Ranking at the top of Google search results is a dream for every business owner. The benefits of it are indisputable – increased traffic to your website, more potential customers being exposed to your brand and offers, and most importantly – increased conversions and revenue.
How Long Does it Take to Improve Google Rankings?
The key to ranking higher on Google is having a dedicated SEO strategy. From keyword-specific website copy, regular content updates and backlinks to improved website experience for desktop and mobile devices, it is all part of a SEO package that will drive your search rankings up.
There is no definite answer on how long it can take for an SEO strategy to improve your Google rankings. Many important SEO activities such as technical audits, PR and link building and sitewide keyword optimisation can take time to complete and deliver results. The industry-accepted answer is that within 3 months you should reap the first rewards of your SEO improvements.
But as a business owner you want to see results immediately. The good news is – there are some simple changes you can make to improve page rankings in Google and increase organic traffic.
5 Simple Ways to Quickly Improve Your Google Rankings
1. Create content regularly and optimise for SEO
Regular, fresh, authentic content is one of the most important factors to help you rank on Page 1 of SERP. If your website hasn’t created any new content recently, start from there. Outline your content marketing strategy by identifying the key areas of interest for your target audience. Use tools such as Google Trends or AnswerThePublic to identify popular topics for blog posts and start writing! Don’t forget SEO tactics such as adding a keyword-specific Meta Title and Meta Description and ensure your content includes links to relevant pages on your website.
2. Optimise Images
We all love great content and it’s no secret that adding images to your website and blog can only make it even more appealing to the public. But when you add images to your website, make sure they are resized and compressed, have file names, which are relevant to the content and include alt text. When you optimise your images, you’ll help Google understand and identify them with ease, as well as boost the loading speed of your web pages, which is another important factor for ranking higher.
3. Don’t forget about Local Search
You know when you want to find a service or a product but you don’t want to travel far to retrieve it. Searches for products and services “near me” are becoming more and more popular and this is where optimising your website for Local Search matters.
Start by claiming your Google My Business listing, update it with the correct business details, and don’t forget to add regular updates. Start collecting reviews, as these will be an important ranking factor for Local Search, and list your business on local directories.
4. Include Header Title Tags in Your Website Copy
Header tags are a great way to structure your content, and make it easier to read (both for humans and search engines). Each page should only have one H1 tag (the title of the page) but it can have multiple H2 tags (sub-titles) and H3 tags (sub-sections under each H2 tag). Make sure your header tags reflect the keywords you want to rank for and you can see almost immediate improvement in rankings.
5. Fix Broken Links and add Internal Links
Gaining new backlinks can be a time-consuming process, which requires creativity, networking and persistence. For quicker ranking improvements start with fixing existing broken links and revising your website content to include internal linking. Use a tool such as Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to identify 404s and redirect them to active pages. Then go through your website and identify opportunities to link between pages or to useful information in your blog.
Bonus Tip: Aim for a Feature Snippet
Feature snippets are these boxes featuring useful information, which you see when you search for a particular query on Google. They are also used to supply information, if the user is using voice search. Acquiring a feature snippet will give you the top result on Google, though it might reduce click-through-rate to your website, as the information will be visible to the user, without clicking on the page.
Still, featured snippets are a great way to gain visibility and depending on the query, and the way the information is displayed, it can drive traffic and interest to your website.
Want to know more on how to improve google search rankings? The talented team at Ricemedia has two decades of experience in delivering results. Get in touch today.
