We’re all trying to get our websites seen by as many people as possible. But, short of going down into the grey area options, most of us are struggling to determine what is the best tactic to do that. You can improve website google ranking by putting into effect some tried and tested tricks. You’ll find that it will improve SEO ranking free of charge and help you to understand how to improve your SEO for free in the future as well. Here are the 7 strategies you can implement today to increase your organic traffic for free:
1. Create Backlinks
One of the biggest factors for SEO with Google is the prominence of backlinks. These are links from other sites that will connect back to yours and bring traffic your way. It also shows search engines that you are an authoritative voice that other people rely on. This helps boost your google ranking or rating. The key, however, is to make sure that backlinks are relevant and you aren’t just spamming the links in comments or something.
A quick and easy way to find potential backlink opportunities is to cultivate relationships with industry-related websites that allow you to write blog posts for them. You can find these opportunities by using the search modifier “Write for us” or + “Write for us” preceded by whatever industry you’re in. Here’s a search we did for one of our technology clients to find some potential guest blogging opportunities for them.
Build a list of these prospects and start your link outreach. Once you’ve heard back from a few places, you’ll be able to start creating content and publishing it on their website. This can have a twofold benefit, first, you’ll be building valuable inbound links from high-quality sites. Secondly, you may also drive traffic from those websites to your page. Pick and choose carefully, you don’t want to publish on low-quality sites or ones that might not have any real traffic.
2. Keep an eye on broken links
Broken links happen to the best of us, but they can really hurt your SEO. No matter what they link to, you’ll want to make sure that you keep an eye on those broken links. If you do find that they are broken, take them out or replace them. Having broken links tells Google that your content isn’t reliable and it will rank you down lower on the list. If you’re really worried about having broken links without knowing it, there are plug-ins that you can find for just this purpose.
One of the easiest ways to identify broken backlinks is to follow this comprehensive guide from Ahrefs. They break down the exact process they use in-house to identify broken links. If you follow their steps, you’ll be able to uncover a whole host of potential blog post ideas & quality link opportunities.
3. Focus on quality-written content
Another tactic to improve your SEO google ranking free is to focus on building high-quality content. Not only should it be SEO-friendly with keywords, but it should also be well-written and focused on drawing your customer’s attention. Try to ignore all traditional rules about writing content.
Look at the first few results that rank for your target keyword. How are they written?
If the content reads more conversational, then you should aim to create your content in the same way. Conversational pieces tend to draw attention and engagement at a higher rate than non-conversational content pieces.
This will help you to make sure that you are giving your viewers something to look at and engage with once they get to your page. Google’s crawlers know how to determine quality from non-quality content, so you’ll want to make it a priority.
You should also make sure that the keywords are naturally written into the content so that the reader doesn’t immediately notice that they’re there. Keyword stuffing is ugly and reads even worse. It’s best to form your sentences naturally rather than try to “boost SEO” by throwing your focus keyword into every other sentence. A good rule of thumb is to aim to use your focus keyword once every 100 words. This is low enough to sound natural but still lets Google understand that your page is specifically on that topic.
4. Focus your attention on local searching
One of the least used tactics to help with SEO is the idea of focusing locally. Since Google will often rank the search options using location first, try and focus your keywords and content on a local market. This will also help you get more local views, which is always a great thing. Google sees this as a positive as well.
5. Focus on your audience
From web design to menu choice, to color coordination, you’ll want to ensure that your website design is focused on what the client wants. It should be comfortable viewing and optimized for mobile viewing as well. By creating a positive user experience, customers will come back more and more often. This will translate to a better reaction from crawlers, and a higher google ranking.
6. Stay away from the grey area
If you’ve done research on the other side of SEO — the bad side — you may be finding yourself tempted to consider it as an option. It makes sense, but you’ll want to avoid the temptation.
These tactics are expensive, below the belt, and will be caught out by the intelligent crawlers that Google is constantly refining. Not only will you be out a lot of money in attracting viewers this way, but you’ll also find that Google will penalize you heavily for it.
In some cases, they may even refuse to list you at all. Stay in the green and remember that Google is watching!
7. Make your website easier to access
There’s nothing that today’s market hates worse than a slow-loading page. You’ll want to make sure that you keep your page succinct and fast load. While this doesn’t impact SEO in the keyword way, it does factor in. When a page doesn’t load and a view backtracks— bounces — it means that your website is not satisfying their needs. Google takes that as a negative and will, more than likely, rank you lower in the search options the next time.
Have Patience
These free SEO tricks and tips are all great, but it is important to note that they won’t result in instant views and conversions. SEO, done properly, takes time and patience.
Results take time.
We tell all our clients that SEO will generally take between 6-9 months to show big increases. You may get some quick wins before then, but hold out for the long-term benefits.
It’s worth it.
Still trying to figure out how to drive traffic and improve SEO google ranking without a big investment? Consider hiring a marketing consultant. Plans start as low as $99/month which means almost every small business can afford to hire a seasoned veteran to point them in the right direction with their marketing plans.
