Improve Your Business' Online Ranking with These SEO Tips

There's certainly not a simple, magical way to instantly increase your keyword rankings in search engines. Improving your rankings takes research, planning, creativity, and persistence due to the ever-changing search engine algorithms. Below are techniques that can improve your business's keyword ranking in Google or Bing or any other search engine.

Diagnose current website penalties.

Search engines penalize sites with broken links and duplicate or missing information. Run your website through a diagnostic tool that can identify items like broken links, missing alt tags, or pages that are slow to load.

Ensure your site is responsive.

Google prefers mobile optimized websites because 75% of online users prefer mobile optimized sites. Factors like page speed and image size are also important items when optimizing mobile sites.

Create and submit an XML sitemap.

XML sitemaps are maps that make it easier for Google to find and analyze your pages. They're important because Google doesn't just rank your website, they rank each page. XML sitemaps contain information that is pertinent to rankings such as page date creation, last updated date, and its importance relative to your site's other pages. These are all factors Google takes into consideration when ranking your pages. Find more information about XML sitemaps at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en.

Create descriptive title tags.

Title tags are the headline first seen in search engine results. They are what tell search engines and users what the page is about in the most concise way possible. Optimal title tags should be between 30-65 characters long and should be interesting and relevant so that users will click on your page instead of your competitor's.

Compel your audience to click.

The meta description is the summary a user sees just below the title tag and search engines often display the page meta description when it contains searched for keywords. Having a compelling call to action is important for convincing users to click on your page.

Use clear heading tags.

Once search engines have crawled URLs, titles tags, meta descriptions and other pieces of the page, they'll crawl H1 through H5 headings to further determine page topic and organization.

Write quality content.

Content is key. Page content should be relevant, engaging and provide value to the user. Without high quality content that interests and engages the reader, metrics like traffic and bounce rate suffer and rankings decline.

Utilize trusted sources.

Adding occasional external links, (backlinks) to trusted sources can be beneficial to SEO efforts. The most crucial factor for this is that they add significant value to your page content, are reputable and that the technique is not over-used.

Ensure security.

As of January 2017, Google Chrome marks all unencrypted website with a "not secure" warning in the address bar. Websites labeled as unsecure are also penalized in their rankings regardless of whether ecommerce transactions occur. Every site should have an SSL certificate installed.

Claim your Google My Business listing.

Your Google My Business listing isn't just an online version of an old phone book listing. It's an interactive listing. Claiming it and interacting with people there sends a strong message that your business is active and Google rewards that effort.