How to Rank Your Website Higher for a Keyword

"How Do I Rank My Website Higher?"

I had a client ask me today how to get ranked higher for a certain search keyword phrase. They put it into Google and they weren't ranking for it.

The answer this time was simple. There was no page on the website covering that topic.

If you don't have a page dedicated to the search term you want to rank for, Google has nothing to index. There's absolutely no way you can rank for it because Google can't send people there.

I clued her in to how to set up a page to get ranked and I'll share that below but you first need a website that's set up the right way.

Your Website Must Be Set Up Correctly

There are many, small parts that go in to getting a website or even just a page on a website ranked. If you don't do these things, you can still get ranked but you won't get ranked as high.

Our free e-book explains some of the things you need to do with your website to help it get ranked.

Your website must be mobile responsive, of course. Your website sees more traffic from mobile devices now than desktop/laptop computers.

One important component to ranking higher is having a website that loads quickly. This means images must be optimized. The code must be optimized to load quickly, too. The hosting must be fast. You must be on the latest version of your website software and you must be using the latest version of the language your website uses - like the latest version of PHP, for example.

Once you have all that covered, you've got a chance (yes, we're telling you there's a chance!).

How to Set Up a Page to Get Ranked

So beyond just having your website set up correctly (as mentioned above), here are the ingredients to getting a page to rank for a search term on Google:

• Have 800+ words of good, original content. Write for search engines, not people. Spend good time writing this content. There can't be any "fluff" - just great content from top to bottom. Just so you know what 800+ words looks like, this article has 870 words.
• Link to authoritative sources. Do some research and find websites you can references. It's ok to include a paragraph excerpt from another website (not entire articles - no way) but be sure to reference your source and link to it.
• Include pictures and video. This makes it look better and improves the quality of your content. A video keeps people on your page longer, which increases the dwell time on that page. Google measures this.
• Use a compelling headline. The headline (title tag) is typically what appears in search results. You basically have one line to grab people's attention and make them click. Make the headline so good that they'll feel they're missing out on something if they don't click on your page. When Google sees the headline converting well, you'll get moved up in rankings even more.
• Use headings and bold text. In other words, make the article scannable. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, headings, bold text - all of that. Look at this page for example. It has been crafted to be easy to read.

It's really about content. Do some searches and see what else is out there. Now make your page 10 times better than that one. There you go.

Your page must be "share worthy." So it must be so good that people will want to share it on social media... which brings us to the next point.

Use Social Media / Promote!

Promote your content on all your social media channels. Get it out there. Schedule tweets. Make graphics to help promote your content.

Got an e-newsletter list? Send out a blast!

Make a video for your YouTube channel. Write an original description (different from your article) about your content.

Find websites in your industry and ask them to reference or promote your article. Write a related article for those websites and link to your new page at the bottom of your article.

Geez, That's a Lot of Work!

Right! And that's exactly the point!

After reading this, most people will forget about all I list here, not do it and then wonder in 3 months why they're still not ranking.

For those of you that "get it" you'll understand how one, great article on your website which has been promoted well will keep working for you 24/7 into the future. Do it once and it keeps paying off! What other type of marketing can do that? Nothing!

You can work on one, great page on your website that could bring you thousands of dollars. So if you spend 6 hours working on the article and promoting it and let's say you made $12,000 from that article over 5 years. That means you were essentially paid $2,000 per hour.

If you still think doing all of this is too much work, then that's your choice. Someone else out there (your competition) will figure this out and do it. By then,it'll take you twice as much work (or more) to catch up. Why not take the lead and do this work now while you have a chance?

-Tony