How to Rank Higher on Google

Getting your website to rank higher on Google can be a tough task. Not only for your home page but specifically when it comes to blog posts. There are over one billion blog posts that get thrown up on the web yearly. Most are mediocre, providing little to no value to your site in the long term.

See, the days of writing generic listicles and hoping they receive infinite search traffic are over. Not only is Google getting more sophisticated in how it crawls content, but users are also getting much more specific with their search queries overall. So, creating something that is mediocre, will lead to mediocre results.

But great posts, on the other hand, provide consistent traffic to your website through search. If you create enough quality pieces you’ll eventually get them in definitive “one positions.” This is where Google considers your post so strong that they have an excerpt of the post visible in search.

These are SEO gold.

Here’s a post on reading fiction which drives daily traffic to our site because of its ranking.

The key is to look at the types of questions your customers have. Then see if you can provide a better answer than a piece of content that’s sitting in the coveted one position on Google. And if you don’t get the number one spot, it’s okay–even being on the first page will push consistent traffic to your website.

Now it’s time to get to work.

In this post, I want to go over some actionable tips that can help your blog posts rank higher on Google.

1. Put In 2X The Time You Usually Do

Seriously.

If your blog posts aren’t ranking high there’s a strong possibility you’re not putting enough effort into your content. This means researching, writing, editing, and coming back to work on your post. High-quality content isn’t something you can do in an hour–it often takes 20-30 hours to be done correctly–this is the beginning point of improving your Google search rankings.

That’s why I want to talk about this idea called, “disproportionate results,” where you put two or three times the effort into something and it produces returns greater than 1:1. This method will ring true in many aspects of your marketing, business, life, etc. The key component is to put in twice as much work into the things you are producing, and you can yield much bigger results.

See, most writers are playing the quantity game, and that worked a decade ago. However, for long-lasting results, you have to look at making the content as valuable as possible.

If you’re answering a question for your reader, make sure you answer it completely. This means you need to be informed on your post. Take time and research points and articles that could bolster your blog into a high-quality piece of content.

The most overlooked piece of getting a blog to rank high is the promotional side of it. If you write a post, hit publish and expect people to flock to your content you’re dreaming (unless you’re an established brand). To promote your post make sure it’s put into a social media publishing schedule.

You’ll also want to look for places where you can reach out and see if people will backlink to your content. This type of content is called linkbait. Link baiting consists of you creating content that people would want to use as a source in their own material.

The more quality links you acquire, the higher chance your content has to rank. You can see who’s linking to your content in Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools).Once you’re here, look for pieces of content which are already getting some links. If something has a few links, it’s worth exploring what types of sites link back it. Once you’ve identified them, look for similar sites that could benefit from your content as a resource.

Here are some quick rules to follow:

Have your blogs be no less than 500 words and no more than 2500 words.
Be sure to spend equal parts writing and promoting your piece of content.
Reach out to 10 sites who could benefit from your content either on social media or via email
Don’t rush your headline, it’s very importan

2. Change Your Titles to Exactly What People Are Searching For

We wrote a post on the death of Vine and quickly saw we were getting some traffic from Google for people searching, “RIP Vine Meaning.” At the time our post was titled, “RIP: Vine Closes its Doors” and was ranking fifth in Google.

3. Use Internal Links to Build Up Cornerstone Content

Cornerstone content is the content you deem to be the most useful and highest quality on your site. Use internal links back to this content wherever you can in other posts for phrases/words relating to this piece of content.

For instance, we run a weekly marketing show, and we’re based as a Los Angeles social media agency, so whenever we mention it in another piece of content we link back to it. This helps tell Google which content is important and gives the crawler another path back to this piece of content. Yoast (WordPress plugin) has a great post on cornerstone content I recommend reading.

4. Add To Your Older Posts to Keep them Fresh

If you have a post that’s dated but ranks high, it’s not a good idea to throw that SEO work down the drain. Instead, look for ways you can optimize/rewrite the content to fit in with the times now.

5. Do Your Keyword Research

Use a tool like Google trends to make sure you’re targeting effective keywords that match your potential customer’s search intent.

That was a mouthful.

Basically, you want to make sure you’re picking the best possible keyword to write about. Here’s a quick example showing that people are using the word “blog” more frequently than “article” when it comes to SEO.

To do this head to Google.com/trends and examine the popularity of different keywords that pertain to your business. Start with customer service requests you receive in your daily operation and see how you can answer those questions through content.

SEO isn’t rocket science, but effective SEO is hard work. Use these five tips as well as others you pick up as SEO evolves to get your posts climbing in the SERPs (search engine results page).

If you’re looking to rank higher on Google, feel free to reach out to us for a free consultation.