You Can't Expect SEO Results Overnight
We know you're eager to get your website ranking in Google, but the truth is that it will take time. When we say "time," we mean a lot of time and hard work. It's not like you can just do one thing and BOOM- rank #1 on Google! There are many factors that search engines consider when determining how high your site ranks in search results.
What is SEO?
SEO is short for "Search Engine Optimization." This is the process of improving your businesses' website visibility in search engines and preparing it to appear on the top results.
Why Does SEO Take So Long?
SEO takes a long time because there are so many factors to consider. It's a long game. To rank high in search engines, you have to focus on keywords and content. Keywords are important because they tell search engines what your page is about - in other words, who you're targeting with the contents of your site. Content needs to be unique and well written for SEO purposes, but also readable by humans. It is a fine balance of art and science.
It takes a lot of time to research keywords and come up with quality content. It's not something you can do in an afternoon and call it a day. If you want to see SEO results, plan on investing the time and work necessary to rank high in search engines - it will take months of consistent effort.
Why Do I Need SEO?
You may be asking yourself, why do I even need SEO for my website? You need SEO because it will help you generate more leads and sales. The last thing any business owner wants is to not be able to reach their target market - so having a SEO strategy in place on your website is crucial!
Why Would You Want to Rank Higher?
Well, because typically when people enter a keyword into their favorite search engine (like google), they are looking for specific answers on that particular topic- if you're an attorney or car company, then more targeted traffic from those searches means more qualified customer leads
The good news is that there are 6 steps you can take to help ensure that your site has a better chance at being ranked higher than your competitors.
6 Steps for SEO Success to Rank Your Website in Google
1. Title tags
Title tags are one of the most important on page SEO factors. The title tag is the text that appears in a search engine's results, so it needs to be attention-grabbing and relevant.
Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title tag. If you keep your titles under 60 characters, many SEO experts claim that you can expect about 90% of your titles to display properly.
2. Meta Descriptions
The meta description is the text that appears below a link to your website in search engine results. They are also important for two reasons: one, they help provide context about what your article is all about; and two, if you include keywords here it can be a way to increase your search engine ranking.
Meta descriptions can really be any length, however Google generally truncates them to roughly 160 characters. It's best to keep your meta descriptions between 50 and 160 characters. If they are longer, just make sure the most important information is within that 50-160 characters.
3. Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Content
Relevant keywords are a vital part of any SEO strategy or campaign. They are one of the main factors Google uses to rank your page in search engine results. While it is important to place them througout your text copy, you should focus on always making sure they are within the first paragraph of a page.
Placing keywords in the first paragraph of your copy is crucial for on-page SEO. This is because search engines give priority to content that has keywords in the first paragraph.
3. Keyword Density
Keyword density is the number of times a searchable keyword appears within the content of a page.
How to Calculate Keyword Density
If you want to find the keyword density for a piece of content, you'll need to:
- Identify the keyword
- Count the total number of words on the page
- Divide the number of times the keyword appears with page word count
- Multiply the results by 100
For example, if a blog post has 1,000 words and a keyword appears 10 times in that body of text, then the article has a keyword density of 1%.
Positioning a keyword or keyword phrase at the right density is an important factor when it comes to SEO. The ideal target keyword density is about one to two percent, which means that the target keyword should appear around one to two times per 100 words. Enough occurrences of the SEO key term and phrases will show up so that ranking in google will be increased.
Maintaining a moderate level of keyword density can help you avoid over optimizing and being penalized by Google for keyword stuffing and spamming.
4. Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are possible one of the most under looked aspects of SEO.
Backlinks are links from other websites that point back to your web page as a way of giving authority and credibility to the page.
How Many Backlinks Does A Website Need To Rank On Page One?
There are no magic formulas that can tell you exactly how many backlinks your website should have to rank on page one of Google. However we do know that quality stumps quantity every time. You want to focus on higher quality backlinks from other reputable sites (i.e., not blogspam or low ranked blogs)
A great way of finding potential sites for these types of backlinks is by doing research and looking at what content they publish with their own links in it - if the site is linking to another site that is relevant to your industry then a link from them may be ideal.
Another good technique is looking at the competitors and seeing what they have done in terms of backlinks by checking their site in a tool like SpyFu where you can literally see the backlinks they are using.
5. Quality Content
Content is the lifeblood of any website. A solid content strategy can make or break the results of your SEO efforts.
How Does Content Affect SEO?
Content affects SEO because it is what search engines either value or penalize. It should be quality content that has a purpose on the website, not just filler or unnecessary information. This will help with ranking in Google as well as helping people find your site easily.
The key word there is "quality." Low quality content will only get you so far, as search engine algorithms are constantly changing and improving with time. A solid content strategy also helps keep visitors coming back to your website for more information they might need about topics that interest them most — which could also mean return site traffic and potential customers down the road!
6. Want to Rank Quickly On Page 1 in Google? Try Google Ads.
A quicker way to get your website seen is by using Google Ads. Google Ads allows you to pay for ads which will show up above organic traffic results at the top of search engine results pages (SERP). The downside is that you have to pay for these ads and they can sometimes be expensive depending on your competion, target keywords and region.
While you may be tempted by what are called "Black Hat Tactics" or "Black Hat SEO", you want to stay away from these tactics as much as possible. We even wrote a comprehensive blog on Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO.
SEO Takes Time - Don't Expect Overnight Success
Search Engine Optimization takes a lot more time and effort. You'll need to focus your SEO efforts on things like link building, keyword research, awesome content creation as well as backlinking strategy for your website in order to have it perform better on Google's rankings pages.
SEO is an investment and it should be thought of as such. You can not expect to see results overnight and ranking your website for keywords takes a lot of time, effort, and money in order to get the desired result you want on Google's search engine rankings pages.
If you would like to learn more about SEO or the services that we provide, please contact us, we would love to chat!
