10 Best SEO Practices All Successful Companies Use To Improve Google Rankings

Seeing your business or personal website rank in Google’s top 10 search results is such a big accomplishment. Now, you're able to reach your target audience on a much larger scale with your content. However, if this is still something you're working on achieving, don't worry, we have the best tips for you.

If you’re not on the first page, your website has a 75% chance of not being seen by the person making the search. Unless they’re doing very intensive research, the chances of readers landing on your page is very slim. That is why you need to learn about the best SEO practices now so you can apply them to your content strategy. Once you know how to rank higher on Google search, you will be able to create better content that will give value to your audience.

1. Choose a powerful platform

If you’re just starting, choosing the right platform is crucial in ensuring success for your business or website. A content management system enables you to create a website even if don't know how to code. Without it, you’ll have a hard time getting started unless you know how programming works.

Luckily, HubSpot offers a CMS Hub with multiple customizable options. You can now easily design your website the way you want it. It also enables you to optimize your website even without the help of a developer. With HubSpot, you can manage your content, ensure security and maximize the potential reach of your brand.

2. Use the best SEO tools

Even companies like Apple or Amazon still invest an SEO marketing strategy to make their websites rank. Want to know these business giants’ secret to success? SEO PowerSuite. They only invest in the best SEO tools which can be found in this all-in-one suite. A collection of tools that can help you perform on-page optimization, track performance and analyze competition, this is your ultimate weapon in ranking higher than your competitors.

So, why do you need SEO tools? It saves you from manually executing tedious SEO tasks. This means less data collection and analysis. You also get to focus on other things like improving your performance with the provided actionable insights. Be among the best-performing companies like Disney, IBM, Nestle, Audi and Microsoft when you choose SEO PowerSuite.

3. Build a reputation

The easiest way to grow brand awareness is by establishing an online presence. Setting up profiles on all major social media platforms will increase your visibility. Once you have these accounts, make sure they are active to maintain user engagement. Add these links to your website, other social networks, email marketing campaigns, etc.

BrightLocal is great at reputation management. With more reviews and better rankings, more conversions will soon follow. It assists in auditing your entire online presence by giving you insights on where to improve. Save time trying to manually collect data and easily view your stats on an automated dashboard that you can also customize.

4. Be mindful of user intent

When users input search queries, they have specific things they want to find. This is user intent or search intent. When you create your content, make sure it actually answers their questions or provides the information they need.

Your content must have a purpose. It may be informational, navigational, commercial or transactional. Google needs to know what your content is about and to rank higher on search results, your content has to be user intent specific. For example, if you want to rank for search queries like “best skincare products” then your content must have a list of different skincare products. They clearly want options, so you give them options.

5. Choose the best image format for your website

Wondering how different image formats can affect your website performance? Imagine going to a website and it takes forever to load, would you wait patiently? Or will you look for similar websites with faster loading times? Site speed is a crucial ranking signal. More often than not, images are the culprits to laggy sites.

JPEG is great for images of food and other items. This is because JPEG has a smaller file size. However, for images with heavy texts or thin line drawings, PNG is the better option. Another good option is WebP. These are 26% smaller than PNGs and 25-34% smaller than JPEG images.

6. Keep posts up-to-date

Once you’ve published a post, it’s easy to just forget about it and proceed to create new ones. However, your old posts will die when they’re no longer relevant. This also means that even if you put your best effort into making them rank high when you initially created them, they will eventually plummet and be no longer visible.

The key is to track these posts and update them to keep them fresh. This may include updating markers like dates to keep them relevant.

7. Add media

Users’ attention span is steadily declining. To keep them engaged, you should add a few videos in strategic parts of your website. Not only does this help lazy readers find what they are looking for, but it also keeps users on your page. The longer they stay on your site, the better. This tells search engines that your page is engaging.

8. Appear on voice search results

We bet you haven’t heard this one! More and more users are using voice commands to search. Research suggests that voice search results load 52% faster than an average page. To optimize your site for voice search, optimizing your keywords is important. How can you do that? When you use voice commands, chances are you ask questions in full sentences instead of using plain keywords like you would when typing. The key is to integrate your keywords in casual sentences that people would most likely use when making their voice queries.

9. Use backlinks

Backlinks are still one of the top key ranking signals. These are links included by other websites that redirect users to your page. It may be hard to gather backlinks when you’re new. The Link Chest by SEO Buddy helps new websites gain these votes of confidence effortlessly. This is undoubtedly the easiest way to refine your link-building strategy.

10. Hire a Marketing Expert

You can’t do everything by yourself. The best option is to seek help from experts and professionals. GrowTal connects you to the best marketing experts for your specific needs. They do this by making you answer a 2-minute questionnaire, matching you with a marketer that suits your company’s profile and business goals.