Basically, all the ways to get a website to appear on the first page of Google are called search engine optimization or SEO. Here are the steps you need to take to implement SEO on your website. With these tips, you can improve your website's ranking in Google search results.
- Check Your Website Speed
- Ensure the Website is Mobile-Friendly
- Create Sitemap
- Install SSL Certificate
- Integrate Website with Google Analytics
- Use Google Search Console
- Keyword Research
- Create Complete Content that Complies with Search Intent
- Content Optimization with Keywords Key
- Pay Attention to Main Keyword Intensity
- Use Internal Link
- Don't Forget Inbound Links
- Fix Broken Link
- Register Website on Google My Business
Let's discuss these methods one by one!
1. Check Your Website Speed
Website speed is one of the website ranking factors. Therefore, increasing the loading speed of your site is one way to make your website appear on Google.
Various tips can be done to increase website speed. First, make sure the size of the files supporting the website pages (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) doesn't slow down their loading. For those who use WordPress, you can install plugins such as Autoptimize and Fast Velocity Minify to make it more practical.
Second, you need to compress the image file size used by the website. Several options online this tool can be used to make it easier for you.
2. Ensure the Website is Mobile-Friendly
Browsing activity through mobile devices is increasing. In August 2019, 51% of website traffic in the world came from mobile devices.
This means that your website must be ready for visitors using smartphones and tablets — both in terms of appearance and speed.
Plus, Google has set loading speed on mobile devices as one of the website ranking factors.
Fortunately, a CMS like WordPress makes it easy for you to make your website more mobile-friendly.
3. Create a Sitemap
A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website. In addition, this file can also contain all the information about the pages of your website, including when was the last time a page was revised, the number of revisions made, and the type of content contained in it.
There are two types of sitemaps, namely HTML and XML sitemaps. The HTML sitemap is the version intended for website visitors, while the XML sitemap is intended for search engines.
You must have an XML sitemap because it helps Google to crawl the pages on your website.
This is important so that your site is indexed or appears in Google search results. Especially if you have a site with a complex structure or pages that are not well linked through internal linking. You can find an explanation of internal linking in another part of this article.
In addition, the HTML sitemap also affects SEO indirectly because it improves the user experience through website navigation. With it, visitors can search for pages that are difficult to find through Google search results.
As complicated as they sound, HTML and XML sitemaps are easy to create, especially if you use WordPress. You only need the Yoast SEO plugin to do this.
4. Install SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is a component needed to encrypt data transfers that occur on a website. However, its use does not only have a positive impact on the security of your website.
Since 2014, Google has set the use of an SSL certificate as an indicator of website ranking. In addition, many well-known web browsers mark "unsafe" on websites without an SSL certificate.
Thus, the use of an SSL certificate is an obligation if you want to increase your site's ranking in Google search results.
5. Integrate Website with Google Analytics
Your SEO tips are not complete without Google Analytics. This online tool allows you to monitor the performance of individual pages on the website.
Not only that, but Google Analytics also facilitates you to observe website traffic. You can find out the origins, demographics, activities, and time visitors spend on the website with this tool.
This series of information does not directly affect website rankings. However, you can use it to evaluate the content and user experience of your site.
The good news is that Google Analytics is available for free. You just need to integrate the website with the tool to use it.
6. Use Google Search Console
Apart from Analytics, Google also has another free tool that can help you understand your site's performance, namely Search Console.
The difference is, Search Console helps you find out how your website is performing in Google searches. The information this tool provides includes:
- The most popular pages on your site
- Your site's performance on mobile devices
- Is there a broken link or not?
- Website security issues
- The source of the backlinks you get
In addition, you can also use Search Console to install a sitemap and find the right keywords or keywords for your website.
7. Keyword Research
Your website or blog has not appeared on the first page of Google search results? One possibility is that the content or page doesn't have keywords that are used a lot in Google searches.
For that, you should do keyword research before creating blog posts or content for web pages. There are three criteria used so that you can choose the right keywords.
The first factor is search volume. High-volume keywords are often used in searches. However, keep in mind that the higher the search volume, the higher the competition you will face to get your website on the first page. This is called the keyword difficulty level, which is the second criterion.
For the reasons above, there is nothing wrong if you search for long keywords with low search volume, but relevant to the intent of Google users. In SEO, keywords like this are called “long-tail keywords”. In fact, 70% of traffic comes from this keyword group.
The fourth criterion is SERP (search engine result page). SERP is a term used to refer to the top 10 websites in search results for a keyword. Knowing them, you can learn about the content of these sites and make better and more complete ones out of them.
Then, how to do keyword research? Of course, you need the help of tools.
8. Create Complete Content and Match the Search Intent
After doing keyword research, it's time for you to create content. However, you can't do it carelessly.
Try to position yourself as a search engine user. Surely you want to find the answer to a question right? Therefore, the content that you create must be by the search intent of the target audience. In other words, the content must also provide the answers readers want.
However, how do you define a search intent? For this reason, SERP is one of the criteria in keyword research. By researching the content of sites that have managed to appear in rankings one to 10, you can understand the answers readers want to know.
In addition, you can also find out the shortcomings on the website that appear on the first page, for example, incomplete information and poor article structure. This way, you can create more complete and readable content.
9. Optimization of Content with Keywords
You already have content, but how do you use keywords to appear on the first page of search results?
There are five locations where you should use keywords for website optimization:
- Permalink
- Meta titles
- Meta description
- Image filename and alt text
- First 100 words in the content
Permalink is the URL of your website page. This link is one of the first things Google's algorithm checks when it crawls your site. Therefore, permalinks must have keywords.
However, permalinks usually contain random characters. In WordPress, for example, the URL example looks like this: my-website.com/blog/?p=201.
Therefore, you need to change it to my-website.com/blog/keyword. Make sure every word in your permalink is typed in lowercase and separated by a dash or “-”.
The location of the second and third keywords is the meta title and description. The meta title is the title displayed in Google search results, while the meta description is the short text below it.
Meta title by default follows the title of the site page or blog post. Therefore, you can enter keywords into the title before publishing it.
However, the meta description will display a snippet of text from the content of the page or blog post if you don't specify it yourself.
Fortunately, you can easily change the meta title and description. In WordPress, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to do this too.
In addition to the three locations above, keywords also need to be embedded in the file name and alt text of all images placed on pages and posts.
Of course, you can rename the image file before uploading it. However, the alt text can only be changed after you upload the image. WordPress makes it easy for you to do this task with its media library.
Don't forget to put keywords in the first 100 words on a page or post. This will make it easier for Google to find your website when browsing the internet for a keyword.
10. Pay attention to the intensity of the main keyword
In addition to the five locations mentioned above, you also need to use keywords throughout the content. However, the intensity of use and its distribution must be considered.
Excessive use of one keyword in an article or page is considered keyword stuffing which will harm site rankings. In addition, the location of keywords that are too close to each other will sound unnatural. For example, if there are keywords that are repeated in two consecutive sentences.
For that reason, you need to take into account LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords. This group includes keywords that do not have your main keyword in them but are still relevant to the context. In other words, LSI keywords are variations of the main keyword.
For example, LSI keywords from the keyword “create a blog” could include “create a free blog”, “WordPress”, and “free blog.
Premium keyword research tools usually come in a package with a feature to search for LSI keywords. However, you can also use free tools like LSIKeywords and KeySearch.
11. Use Internal Links
Apart from a sitemap, another thing that helps Google crawl your site is internal links.
Internal links are links that connect two pages on a website. However, you can't just insert a link from one page to another. The linked pages must have a relation.
For example, you have a blog post about digital marketing. This article contains an explanation of the concept of the topic and its various sub-topics. You can create other content that explains more about email marketing, then include a link to a post about digital marketing which is a related topic.
Not only that, the internal links you enter must sound natural — you can't just enter a URL like my-website.com/blog/email-marketing. In a post, internal links must be anchor text (text containing hyperlinks) that can be inserted into sentences.
You may include more than one internal link in a page or post. In fact, having multiple internal links in an article will make it easier for search engines to understand the context.
12. Don't Forget Inbound Links
In addition to using internal links, having lots of quality inbound links is also a way for your website to appear on the first page of Google.
Inbound links are links to your page or website content on other sites. Not just anyone will give you an inbound link. Therefore, you have to do link building or make arrangements with other website owners to exchange links.
However, several criteria need to be considered when doing link building, namely:
- Domain authority and page authority
- dofollow and nofollow links
- Anchor text
- Relevance of links
- Inbound link source traffic
Domain authority is the overall quality of a website. However, each page on a website has a different quality. This is measured by page authority.
Unfortunately, you cannot find out the domain and page authority of a website yourself. To do so, you need to use paid tools like Ahrefs and Moz.
In addition, you must know which websites use dofollow links. These are the types of links that Google can detect. In other words, inbound links that use these links will affect your site's ranking.
However, some websites use nofollow links. In contrast to dofollow links, these links will not have any impact on website rankings. This type of link that you need to avoid when you want to do link building.
Not only that, but you also need to determine the anchor text used by other website owners. Google mentions that using the same inbound link anchor text repeatedly will cause a decrease in website ranking.
Finally, don't forget to take into account the relevance of the site you want to work with and its traffic.
13. Fix Broken Link
In the previous section, you have learned about link building and its SEO benefits.
However, keep in mind that you have no control over the web pages you link to your content from. The owner may delete the page at any time or change the URL without your knowledge.
If this is the case, readers of your content will not be able to find the page in question when they click on the link. On a large scale, this will affect your site's user experience and negatively impact its ranking.
Plus, Google lowers the ranking of a website if it finds a lot of links that lead to a 404 not found page.
Therefore, you need to frequently check the links on your website. The task will become easier if you use Google Search Console.
14. Use Google My Business
Have you ever tried to search for a business or service provider in your area via Google? If so, you may find results like the following on the first page:
Well, if you have a local business, you can also display your business as in the example using Google My Business.
As the name implies, Google My Business is a free business listing provided by Google. With this platform, you can display various important information related to your business, including the type of business, location, operating hours, telephone number, and website address.
Not only that, but Google users can also leave ratings, reviews, and questions on your listing page. Thus, the use of Google My Business not only displays your business and its website on the first page of search results but also becomes a medium of information for potential customers.
Closing
Here are 10+ ways to make your website appear on the first page of Google. Hopefully, this article is useful for you. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave your comments in the column provided below.
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