5 SEO Strategies for Higher Google Rankings
By: Andre Oentoro
September 4, 2019
SEO is one of the most-discussed topics in the world of digital marketing for a reason. Despite the millions of online properties out there, only 10 websites appear on the first page of Google. And over 90% of customers—the people that buy your products and pay your bills—never search past the first page.
Frustratingly, the moment marketers find new ways to rank, Google seems to change its algorithm. Let’s look at some SEO strategies that work well with the Google algorithm as it stands in 2019 (and hopefully in years to come).
Use More Video Content
Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, certain keywords have triggered videos from YouTube to appear on the first page of search results. The most common ones are “how to” in nature.
Below, I experimented with typing “how to construct a home” into my search bar.
Three YouTube videos appeared at the top of the page—none of them from household name brands, who usually take the top-ranking spots.
There are two ways to host video content. The simpler one is to post your video on YouTube and then embed it in your site. Your other option is to directly host a video on your website. Each method has advantages and weaknesses (more on that here).
Simply put, upping your video content boosts your website SEO: Pages with videos are 53 times more likely to rank first than pages without them.
Use Infographics to Build Links
Source: Backlinko
As of 2019, websites with more backlinks are deemed more relevant by Google and are therefore more likely to rank higher. However, the key is to get backlinks from websites that have a higher Domain Authority than you.
Infographics are great for building backlinks because they are easily shareable across multiple websites. Create an infographic based on current trending keywords, and offer it to websites that cover similar topics. Having infographics on your site can increase traffic by up to 12%.
Optimize Your Blog Posts
While visual content like videos and infographics have performed well in recent years, there’s no denying that Google’s algorithm reads words better than visuals. Therefore, crafting traditional blog posts is still essential in your marketing.
A study by Brian Dean from Backlinko suggests three ways in which you can optimize your blog posts in 2019:
- Internal linking. If you have a new blog post that you need to optimize, you can send it an internal link from one of the pages on your site that has a higher domain authority.
- URL shortening. Short URLs perform better than longer URLs. Edit your long-tail URL into a short URL that contains your keyword(s).
- Semantics=SEO. Fill your article with words that are related to your main keyword—within reason. Don’t add extra keywords for fluff (keyword stuffing), or risk being throttled by the algorithm.
Be Mobile-Friendly
With the vast majority of consumers on smartphones, it’s in your best interest to optimize your website to be fast and mobile-friendly. If your site won’t load properly on their phones, 46% of visitors will likely never bother to visit your site again.
Produce Valuable Content
If you create content that no one can find anywhere else, you will most likely receive tons of backlinks. This will surely elevate the value of your website in the eyes of Google.
With that said, creating valuable content is not easy―it’s time and energy-consuming. However, if you’re willing to go the extra mile, your hard work will pay off. Here are a few examples:
- Original research. Journalists often look for statistics to support their case in articles. Conduct your own studies and present original data for backlinks galore.
- New ideas. Be a contrarian and offer a new point of view that other marketers haven’t touched on yet.
- Ultimate guides. In-depth analysis performs well. When blog posts don’t have enough space to dive deep into a given topic, they can always refer to your article.
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Follow Andre: @breadnbeyond
Email Andre: [email protected]
