Koroberi is a B2B integrated marketing agency located in the North Carolina's booming Triangle. Koroberi specializes in branding, content creation, PR, advertising and digital strategy.
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SEO tips to boost
Google rankings

1

Draft user-focused content

2

Optimize your website

3

Earn backlinks

4

Leverage Google offerings

A website’s ranking within search engine results pages (SERPs) can greatly influence the amount of traffic coming to the site. It’s a simple narrative: People use search engines more frequently than ever to find information (more than 75% of B2B website traffic comes from search) and they expect search engines to serve up the right information in the top positions (65% of clicks happen on positions 1-5). In fact, a common joke among SEO experts is that if you ever want to hide a dead body, the best place to do so is on page two of Google search results. So how do you get your website to appear in one of those coveted top spots on page one? Short answer: Do what Google wants.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of understanding and implementing a range of tactics that search engines deem important. These tactics typically fall within four major categories:

Illustrated notepad and pencil Draft user-focused content

Dart hitting the middle of a target Optimize your website

Cursor clicking Earn backlinks

Megaphone Leverage additional Google offerings

In this guide, we’ll walk through best practices for all four categories to improve your brand’s SERP rankings. (Note: Although there are other search engines out there like Yahoo!, Bing, DuckDuckGo, we’ll be focusing on Google, which accounts for 75% of the search market.)

Draft user-focused content

When writing copy for your website, or any type of content for that matter, ask yourself: Who is my audience? What are they looking for? Why are they looking for it? How can I present it in a way that makes sense for them? In other words, don’t think about what you want on the page, think about what they want. Not only is it good for customers and prospects, but Google likes it too.

Here are a few other ways you can keep your web content focused on your users, and in turn, focused on search engine performance.

Identify target keywords

Understanding the search habits of page visitors can be a great place to start when determining which keywords and phrases to include in your content. You can do this by looking at Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner, as well as popular suggested search terms and phrases on sites like Google, Twitter, Quora, Reddit and YouTube to get more familiar with what language your audience is using to find relevant content and resources related to your brand’s topics.

With Google Search Console you can also review searched query and keyword results to see what words and phrases trigger your brand to appear in search results and whether users are actually clicking through to your site from those phrases or keywords.

Ultimately, if your web page uses these keywords, you’re more likely to place highly, see more traffic and serve your audience’s needs.

Focus and forget

While the inclusion of these keywords is important, the placement and frequency of them may be even more so. After all, audiences (and Google Bots) can tell if you’re writing just to fit in a few more keywords, which undermines the quality of your content and harms your placement on SERPs.

The key is to use keywords in key places: page titles, meta descriptions, section headers, file names, image alt text and of course sprinkled strategically into your page’s content. This ensures your target keywords and phrases fit into the piece naturally. Once your keywords are placed in those spots, forget about them entirely. Instead, focus on crafting a clear and compelling narrative for the page that ultimately fulfills the needs of new and returning visitors.

Mockup of where to place SEO focus keywords on a page

Create and update content regularly

Search engines prefer active websites and prioritize sites that regularly publish unique, valuable and interesting content. Think of your website as something that is never done. Always look for ways to refresh existing pages and create new quality content that might be useful for visitors.

Optimize your website

It’s not enough to simply have a website. You need a website that is strategically optimized to have a high E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) score.

What is E-A-T in SEO explained

Google and other search engines have bots that crawl websites and store important information to determine E-A-T score, flagging things like keywords and phrases, content publish dates, internal links and more.

Include metadata elements

Metadata are bits of HTML code that summarize what your webpage is about, helping search engine crawl bots sort and identify information in a more efficient way. Here are a few elements that can have a big impact on your search rankings:
  • URLs – A URL or web address can be entered into a browser to access a page on a website. Generally speaking, URLs should be short, simple and easy to read – about 50-60 characters. They should include keywords that describe the content of a webpage. URLs should also follow a consistent structure and hierarchy throughout the website so that both humans and search engines can quickly and easily understand the connections between different pages on the site.
  • Title tags – A title tag is basically a webpage’s title. It’s displayed in SERPs as the clickable headline, in web browser windows as the tab text and on social media posts as the headline. Title tags should be concise (under 60 characters) and accurately describe the page’s content. The beginning of tags should utilize keywords.
  • Meta description – Meta descriptions are displayed as part of the SERP snippet to give the user a preview of the content within the page. They should be sufficiently descriptive, between 150-165 characters, to provide value and drive clicks. Google does not factor meta descriptions into its search algorithms, but still recommends including them since they do have an impact on search clickthrough rate, which is a ranking factor.
  • Header tags – These components are used to organize and provide hierarchy to page content, appearing in descending order of importance. H1 tags denote the main title, H2 tags are commonly used as subheads and H3-H6 tags are used to provide further structure for the subsections. Google uses header tags to gather context for your page, so be sure to use keywords strategically.
  • Alt text – Use this tag to describe each image on your webpage as specifically as possible. Alt text displays in place of the image if it can’t load and is indexed by search engines to better understand the page’s context. It is also vital for people with vision loss. Keep it short – around 125 characters – and include your keywords.
Annotated Google SERP with metadata elements and locations highlighted

Build a web of internal links

Internal links take page visitors from one page to another within the same website. These links are great for retaining traffic and increasing page views because they keep users on your site, funneling them deeper into your site while following a thread of related topics. From an SEO perspective, these links also act as a map for Google bots in determining what content is most important on a site.

When creating internal links, take a pyramid or top-down approach. For example, a broad topic like advertising on the homepage could link to a services webpage that lists out all advertising-specific services. And when you click on one of those services, such as programmatic advertising , the link can take you to a dedicated case study on it. These internal links can also direct visitors to related products or services or to lead capture forms.

For maximum SEO impact, hyperlinked phrases should target keyword phrases – not your standard “learn more” or “click here.” Practice moderation so that links enhance the user experience rather than become a distraction.
Example of internal linking on the Koroberi website

Improve page speed

Having a website that can load quickly across devices is key – not only for a smooth user experience, but for Google rankings as well. Quick load speeds are considered a characteristic of site health, and can be improved by the following tips:
Open folder

Compress files

Reduce CSS, HTML and JavaScript files larger than 150 bytes.

Sizing sqaures to represent customization

Optimize images

Export images to 72 DPI and set size files to be only as large as they need to be.

Refresh symbol

Reduce redirects

Eliminate unnecessary or multiple redirects to reduce HTTP request-response cycles.

Video player

Evaluate interactive elements

Review heavily interactive elements like GIFs, videos, carousels or slides, and determine if they need to be modified or disabled for mobile.

Gear

Leverage caching resources

Implement browser and server caching so return visitors’ browsers don’t have to reload the entire page at each subsequent visit.

Network

Use a content delivery network (CDN)

CDNs are designed to render images faster and with a more efficient site footprint than your site’s native media library.

Checkmark

Choose the right web host

Ensure your web host has ample capacity to support your site’s traffic volumes and is well-matched for your website CMS like WordPress or Drupal.

Earn backlinks

Recall that the A in E-A-T, authoritativeness, is a major factor Google considers for its rankings. It’s a measure of what the rest of the internet says about a page and is calculated by things like how often the webpage is mentioned through backlinks – instances of other websites linking to your website. But how exactly do you go about earning these backlinks?

Establish a PR program

Often when online media outlets cover a company, they will link to the company’s website. This is typically a high-quality backlink since most trade and business media sites are reputable, and can boost your brand’s own recognition and authority by association. Thus, placing an emphasis on generating media coverage is a tactic to boost search engine performance. Some ways you can do this:
  • Submit guest articles to publications.
  • Participate in editorial interviews.
  • Enter products for awards or roundups.
  • Distribute press releases via wire service.

Incorporate a social strategy

Google and other search engines aren’t the only places people are searching to find quality content. Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter get millions of searchers per day, working almost like mini search engines. However, these platforms also provide a way of earning backlinks. When you create compelling and user-focused content, readers might post a link to it on their social channels. Or if your company posts something insightful directly on social media, followers that find it interesting may repost or share your content with their network, an audience that may not follow any of your company’s social media accounts.

Leverage additional Google offerings

Google offers several products that can help sites boost curb appeal and deliver traffic from SERPs. That said, Google’s full product catalog can be overwhelming, so let’s just focus on three of its offerings:

Add detail to your Google My Business profile

A Google My Business profile appears directly to the right of the results on a SERP when a company is searched for on Google. This area gives searchers basic information about the company and provides additional links to follow and learn more about them. Businesses that add information to their profiles tend to see a slight boost in local SEO rankings and are also able to provide a more complete UX for those searching for your company.
Koroberi's Google My Business profile

Ask for Google reviews

Asking customers, partners, vendors and employees to leave a review on Google can provide a nice boost to both local and general search rankings. This is where users are weighing the choice between learning more about you vs your competitors, so any advantage you gain here will be worthwhile. Some good practices:
  • Aim to achieve a wide variety of reviews – people from various industries, connected in a range of ways, that use an array of products/services.
  • Encourage clients to elaborate on their experience with you in their reviews.
Close-up of reviews on Koroberi's Google My Business profile

Consider a Google Search ad campaign

While Google Ads does not directly boost SEO rankings, it can drive more search traffic to the website by giving placement prominence over organic search results. To understand the platform basics, including campaign types, targeting capabilities and bidding structures, check out our Google Ads 101 resource guide here.
Koroberi Google Ads

There are many efforts you can undertake to try and boost SEO and improve SERP rankings. These tasks take time and require ongoing attention, so don’t try to tackle them all at once. Create a plan and set measurable and attainable goals.

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