When it comes to cranking up your SEO, many factors come into play. You may already be creating quality content, optimizing your URLs, formatting your page with H1, H2, and H3 tags, and using organically placed keywords and links when writing.
These things are on-page SEO best practices. While they help tremendously, they are not always enough to compete with the big guys that show up on top of the SERP. You need off-page technical SEO as well.
Not to worry; here are technical SEO guidelines to crank up your Google rankings.
1. Improve website responsiveness
In July 2018, Google clearly announced page speed as a ranking factor for mobile search results. Knowing that about 63% of all Google searches are made on mobile devices, this is something you don’t want to be lax about.
Ensure your website is highly responsive when users click. It is often frustrating to users when they have to wait several seconds before pages load when they click a navigation button on your site. It can lead to a high bounce rate, which ultimately hurts your ranking.
2. Optimize for mobile devices
Following up on the preceding SEO tip, optimizing your website for mobile devices is also crucial. How and why?
A desktop screen displays your web page differently from a mobile browser. If it doesn’t appear organized on a smartphone, chances are that the user will bounce off.
Google knows this, and because of their mission to offer users the best possible experience, they rank websites well-optimized for mobile devices.
One way to boost your SEO is to create a mobile app for your keyword—for example, a food delivery app. When a user types “food delivery” on Google, your app appears on the first page via the Firebase App Indexing. When your app appears, it adds credibility to your website, and Google regards it as a valuable resource.
3. Outsource your SEO
A key factor in boosting your ranking is outsourcing your SEO to an expert. Why? As a small business owner, you’re likely managing your team, responding to clients, and developing your product and service simultaneously. You might not have the time and patience to conduct keyword research, use SEO tools, and create your content. In addition, you probably might not have employees with the technical skills to improve your page speed or maintain your website.
Outsourcing your SEO to experts is a cost-effective way to boost your rankings. Why? Because you’re entrusting it to experienced hands with track records! However, you might want to look up an SEO outsourcing guide to ensure you outsource the right way and get optimal results. Although it may cost you, this strategy promises significant ROI.
4. Set up your Google my business
Do you see the map that appears atop the SERP when searching for something like “Lawn care near me”? How about the three company names that come underneath the map before other ads and organic results? These companies find themselves on top of the results page because they have registered on Google My Business (GMB).
When you serve a geographical area, GMB allows Google to know for what local searches you are relevant and ranks you in that manner. So when a New Yorker searches for a local restaurant, a random one in California doesn’t pop up.
This is local SEO in action, and GMB is a critical part of it.
5. Leverage SEO software
The truth is, human effort is often inefficient. At the very best, it may take time to do as much. That’s why there are many SEO tools out there to help vamp up your content marketing strategy. Think about site audit, link building, rank tracking, etc.
Whether you’re a beginner or an expert digital marketer, leveraging SEO tools like Ahrefs can mean the difference between average and excellent results. Read more to discover other Ahrefs alternatives to ace your SEO strategy in 2022.
Final words
SEO isn’t just some other fad that’ll fade off after a few years; it has come to stay. However, it’s dynamic, and keeping up with the latest tactics will help you stay competitive.
