12 Tips to Rank at the top of Google Search for Your Small Business

12-top-google-ranking-tips

1. Make Your Site Mobile Friendly People use mobile devices, and Google wants to give them the best possible experience. If you want Google to send mobile traffic your way, you must have a mobile friendly website.
2. Write A Blog A blog shows Google that your website is regularly updated. You can also use it to build up your reputation in your industry, and pick up long tail searches.
3. Write Long Posts Google likes long posts. When we say long we mean at least 1,000 words, and preferably over 2,000 words. This is challenging with some topics because those words can't be repetitive drivel. But if you can write genuinely helpful long posts, you will have a better chance of ranking well on Google.
4. Do Keyword Research This is not as important as it used to be, but keyword research will keep you focused and will ensure you are thinking the same way that your potential website visitors are thinking.
5. Market Your Posts You can't just write a website page and then hope that Google sends you traffic. Instead you have to be proactive, marketing the post yourself. Google notices this, particularly on social media. So market your website and web pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your newsletter, and in any other way that you can.
6. Use Keywords In Your URLs Make sure your URLs are descriptive rather than random, and use keywords in your URL whenever possible.
7. Write Good Meta Titles And Descriptions Meta titles and descriptions are important, not least because they help users decide whether to click on your link in a Google search results page. Use keywords, make sure they are well written, and that they describe the page as well as possible.
8. Add Rich Snippets Rich snippets make your website look better in search results because you have multiple links instead of just one. Google uses them because it helps users find the information that they need quickly. You can use schema.org to take advantage of rich snippets.
9. Use Internal Links Internal links help users find information, and they also help Google to get a better understanding of your website.
10. Use 301 Redirects This one is a bit techie, but if you move content to a different page on your website, you should use a 301 redirect rather than a 302. Google regards 302s as temporary and 301s as permanent. If someone has linked to your page in the past, that link will be transferred to the new page if you use a 301.
11. Upload A Sitemap To Google Sitemaps are easy to make and easy to upload to Google's Webmaster Tools. They help Google to better understand your website.
12. Check Your robots.txt File A robots.txt file tells Google the parts of your website that you want it to crawl. For example, you can use it to stop Google from crawling search results pages. If your robots.txt file is set up wrong, however, you might be preventing Google from crawling pages that you actually want it to look at.

12 Tips To Help Rank Your Website

Some of the tips in this article are either once-off or sporadic fixes, while others require constant work and effort. For a FREE 30 minute consultation contact us today!