Semalt Recommendations On How To Leapfrog The Competition In Google Search Results
Thousands of people around the world are asking themselves: "what makes page X above page Y in the search results?".
If the answer to this question was simple and unambiguous, then the existence of the Google search engine would make no sense. There is only one first page of search results, so there is only one podium and first place. In turn, new candidates arrive almost every day. If someone intends to leapfrog the competition in Google search results, activities should be divided into two parts: off-site (external) and on-site (internal).
The first type of work is mainly related to the search for valuable links leading to the website (blogs, web portals, back-office pages, encyclopedias, etc.). The second is to constantly maintain order on the website and organize its structure in such a way that it is friendly to indexing robots and, of course, users.
So, check out some tips on this subject, and maybe thanks to them you will be able to outdo some of your rivals. So how do you beat the competition on Google? What to do to leapfrog the competition in Google search results?
1. Create your own content (only much better)
On our blog, we can write about it endlessly, but we do it for a reason: because such activities really bring the expected results.
Well, it's worth blogging. Just. It doesn't have to be called a "Blog". you can also call them "Guides" or "Articles".
It is only important that you have a mechanism on your website that you can use to create more, more and more so-called leaves of your website, coming out of the branch called blog. Such a subpage expands the pool of words included in your domain. With successive blogging, the site grows significantly.
Blog entries make it possible for users to come across them among the search results. Hence, a much simpler way to visit your homepage, get acquainted with the offer, make contact, etc.
You're probably asking, "Okay, but where do you get the time for that?". Well, today you should find an opportunity to have both time and budget.
If you don't want to spend money on some third-party writing, do it yourself. If you don't have time to create guides yourself, outsource them to someone else. The conclusion is unfortunately simple: someone has to write it, simply.
In the title of this subsection, I indicated that it is extremely important to create content much better than the competition. What does the word "better" mean?
- If your competitors add entries for approx. 800 - 1000 words, you expand yours to 1200 - 1400 (just an example, it's just that you create more content).
- make your subpages of blog posts much more visually attractive for readers;
- post materials and advice that the competition does not publish;
- discuss the topic in more detail.
It all boils down to making it clear when comparing two texts that "yes, my post is much better."
2. Optimize your website
There are certain technical frameworks that are good to stick to.
One of them says that on a given subpage there should be only one phrase bearing the H1 (top-order) heading. What's more, the content in it is also important - it is supposed to contain keywords that are important to you.
Another good practice is to place the most important content at the very top of a given sub-page. The further down the users go, the more interested they are supposed to be in, for example, the offer, so that at the very end - via the CTA element - they go to the part of the site that is important to you.
Breaking out of this type of framework is unlikely to bring anything good and must be argued with really solid premises.
When it comes to purely technical matters, a simple (and free for small sites) tool worth recommending is undoubtedly the Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
3. Speed up your website (but be smart about it!)
To surpass the competition in Google search results, it is good to take care of the real speed of loading your website.
There's a reason the word "real" is in the above sentence. Why? About that in a moment.
I am not discovering America by writing that it is good to have a website that works as quickly as possible. This fact is liked by both users and search engine robots. This is also what a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights is for, so we can guess that optimal speed is actually one of the ranking factors.
The problem, however, is that many of the tips served by Google PageSpeed Insights do not always make sense. What's more, there are a whole bunch of very popular sites that get terrible results with this tool. Check out a few of the larger portals yourself, and you'll see...
Therefore, you should also check the status of your website with other services, for example, in my opinion, the best Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
Your goal should be, yes, to have quite a lot of points in these tools, but not at the expense of real feelings.
4. Regularly check what your competitors are doing
To leapfrog the competition in Google search results, it is worth keeping your finger on the pulse.
We are talking about cyclical analysis of the state of rival sites.
Organic search report, keyword and backlink quality research, position tracking - e.g. you will gain these features by using the Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
This tool allows you to watch any changes that occur on your competitors' websites. With such knowledge, you can observe all their movements.
It is good to accumulate such knowledge. In general, all SEO is largely about being able to notice cause-and-effect relationships. Something like, "oh, they did thing X and they achieved the goal Y, interesting."
5. Perfect your Google My Business listing
Google My Business, it is thanks to this service that we see a frame with information about a given company on the right side of the Google search results. What rules should you follow when setting up a business card?
- Enter the exact location of your business.
- Indicate the correct type of activity.
- Complete other information (office opening hours, website address, mobile phone number) - just enter everything that concerns your company.
- Include some valuable photos.
The business card must simply be well-groomed and contain 100% of the information that can be useful to visitors.
Reviews of existing customers also play a significant role.
6. Get valuable links to your website
At the very beginning of this post, I mentioned that all activities that allow you to leapfrog the competition in Google search results are divided into two parts.
External activities come down mainly to obtaining links leading to your website.
The more famous your website is, the easier it will be for you to gain links. If, for example, you run a popular blog as part of it, then it's easier to get "fame".
If only because a website rich in various types of blog entries, in a given industry, basically defends itself. Users like to share valuable content both through their own blogs and social media.
Then, naturally, a natural link will fall here and there, which someone will add somewhere. Staying a bit on the subject of social media, it is also worth using this channel yourself. By expanding the knowledge of the profile correlated with your website, you gain additional exposure. You gain traffic through social media, which in many ways can contribute to making it easier to jump over the competition in Google search results.
So how do you beat the competition in Google search results?
The key is to set yourself realistic goals.
It is never the case that a newly established business will surpass its biggest rivals after a month.
Optimizing the website itself, gaining valuable backlinks to it, observing competitors and drawing conclusions on this basis along with their implementation - all this takes time, and therefore also costs money. It's just that someone has to spend time on this work, and therefore there is no power on this planet to do it at no cost.
There are three main components.
The first two are time and budget. Depending on the situation, one or the other should be more or less. In turn, the third component is to create an optimal action plan - so as not to "burn" the two previously mentioned factors and rather use their pool to the max.
Successively try to act in the areas mentioned in this text - on your own or by outsourcing it to someone from the outside. I am sure that with hard work you will be able to achieve your goals.
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.
