How to Rank Higher in Google With My Top 5 SEO Tips

If you’ve stumbled upon this article, chances are pretty good that you want to rank higher in the search engines, and particularly, how to rank higher in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Well, here’s the good news first: you can!

But of course, every piece of good news comes with a downside, and that is the following: reaching a #1 ranking in Google takes a lot of time, a lot of work and there are no shortcuts (sorry!). There aren’t even many “SEO secrets” that aren’t already known by most webmasters. However, there are 5 very straightforward SEO tips I can give you, a webmaster, if you’re looking to increase your search engine exposure and reach the first page of Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Page):

1) Title Tags. If you asked me, “What is the easiest, quickest way to improve my Google ranking, I’d say it’s optimizing your title tag. Your title tag is the title of the webpage you want a higher rank for. The title for the page you’re on right now is probably something like, “How to Rank Higher in Google with my Top 5 SEO Tips.”

If you are trying to rank a site that is about Jungle Gyms, you probably want your title tag to be something like, “Jungle Gyms – Safety and Maintenance” or if you’re looking to sell Jungle Gyms, maybe something like, “Buy Jungle Gyms at Discount Cost.” You get the idea.

Here’s the summary: figure out what your potential readers/customers will be searching for to find you, and make your title tag something very, very close to that. Google thinks Title Tags are extremely important, and you should too.

2) Site content. Even if your title tags are optimized, the content of your site must closely match what your audience is searching for. If you’re selling Jungle Gyms but you don’t have the words “Jungle Gyms” anywhere on your site, Google will think your site is about something else, and it won’t show your site to people who search for “Jungle Gyms.” Especially important is to put your target keywords in your header tags (H1, H2, etc.), as Google sees these as especially important pieces of content on your site.

3). Inner linking. Try as much as you can to link to all the pages on your site, within your site. For example, if you have a page on your site that is about Jungle Gym safety, include a sentence on that page about Jungle Gym maintenance, and link your readers to that page, as well. Not only does this help readers navigate through your site, but it helps Google spiders crawl your site, and this helps your sites get ranked. Also, make sure to include the proper anchor text. So, do not include a link that says “Click here,” or else Google will think your site is about “clicking here.” Make your anchor text something like “Jungle Gym maintenance.”

4) Anchor-text optimized backlinks. Speaking of backlinks, you’re going to need them. A lot of them. Backlinks are the single most important factor to SEO. If you do not have high quality, anchor-text relevant backlinks, you’re never going to reach the top of Google’s SERPs. Aside from having a great website that other webmasters will link to naturally, the best way to get high quality backlinks is to create them yourself.

You can get backlinks from article directories like this one, you can post in forums with your site in your signature, you can post in blogs, you can submit your site to various online directories, and much more. Spend the majority of your time bolstering your backlink profile (and invest in SEO software, if you must), because that is what Google looks to when they want to decide if your site is legitimate or not.

5) Patience, patience, patience. This is probably the best tip I can give you. 99.9% of site owners try to understand SEO and eventually quit, because ranking their site took too long. It’s a cliche, but it’s true: Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint. You won’t rank #1 overnight. It never happens. Ever. You’ll need persistence above all, and with the right SEO tools, SEO training, and SEO strategies like the ones I’ve given you above, you too can be one of those at the top.