How to Optimize Your Website Pages to Rank Higher

With so much buzz around online marketing, optimizing your site’s web pages for search engines not only helps garner more visitors but also helps leverage your business.

In 2017, Google received over 79% of all global desktop search traffic. According to Marketing Dive, marketers see SEO as becoming more effective, with 82% reporting effectiveness is on the rise and 42% stating effectiveness is increasing significantly.

It’s important to optimize your website to increase traffic and develop the right base. There are channels for promotion such as paid campaigns, social sites, or referral networks, but nothing is as good as search engine optimization.

The only challenge – SEO is really tough with serious competition.

There are so many websites out there wanting to rank higher. So your process of optimization needs to be a level up and well thought out. Checking your website for Google’s ranking algorithm is also important. The dynamics of SEO keep changing with time, so you have to stay at par with your strategies. Having said that, your website might aim to rank on the first page, which takes time and good strategizing, but any optimization will definitely increase your conversion rate and traffic.

Here’s How you can Optimize Your Website Pages to Rank Higher

1. Great Content is Key

It may be cliché to hear, but it can’t be said enough – content is always the king. If your website content is engaging, people will spend more time on your website, which will increase the dwell time. According to HubSpot, the ideal word length for content is anywhere from 2,250 to 2,500. That means it will drive more organic traffic, leading to a higher ranking in search results.

The content should be relevant to the search. Long content provides more outbound links and lets you include more keywords. If visitors bookmark your website content, it will increase your SEO ranking. Optimize every page, as that will help your website to rank better in search results. Incorporate data-driven content, a storytelling format, and share your experiences to make your content great.

2. Optimize Keywords

Keyword optimization is the most important part of SEO to rank better. Keywords should be included in the titles of the content. Always place them in front, as it creates more value.

The HTML lets the search engines know about your website, so they should be included in all your meta descriptions, meta tags and headings of the page. Your keywords should also be incorporated throughout the content of your website.

Finally, include your keywords in the URL domains, along with the ALT text of the web page. You need to pay special heed to keywords related to blogs, articles, and product descriptions. If optimized in the correct way, keywords play a large part to increase website traffic.

3. Check the Loading Speed and Accessibility

Search engines always take into account page loading speed of a website. If your website takes time to load, it will likely increase the bounce rate and reduce page views, and that would negatively affect your rank. Some WordPress website optimization best practices include using a managed WordPress host like WP Engine to handle caching for you, compressing image sizes, and minimizing the redirects on your website.

Also, use quality images for your website, as it increases the conversion rate. Your website’s load time shouldn’t be more than 2 seconds, which ultimately boosts your search result placement.

4. Optimize Your Website for Mobile

According to Search Engine Land, more than 60% of searches take place on smartphones.

Therefore, a website that’s not mobile optimized will have bleak chances of fairing in search result ranking. In fact, you can optimize your site for mobile and check how well this is done on Google’s mobile-friendly test page.

On a CMS platform like WordPress, you can use various WordPress themes and plugins to optimize your site for mobile devices. Add a meta view tag on each page of your website, and full functionality of your site to make it mobile-friendly.

5. Focus on Outbound Links

It’s always a good idea to link to high-authority sites, as it provides depth to your content or web page. It also helps to increase the overall relevancy of your content and can improve your rank in SEO. Don’t link to sites that are not relevant or are of low quality, however, because that would have the opposite effect!

Too many outbound links can also negatively affect your site and distract visitors.  Focus on image links, editorial links, scale links, and anchor links for your website.

6. Use a Combination of Multimedia Format

Great images, outstanding videos, and slideshows add quality to your content, making it more interactive. According to a study, websites that use videos have 41% more web traffic as compared to other websites.

Using varied forms of multimedia to engage your visitors will keep them on your page longer and result in better ranking. More than 60% of people prefer to watch a video on site. In fact, videos have also become an important part of content marketing strategy today.

Summing Up

Optimizing your website not only improves your search ranking, but also your website’s presence online. SEO is about building the right brand awareness with higher search page placement.

Don’t measure your website just by stats and numbers, incorporate technical elements and resourceful content. Also, use the right keywords for your website, as it helps in better ranking. Update your website and check for broken links, too.

Think, do, repeat, and you will surely dominate search engines in the right-way while avoiding penalties from algorithm updates.