How To Write Content That Ranks High In Google
As we discussed earlier, Google values quality content. It sounds easy, but what exactly is quality content? And how can we write content that ranks high in Google?
Even though humans may like a quick read, Google does not.
To prove this, we did a quick search for "exercises for strength". Immediately, Google shows us what's what. The top 4 results in Google are all articles with 1000+ words. The number one spot, an article with more than 2,000 words.
Content that is in-depth is ultimately better in usability, therefore it ranks higher in Google.
Improve content readability
Yes, Google values the length of your content. But, it also takes into consideration if your article or page is easy to read for a human.
Naturally, you don't want to force your content into simplicity. If you specialize in chemicals for oil and gas, like our client Exaltexx, you can't cut corners to simplify the texts.
But, any piece of content that isn't meant to inform industry-experts, should be clear and concise. By making your article pleasurable to read, it is recognized as a piece of content that visitors would want to read!
Hemingway App is one of the best and easy ways to check your content.
Hemingway App is free, easy to use, and it gives you a good indication of the readability of your content. It automatically assigns a 'grade' of readability to your article. For all non-technical pieces, a recommended grade for your content is around 6th-grade.
Frequently Update Content Ranks High in Google
Yesterday's news is no longer relevant and Google tries to avoid feeding it to its users.
To rank your content higher in Google, it's highly recommended to make frequent updates to your articles. This sounds like a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be.
Especially if you are running a blog on Wordpress, it's very easy to make a few quick changes or updates - and Google will know it.
To illustrate this point, we did a quick search for effective sales copy. The top result was an article that was recently published (7days ago).
So when we click on the link, we see that the article was not posted a week ago. It was updated 7 days ago!
But when we take a look in the source code of the website (just right-click and you can inspect the source-code), we see that even though it was updated 7 days ago, the article was actually published in 2011, so it's 8 years old already!
So just because they made a recent update, Google assumed that the content is new and relevant.
Keep this in mind when making content. It is a great trick to rank your content high in Google.
Use Technical SEO for content that Ranks High in Google
If you want to write content that ranks high in Google, the above tips are certainly a big help. But it's not all tricks like above, there are some technical SEO factors that have a great impact. On the backend side of things, we need to pay attention to more technical techniques.
There are a handful (or hands full) of proven strategies that help your content rank better in Google.
Making sure that these technical aspects are taken care of, drastically improves how high you rank in Google.
Make your URL keyword-rich and readable.
A simple but effective strategy that is often overlooked: URL keywords.
Instead of doing what most people do, which is leaving your URLs in the standard format, you can add a keyword in your URL.
Having your URLs named like “yourweb/article-2017/02/09-175837958.html,” isn't doing anyone a favor. Instead, you can take this site as an example:
Our search for "how to tell if a melon is ripe", gives a great example of how keywords in your URL can put your content higher in Google.
This gives two clear benefits.
Google makes sense of this URL as being relevant to the keyword. Your SEO gets a nice little boost for this keyword, and your article will rank higher. People that see the link will automatically be drawn to your page since it's clearly relevant to what they are looking for.
Write a clever meta description.
Google will take a random piece of content from your website if you don't provide it with a meta description. This can, by chance, have a relevant keyword. But it's better to not leave this to chance.
A random snippet of content is not what your potential users are looking for, so it's best to write a custom text that will draw in your customers.
Your meta description is the preview that people see when they enter a search query in Google. When we Googled best burgers in London, the top results all had a fitting meta-description.
This article by Neil Patel about The Definitive Guide to Creating High Converting Landing Pages shows a great example of this particular technique.
You see that the description shown in Google is very clear, has a purpose, is understood by humans and robots, and draws people in right away.
Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress allows you to make quick and effective changes to your meta-descriptions, SEO title, meta description and URL. For Wordpress, this is definitely one of the most effective tools to manage the SEO of your content.
It’s a great way to make sure that you’re using SEO best practices for your content and reaping the results that come from playing by Google’s rules.
Optimize your images
Ranking your article's Google Search Ranking can also be done by making sure that the images on your website are optimized.
This technique is not beholden to pages with a lot of images. Even if your article has only one picture, you should make sure that it is properly optimized (if you want it to show up on Google's first page anyway..) .
Brian Dean at Backlinko gives a good example of two well-know techniques for this. The most overlook but effective ones are:
Optimizing the image filenameOptimizing the image alt text
Instead of leaving your filename with its original, generic name (img_87087.jpg for example), make sure to include a keyword in the filename.
Alt text shouldn't be left blank even though they are not for people to read. If you are using WordPress, you can add captions and alt texts to your images with one simple click.
Making sure these two attributes are taken care of will give you an advantage over your competitors.
As most people know, link building is one of the best-established methods for ranking with off-page SEO. In essence, these are the backlinks that are on other websites, leading to your website.
So how can you start building backlinks?
Generate backlinks by promoting your content.
All the websites that rank first in Google have one thing in common: they have plenty backlinks. One of the quickest ways to write content that ranks high in Google, is by building backlinks to that content.
Obviously, there is more than one way to get backlinks, but for now, let's focus on one of the most effective ones: promoting content.
One of the easiest ways to start doing this, according to Red Web Design, is to include links to other blogs or websites in your articles.
After you link your website to another one, make sure to let the other website's owner know.
They will be happy to know that someone found and made a backlink to their website. You will build a strong network of site owners that can return the favor this way.
A greatly misconceived feature is internal linking.
Getting other people to build a backlink to your website might be difficult at times. On your own website, however, you should build internal links to your own articles all the time.
Wikipedia is one of the best examples of this. In the following Wikipedia’s page on Abebe Bikila, you can see why. The highlighted sections are the internal links in the article.
Not only does this give more relevance to your content, but it also allows Google to crawl your content better.
Another advantage of creating internal links is that it gives you the opportunity to add a keyword in the anchor texts. This cleverly tells Google what the text is about.
If you are just starting out with your SEO and you are trying to get your content to rank higher in Google - internal linking is one of the best ways to do so.
If you want content that ranks high in Google, Fix your broken links!
Like we discussed, internal links give context and relevance to your content. In addition to that, Google crawls and indexes your website more easily. So having links that are broken is a definite no-no!
First off, making changes to your website can result in links pointing to pages that no longer exist. This should be your first priority since it takes away from the user experience.
Not only does this make your website more pleasant to visit, you also take make use of a technique that we touched on earlier: you update your post!
Going through your entire website to find dead links is a tedious and impossible process. Luckily, there is a free tool for this: Dead Link Checker.
Simply enter your website URL, and this amazing tool will check your entire website (or a single page) for dead links.
After clicking on "check", you will be presented with a list like this.
The free version checks up to 2000 links on any given site, which should be more than sufficient for regular websites.
Just like every other aspect on your website, anchor texts provide a great opportunity to bring out your keywords. Whenever a link is created, it is combined with a anchor-text.
The classic "click here to go to our homepage" style, we can be a bit more creative. If you have been doing a blog for a while, and following the rules of "how to write content that ranks high in Google", you can take refer to your other posts. Let's say you want to learn how to rank your blog post on Google's first page, I can guide you there by using the title as an anchor text.
That can be a bit much and over-the-top in some cases. You can also be a bit more subtle.
After writing the perfect blog post, you might want to learn about building backlinks. By using the relevant keywords as anchor text, you let Google (and your visitors) know that you are guiding them to a page that is about link building.
If you are just realizing now that your anchor texts can use a little bit of improvement, we have a great tool for you. VisioSpark goes through your website for you and identifies what anchors texts you are using.
After filling out the CAPTCHA, you will be presented with a full list of your anchor texts.
If you see any anchors texts that need fixing, you can easily improve your SEO by adding keywords to your anchors texts.
Don't just Write Content that Ranks High in Google, Make it Visual.
Content itself isn't the only factor in ranking high in Google. Your layout could actually be hurting your ranking if you are doing the wrong things.
According to MyTasker, Google's ranking factors are more and more based on user experience. So having a website that is difficult to navigate or understand is a definite negative influence.
Make your website mobile-friendly
More and more often, people are using mobile devices to search on the internet. So having a mobile-friendly website is absolutely essential. Making sure that mobile pages are fast and easy to navigate will drastically affect your Googl ranking.
In fact, according to Business2Community, your mobile version of your pages will be the primary ranking factor in the future.
So having the quickest, SEO technically best website won't matter unless it's well-configured for mobile devices.
Making use of AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is the future in ensuring that your mobile pages are optimized for user experience.
MarketingProfs even stated that AMP will be the mandatory standard as of next year.
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Make your website load fast.
Slow websites have a very slim chance of getting anywhere near the first pages in Google. So getting a firm grip on your mobile loading speed will definitely rank you higher and attract more visitors.
Even small tweaks can make a huge difference. A second in loading time can be the difference between a first-page result and ending up on page 3.
This is even more so the case for the mobile version of your website. Research done by WebCEO concluded that the top 10 of Google results load in 1.10 seconds, while the top 30 load in 1.17 seconds.
That is less than a tenth of a second in difference!
Use best practice CSS and HTML.
Simply put: Google likes sites that are well-configured.
Best practices are there for many reasons. Security speed and user experience all play a factor is this. For every move you make off this path, your site can get severely penalized. If your site is breaking the rules of these web frameworks, you’ll probably get penalized.
If you're not sure whether or not your site is following these rules, you can check this usting the W3C Validator. Click Check.
It gives you an overview of (if any) recommended changes to make to your website's code.
If you're not sure how to change these issues, or you're not familiar with the technical side of your website/blog, feel free to contact us for a recommendation.
As we said, make it visual
Just writing long, optimized pieces of text won't cut it anymore. Internet is more than just texts, and so should your website be.
Staying ahead of the game is all about playing all the right strings, so make sure you make use of all the tools out there.
Include social sharing buttons.
Social media is growing by the day. People and businesses are looking to share multiple times a day, so it's best to offer them a chance to share your content!
According to WebCEO social signals are key for powerful SEO results.
If you are using WordPress, there are a few plug-ins that automatically add these social sharing buttons on every blog post.
This is a great way to keep people engaged.
And as a result, which is the point, it helps you rank higher in Google.
Consider using video material
Even if you're not sure where to start, video content should absolutely be on your website.
A study done by SEOEaze, showed that 65% of traffic originates from video content.
It’s a source for recurring visitors (more viewers on your videos means it'll be higher ranked on itself).
Use creative tools
Muscle for Life wrote an article on meal planning. The website had a little tool developed to make a calculation about someone's daily energy expenditure.
The reason why a tool like this is an amazing SEO asset, is because of the social signals, backlinks and organic traffic it generates. People save it to return to later, share it on their blog, send it to a friend, and put it on social media. Google will take all these signals to mean that this page is a page that people would want to visit, so it ranks naturally is ranked in the top in Google.
Anticipate voice searches.
The biggest new trend with Google is voice search.
CJG Digital Marketing found that even in this early stage, already over 20% of mobile searches on the Google app were by voice.
This data will prove very valuable once you learn how to optimize your blog posts for voice.
Doing this effectively, you only need to think about how you would use a voice search. Most people will make a search in a conversational way, using common phrases like "how can I", "what is a", "where do I... near me".
You can also use this content schema that Google provides.
So... How to Write Content that Ranks High in Google?
Getting your content to rank higher in Google isn't magic, it's managing the right strategies and tools effectively. Using the SEO tips given in this article, you can book amazing results in your SEO.
SEO results can be tediously slow to start with. Sometimes it can take up to 6 weeks to even start seeing the first results. That's why it is important to keep your eye on the ball and work the long game.
Use the tools out there like Google Search Console to check how many impressions of your website have been generated. To check and track your rankings, you can use a tool like Serpbook
The techniques we showed you will absolutely skyrocket your website ranking and increase your organic traffic massively.
This, in turn, will directly result in more sales, revenue, and profit.
Are you looking to appear on Google's first page and increase your organic traffic with thousands of visitors per month? Book a free consultation call to learn how you can achieve a top Google result.
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