first sentence.

A tip you can use is, after you have written your article, ask a friend to read the article and have her guess the title. Having a second opinion on what your page title should be, is important!

• Include Numbers

Numbers help your readers to know what they are getting into. It creates a sense of order in their minds.

They would be rest assured that they can skim through it and get what they want.

Some ways to add numbers to your post would be:

“10 ways to burn belly fat”

“Top 5 Gyms in Australia”

“Top 10 best travel locations in Europe 2020”

The list goes on, we humans subconsciously like everything to be orderly and arranged. Your page will stand a higher chance of being picked if you implement this rule.

3. Add Positivity and Emotion to your Headline

Whether you like it or not, we human beings, love positivity and are easily moved by emotions. Because that’s basically what we want in life – Love (emotion) and Happiness (positivity). We are driven by these things and anything that makes us feel good, we follow.

So, how do you embed this into your website? Simple. Use titles that are emotional and positive. For Example:

“10 Best Freelance Copywriters in Sydney”- I’m one, of course, check me out here!

“5 Ways to Sell your products faster Online”

“7 Surprising Ways to lose weight in 30 days”

I highlighted the emotion and positivity of the post to make you see understand which is which. But please, don’t overdo it. When you overdo it, you will make it look like clickbait, and people avoid clickbait!

4. Make your headline a question (Can you lose weight by just drinking water?)

This is very important because most people search Google with a question. When your headline is a question you will have more favour when it comes to ranking.

Here are some examples;

“Can you lose weight by drinking just water? Here are 5 methods to follow”

“Can you go on Vacation on a $1000 budget in 2020? Here is how I did it with just $800”

“Is it possible to sleep with your eyes open?

Questions create the feeling in your readers that you were once like them. You will seem more relatable and of course, they would like to know what you have to say!

5. Add the Current Year (10 fastest ways to triple your income in 2020)

Remember when I used your clothes as an example to explain how Google sorts the best articles? How you keep the new ones visible and the old one tucked away?

Putting a date in your title helps your ranking factor and your click-through rate. It makes what you have to say look like its recent.

Which is why you should keep updating your posts from time to time. So better and more detailed articles don’t outrank you.

So, try to mix all these points up, don’t just use one alone – it makes people see you as spontaneous when they go through your website.

The second point that helps your Click-through Rate is your Meta-Description.

A Meta-Description is the short message found below your title and URL in a Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

Although it doesn’t affect your ranking, it is important for your website clicks. It describes what your post is about, so your audience would have a better idea of what they are about to read.

Always add keywords to this description! Google highlights these keywords, so, when your readers see that your post has their search term – they will be more likely to click!

The description doesn’t have to be too long -just two or three sentences will do.

With our title: “10 surprising ways to lose weight in 30 days”

Our description can look like this:

“Learn how to lose weight in 30 days with our proven weight loss formula. That has made our 5000 members get to their desired weight”

This description plus your title would be irresistible for anyone trying to lose weight.

If you are using a WordPress Website, you can download the Yoast plugin to input the Meta-description and do your necessary On-page SEO optimisation.

Although, if you leave it blank, Google can input something for you. That has the search term the reader typed on Google.

Slow websites are annoying. Nobody, likes a slow website!

There are thousands of problems in the world. So, please, don’t make your slow website amongst one of those problems. Imagine trying to get a piece of information urgently and you open a website and it’s taking forever to load…

At that moment, you have two thoughts, either to smash the computer on the ground or to just close the website and check somewhere else. – the latter is the common practice!

Google frowns on slow websites because they know just how it makes people feel. Remember I told you that they are focused on customer satisfaction. They want everyone that uses their product to get the best user experience. So, they bring the most user-friendly website upwards.

Here are 8 ways to make your website faster according to Moz.com

1. Enable compression
2. Minify Java scripts and compression
3. Reduce redirects
4. Remove render-blocking Java scripts
5. Use browsing cache
6. Improve server response time
7. Use content distribution network (CDNs)
8. Optimise images to reduce their size

To check the speed of your website, click here

If you don’t know, Google’s main aim is to bring the best page for the search term and this is exactly how they get more people to use Google… because of quality! You wouldn’t be happy if you did a search and the post that ranks best has poorly spelt or written information.

Something that makes for an easy read, is the page’s structure – if your article is in a big block of texts, you’re just wasting your time.

Google wants paragraphs, images, subheadings. The Title should be in an H1 tag; The subtitles should be in H2 tags etc.

These changes would make people follow your article to the end. Before Google ranks your page, they would check how organised and how easy your article is to read. They know what makes for an easy read. So, it’s important that you organise your page in that way.

Bullet and ordered lists are also important – they help with readability and ensure your article is digested better.

In case you don’t know, they look like these:

• Bullets
• Are
• Important for
• SEO

You can use numbers too. It all depends on which you prefer

1. Because
2. They
3. Make your
4. Page easier to go through

Google weighs the quality of every post before it is ranked, using your Bounce Rate and Dwell Time to know how useful your content is to its users.

If your title doesn’t match with what’s on your page, people would leave immediately. Bounce Rate is measured by how long people stay on your website before they leave without clicking on a link, making a purchase or filling a form. Did they read to the end? Did they find your content helpful? Did they share it?

If your content was helpful, they might have stayed longer and not have left to open another search result. A mismatch of the title and content affects your bounce rate severely.

Google calculates these things and reduces your ranking over time. And the longer people stay on your page, the higher you rank for that search term.

• Be conversational. You don’t want to sound like a big evil corporation. People form an image of who your brand is with the way you write
• Try not to sound uptight. It would be very hard for your audience to follow and understand what you’re saying
• Be original
• Include Infographics, Images, and GIFS. They engage people’s senses. Try to use real-life images – somehow, they make what you’re saying more realistic
• Use listicles (Numbers, Bullet Points, etc.) Like I said earlier, people don’t have time. Numbers and Listicles make your article easier to skim-read
• Be as helpful as possible. Your audience clicked on the post for a reason. Make sure everyone is satisfied after reading your post – give examples while you explain
• Update your posts regularly to keep your points and examples up-to-date
• Develop more points than the articles that rank at the top of the search term you are working on
• Ask a question. This would make your audience want to interact more with your content
• Edit, Edit, and Edit. Use online tools like Grammarly or hire a copywriter to proofread! Bad grammar and error are dangerous for ranking

When you start to write your article, try to repeat the keyword 5-10 times in the article. This makes Google’s web crawlers see that you have mentioned the keyword several times. It’s something you should do carefully though because anything above that would be keyword stuffing!

A featured snippet isn’t something you can just get. Although it is exclusively for pages that rank on the top page of Google SERP. According to Neil Patel; Here are 8 steps to follow to Rank on the Featured snippet;

• Use SEMrush to find competitors’ snippets
• Use Google to find out what people are asking for
• Find Content Ideas on “Answer the public”
• Do Keyword Research
• Answer multiple questions with one blog post
• Keep the section of the featured list less than 40 words
• Use paragraphs to make your post easy to read

• Inbound Linking… Just as I said earlier but this time, you are linking to another post within your website.

For example, here’s an inbound link within this website which talks about my Content Writing and Copywriting Services

You should understand that Google ranks you better if your page is good for the people using their service. Think of Google as a middleman – a middleman who wants to get the best article for the end-user. Google’s job is to bring the best article for your search term.

If you create, the best user-friendly content, be sure that your article will rank well but also be prepared to but a lot of time and effort in for this to happen!

But be aware that ranking highly, doesn’t just happen overnight! You must keep putting out SEO-optimised content over and over…

Google pays attention to how often a keyword ranks on Google. So, you can use tools like SEMrush to find these Keywords.

I hope this page has been helpful in more ways than one!

Think you still need help with your SEO, Content and Copywriting or proofreading? Let’s talk HERE.