Keeping a website up and running is hard work. From making sure you have a steady stream of blog posts to upload daily or weekly to designing the website theme to fit your needs, it’s hard to make sure you check off all those boxes. But, even if you do, if you have your whole to-do list crossed out and finished, you may still be left with some anxiety about your website’s overall traffic.
You could have the coolest design possible. High-quality items are stocked and ready to sell. The blogs you post are witty and full of content that actually matters. And yet, every time you go to look at your website analytics, you see that traffic is less than what you want it.
There are a lot of reasons why your traffic isn’t growing like your brand or site (it could be marketing, awareness, anything related to publicity), but there is always one thing that many novices and even experienced bloggers or developers fall short on: your site’s ranking on Google
Google is…well, Search engines like Google are the key to a successful website. Google is the key to seeing that traffic graph raise well beyond what you ever hoped or dreamed. Raising your Google rank for your website is mandatory if you want to have a prosperous site.
While it may take a bit of time to see an astronomical growth—which isn’t great for the impatient—there are simple things that you can do today to make sure you help your Google ranking.
Content Is Key
You’ve heard this one before: content is key. Content is king. Content is everything is you want a rewarding site that becomes a profitable way of life.
Even though you’ve probably heard this time and time again, it’s worth repeating, only because it’s true. Content is everything. If you have a website that lacks in original material and high-quality content, fewer people are going to come back to visit again—and they’re more than likely not going to share your blog post or article to their social media feed for all their followers to see. And that really wouldn’t be good. One of the key ranking factors that will ensure a steady flow of traffic is search engine optimization. Search engine optimization or SEO will help increase the click-through rate and dramatically improve your search engine rankings. By using keywords, keyword phrases, and title tags (SEO), you can optimize your text and push it all the way to the top in terms of search ranking. If you sell brown shoes and someone wants brown shoes, you have to ensure that “brown shoes” is in your text. Otherwise, it will never reach the top five or ten in the search.
Blog content, in regards to Google ranking, matters. Google wants sites that publish new content regularly. If your site just exists as an idle being, Google isn’t going to want to rank it that high.
If you’re more of a site that sells products instead of publishing articles, this is where having a blog section of your website comes in handy. While you may not be uploading new items to sell every week, you can post a blog post every week to help ensure higher rankings on Google—and sell more products.
Word count is also important. Google appreciates wordy blog content before short blog posts. A 1,000-word story can be considered better, by Google standards. This method, however, shouldn’t be used on every single post you upload. Sometimes, a simple 500-word story will do. But, if you really want to rank your site higher, make sure you regularly upload a higher word count blog post or article, among your shorter ones, to help your rank overall.
Today, look at the blog posts you have already uploaded (if you do). Take note of the average word count and decide if you need more or fewer words to fit what Google wants to see. If you don’t have a blog on your website to where you can weekly upload new content, make one! Better now than never.
Build Links
Google is a fan of links—but not just any links. These links have to matter.
As soon as possible, as soon as you start that new blog or new business venture, start creating a link building strategy. Building links that will direct someone back to your website can take a long time—and Google sometimes takes weeks to recognize solid backlinks. The early bird gets the worm, so start now!
Also, make sure your links are from high-quality, authoritative websites. Having only a few backlinks associated with legit websites is much better than having a ton of links associated with smaller or more unknown websites.
This is where you have to be a bit patient. Google can even penalize you in your ranking status if they feel that you’re getting those backlinks unnaturally. So, today make a strategy and guide. Plan on how you’re going to get those links. Take your time. You might not see the results immediately, but when you finally do, it’ll be well worth the wait.
Make Sure It’s Mobile
It is incredibly helpful if your website is mobile capable. For the most part, a high number of people read articles and surf the web on their smartphone in this day and age—and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change. If your website is currently not mobile capable, you’re going to want to change that A.S.A.P.
Luckily, most website developer sites have the option to see what your site layout looks like in mobile form. This is where you can see what’s working and what’s really not. Make it look as clean and nice as possible. We’ve all been on websites on our phones that look a mess—don’t let your website join those ranks
Today, go to your website platform that you’re using (whether it’s WordPress or Weebly) and see what your site looks like on mobile format. Do what needs to be done. Make sure it doesn’t take forever to load. Make sure it looks like something you’d actually want to be scrolling through yourself.
Google ranking is important—and you can help make your own site higher in the rankings with simple steps. While seeing the results could be considered a more long-term aspect, there are always things you can do immediately to help your ranking. Working on your site to make it the best it can be shouldn’t be put off.
Incorporate these three steps into your daily site maintenance. Before long, you’ll be doing these steps without even thinking about it—and your Google ranking will rise higher; therefore, increasing your average traffic because of it.
