As an entrepreneur what do you want most? More sales? More leads and more traffic?
What if you can achieve all of them by implementing just one thing: SEO
Hands down, SEO is the most effective way to get more traffic and sales to your websites. The key here is to use the RIGHT SEO tactics that work like a charm.
So let’s find out few top SEO techniques you can use to boost your Google rankings in 2019 and beyond.
5 SEO Techniques to Boost Your Google Rankings In 2019
1. Discover Untapped Keywords
If you’re running an online business or an eCommerce store, what do you mostly want? More traffic and sales, right?
Search engine traffic is considered as one of the best inbound marketing channels which generates you highest returns.
You need traffic to your sites especially from search engines like Google. Do you know why?
Search engine traffic has the following benefits;
● It’s cost effective
● Gives you highest ROI
● Sends you highly qualified visitors
● Helps you increase your leads and overall sales from online
● Increases your brand exposure and the list goes on
But increasing search traffic to your sites is not easy if you’re not doing keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of finding keywords your target audience are using on Google to find some relevant information online.
The key here is to find untapped keywords so you can rank higher in Google search. Here are few most effective tips you can use for finding untapped keywords in almost any industry.
● Use keyword research tools as they make the whole keyword research process much easier. Instead of using free tools like Keyword Planner, go for premium tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs etc as they give you extensive data along with competitor analysis, better related keyword ideas, keyword difficulty score etc.
● Perform competitor keyword analysis so you can easily find out the keywords which are generating most traffic to their sites from search engines. Let me explain with an example:
When you enter any domain (for my research I’m entering Bloggerspassion.com) in organic research tool from SEMrush, sharing few sample highest traffic keywords which you can get for any domain:
● Try to find low competitive keywords. Target long tail keywords as much as possible as they are easier to rank for. If possible, go for those keywords which have a low monthly volume of below 1000 searches so you can rank in top 10 results with minimum efforts.
2. Get Ranked for Featured Snippets
Google featured snippets are “selected search results” which are featured on top of Google’s search results. Featured snippets are becoming trend now as Google is more inclined towards showing them to give faster and better information to the users directly.
According to Ahrefs, 12.29 percent of search queries have featured snippets in the search results. Only 30.9 percent of featured snippets rank at the very top placement in the organic results. 99.58 percent of the featured snippets are already in the top 10 positions in Google.
Not just that, nearly 26% of all clicks will be generated to 1st ranking page with a featured snippet. So yes, you can boost your Google rankings by optimizing your blog contents for featured snippets.
To increase your chances of getting ranked for featured snippets, try the following tips.
● Use question based body tags (including h2, h3 and so on) within your contents and provide answers to the questions.
● Use schema markup as you can show star ratings for your product reviews which helps you get more clicks.
● When creating lists posts, add more than 8 items since Google will add more items link which is a direct link to your post. It’s better to use at least “10 listicles” in a list post to properly show up on list featured snippets.
● Google shows 3 columns and 9 rows in a featured snippet table. So add just three columns in your table and try to add more than 9 rows to your table as in that case Google will add more rows link which will point back to your original post.
3. On-page Optimization Is Vital
On page optimization refers to everything you do at your website to increase its visibility in search engines. On page SEO plays a vital role in increasing your Google rankings.
Once you’re done with the keyword research process, your Google rankings mostly depend on how well you optimize them for search engines. That being said, you don’t have to stuff the same keywords again and again but you can find LSI keywords to include within your blog posts to increase their rankings.
Here are few places where you need to include your primary keywords to properly optimize your blog posts and pages.
● Page titles: Each of your pages and posts should have its own unique title, which includes the main keywords for that page.
● Meta description: After your page title, meta description is what shows up in Google search, so make sure to create a compelling and unique meta description for each of your posts to increase your click through rates.
● Image alt tags: Include targeted keywords in the image alt text and image name as you can bring visitors even from Google images.
● URL Structure: The URL structure is extremely important. By including search engine friendly URLs for each of your pages you can improve your website crawling. URLs that include targeted keywords also perform better. Shorter URLs seem to perform better in search engine results so keep them short by including your primary keyword.
● Body tags: Body tags including h1, h2, h3 and so on help search engines easily discover what your content is all about. So include your primary and secondary keywords within your body tags to properly optimize your contents.
Above all, don’t forget to interlink to your existing contents or other relevant pages on your site as people often think that external links are important.
While external links are important but you shouldn’t ignore internal links. Placing links to your other website pages is a great way of improving your site.
Internal linking not only makes it easier for your visitors to navigate around your site but it also ensures that your site gets properly crawled allowing the search engines to find all of your pages. Not only that, it also helps to build the relevancy of a page to relevant keywords and phrases.
If you’re a WordPress user, go install an optimization plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math as they both are great plugins which help you easily optimize your contents for your target keywords.
4. Long Form Of Content Ranks Well In Google
According to Hubspot, In 2011, SEO was reported as the #1 method in increasing traffic.
In 2013, SEO has fallen to second place with blogging taking the first spot. This is likely due to SEO today revolving largely around blogging to create fresh, unique content due to the Google Panda and Penguin updates.
If you’re creating long form of content (typically more than 2000 words), you’ll have more chances of getting top ranking in SERP results for the keywords you’re trying to rank for.
Brian Dean from Backlinko did an interesting case study on the Google search ranking and found that detailed articles (with around 2000 words) perform really well in Google search results.
So what are you still waiting for? If you want to get top 10 search results for your keywords, you need to create in-depth content which is useful for your target audience and customers.
That being said, creating high quality content is one of the biggest challenges for most people. Here are few incredible tips to create long form of content that ranks well in search engines like Google.
● Understand your target audience. Find out their wants and needs. It makes content creation process so much easier. You should also find out what common questions they have in mind so you can answer them in form of blog posts, case studies and so on.
● Be personal. Most online readers looks for ways to be either entertained or informed and they hate it when the article they are reading feels like it was written by a robot. So don’t use unnecessary jargon. Make it simple and include some emotion in your writing. That’s how you can connect easily with your target audience.
● Create stunning headlines as 8 out of 10 people read your headlines first. If they are not compelling, they simply skip reading your content altogether. You can use headline analyzer tools like Coschedule to easily create magnetic headlines.
● If nothing works, hire a professional content marketing strategist who should take care of all your content marketing related tasks including keyword research, creating well researched content, optimization of your content and so on. It works like a charm no matter what industry you are in.
5. Find Smart Ways to Get Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are the main reason why majority of the sites are getting top rankings on Google search. If you are looking to boost your Google rankings, make sure to find smart ways to get high quality links to your sites.
Here are few ways where you can get highly relevant backlinks to your websites in 2019.
Start using Quora: Quora is the #1 Q&A platform where you can find thousands of questions on almost any industry you are in. By answering on Quora, you’re not only increasing your reach but you’ll also have chances to easily link back to your stuff.
Make sure to find topics you’re interested in and follow influencers in your industry who are actively spending time on Quora. Another benefit of using Quora is that, some of the answers on Quora get republished on top sites like Forbes, The Huffington Post etc which can be useful for you to increase your brand exposure.
Contribute to top sites: There are so many authority sites that accept guest posts from people. The best part about guest posting is that it gives you high quality and relevant links. The key here is to post some amazing articles to get published on top sites.
Influencer outreach: Influencer outreach is all about reaching out to influencers in your industry and asking them to promote your business or website (you can also ask them link to your products, services or important website pages).
Either you can pay for influencers to market your website or you can find creative ways to offer help so they can reciprocate the same.
Final thoughts on top SEO techniques to use in 2019
SEO is constantly evolving. If you’re not learning new SEO tactics, you’ll fall behind of your competitors.
If you want to get more out of SEO, find and implement those SEO techniques which work like a charm even in the future.
So did you find the above tips useful? Do you have any more questions? Share your thoughts in the comments.