SEO Optimization Techniques for Higher Ranking

Today we are going to discuss about some prime factors to keep in mind in order to make Google love your post and provide you with a higher ranking in its related searches. We will be talking about tips to improve in terms of keywords, hyperlinks, image optimization, establishing authorship online. This post is for those who have started blogging like me and wants to get listed on the top in search results.

1. TITLE TAG OPTIMIZATION:

The best title tag is one which ranges from 45-65 characters and speaks out what your website is really about in the most efficient and persuasive manner. The title tag should contain the necessary keyword but should not be keyword stuffed. This title tag shows up in Google search results.

1. KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION:

Keywords are the words which a user enters into a search engine as part of a query regarding it. This keyword is also the very foundation of your article/website and you aspire to be listed in that keyword on top in Google's results. However, few things are to be kept in mind while making your website/blog.

Keyword Density: 

It is the ratio of number of keywords used in the article to its whole number of words and is expressed as a percentage. For example, if your keyword is used just once in a blog containing 100 words, then the keyword density for the same is 1 per cent.

•  Google has stopped taking the number of keywords as a chief factor in search engine rankings way back as established in Google's blog in 2009. So you don't need to stuff your content with lots of keywords here and there.
• An acceptable keyword density is 5%. If you wish to increase the number of keywords beyond that, it is suggested that you expand your content to meet the same density.
• Formatting a keyword in a para in bold or italics serves no purpose to increase rankings but it can help by enhancing a user's readability and hence increase the amount of time spent on the website. When a user spends a reasonable amount of time on your website, the same is recorded by Google and the Google bots think that this site is providing some really interesting information. This indirectly increases your rankings.
• Positioning the keywords just before a full stop or a comma can give clarity to the Google bots on what your page is really about. Just like humans, the Google bots also crawls on the webpage contents and stop at full stops. When a keyword is assigned right before a full stop, it stops at the keyword and hence renders the website identifiable, thus enabling listing in the appropriate keyword search.

2. LINK/ ANCHOR TEXT OPTIMIZATION:

Adding links to your website/blog is great especially when you want to show a reference to another webpage so that people can dig deeper into that specific topic. But you have to bear in mind certain techniques about linking which can help you website attain top rankings.

•  When you add links to a website under the keyword, it is that website not yours that earns credibility and gets listed on Google. This can also result in unwanted distribution of your page's authority and Page Rank to another site, also known as passing link juice to the other website.

•  On the other hand, when you give links to highly trusted websites like Wikipedia, Google bots recognize your website to be talking of something important and hence render your website trustable.

 3. IMAGE OPTIMIZATION

Visual content like images, infographics and videos make your website colorful and engaging to the reader. Videos when added to your website can help increase your rankings as a user clicks on it and watches the same. Here are some tips to optimize the image on your website:

• File Name: Google bots cannot view images as it crawls. For the same reason, the file name has some role in making Google understand what the image is about and whether it relates to the web content surrounding the image. Hence, it is suggested that the image file name relates to the web content and there are no spaces in the same. Instead of spaces one may use hyphens and underscores though the former is more preferable.
  
• Alt Tag: The above goes for Alt Tags, which are an alternate name to the image used. It is as significant as image file names. In this case, spaces can be used and here text surrounding the image can be really useful.
  
• Hyperlinks: In case a hyperlink is added to an image, the Alt Tag works as the anchor text. Again, when providing links to another website from your image, the one who benefits is actually the other website not yours, just like I mentioned under "Linking".
  

4. AUTHORSHIP OPTIMIZATION

If you have more editorial power this certainly impacts viewership. More the number of viewers, more is the incoming traffic to your blog. When people find your blog useful, it impacts all the other blogs/websites you may write for. Hence it is important to identify yourself online as an author.

• To establish your authorship online, you just need to create a Google+ Profile first. Next you need to find "Links" and then click "Edit". On the new window that appears with 3 options, you need to click "Add Custom Link".
• In the URL section, add your website address and in the label you need to specify the blog title. For me it's "Maryam SEO Analyst".
•  Next go to your blogger profile and enter your name at the end of the blog post.
• Click on the name and enter the link which is shown on the URL section of your browser when you click on "Posts" in Google+ Profile.
• Go to the HTML editor and in the anchor tag containing your name in the blog post, add the code rel="author".
• At this point authorship is established successfully.

If you follow all the above optimization techniques, you will make it to the top of your search engine, although I don't guarantee that's going to happen soon. It all depends on the competition. If anyone feels that I left out any optimization technique, feel free to post your comments below! 

In my next post, I will be speaking of how to crawl, cache and index your webpages on Google through a very powerful indexing tool called Google Webmaster tools, now known as the "Google Search Console". Meanwhile you can checkout my first blog on the most significant Google Algorithm updates. Stay tuned to my SEO blog for my weekly updates!

Maryam Marjan