One of the most effective ways to increase the sales for your business and traffic on your site is by SEO. SEO will not only give free website traffic but will also help you in improving your conversion if keywords are targeted properly.

However;

Ranking a keyword on Google and getting the top 3 or 4 positions is not that easy, especially if you are new to SEO.

Google keeps on changing its algorithm every now and then which makes it quite difficult for webmasters, bloggers and SEO professionals to rank keywords. 

In 2021, the competition on SERP is increasing day by day. 

Almost 61% of marketers say that improving SEO is their top priority. This clearly means that competition on SERP is quite tough.

That’s the reason why I am writing this guide to help people like you who want to get maximum output from SEO.

In this guide you’ll discover the following things:

• Google ranking factors.
• Keywords targeting strategy.
• How to scale link-building.
• Doing keyword research. 
• Social media for SEO

Factors that affect your site’s ranking on Google.

Although there are more than 200 factors that affect your website’s ranking on Google but the important ones are Domain authority, Number of backlinks, Website speed, Mobile responsiveness, Site security and On-page SEO.

Let us discuss all these factors one by one.

Domain authority: Domain authority is a metric developed by Moz that indicates the strength or power of your domain on a scale of 0-100. Higher DA means your site has a good chance to rank high on Google.

Here’s the glimpse of DA of my website:

Check domain rating.

The number of backlinks:  A backlink is nothing but a hyperlink pointing to your site from another website. 

When a particular website gives you a link, it also passes on the SEO value or link-juice to your site. Such link juice will increase the domain authority and ranking of your site.

In the above-seen image: Website A is linking to website B and passing the link-juice as well.

Website speed: Website speed refers to the time taken by your site to load. Google has already stated that site speed is the ranking factor for mobile searches and soon it will be a ranking factor for desktop searches as well.

Mobile responsive: Next to site speed, the mobile responsiveness of a website is also a ranking factor. Google already knows the fact that the number of mobile internet users is increasing day after day. 

Therefore, Google wants to give the best experiences to all their mobile users. That’s why they are giving preference on SERP to that website that is mobile responsive.

Website security: The other ranking factor that Google has clearly mentioned is website security.

Although it has a small impact on ranking as of now. In future, Google may consider it has a priority ranking factor for all the searches.

On-page SEO: On-page SEO refers to SEO activities done within the website or website’s content to increase the ranking of keywords on Google. On-page activities include:

• Title and meta tag optimization.
• URL optimization.
• Content creation.
• Keyword targeting.
• Increasing site speed.
• Image optimization.
• Internal linking.

Now you might have got an understanding of Google’s top-ranking factor. Now let us understand how to improve your keywords ranking on Google so that you can get maximum organic traffic.

If you follow these techniques step-by-step then I can assure you that you can get your keywords ranked on Google with 3 months.

Yes, within 3 months.

I know you won’t believe me. 

So here’s the proof.

I followed these techniques for one of my content on best tech companies in Mumbai. And, within 3 months this content was ranking on top of Google for 10+ keywords and getting me 1000+ free organic traffic per month.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Keyword golden ratio is the key

One of the most effective ways to rank your keywords higher on Google is by using the keywords golden ratio strategy. In fact, if you leverage this technique properly then your content can even get ranked within a month or a two.

Keywords golden ratio is a data-driven strategy that will help you in finding the most underrated keywords that can rank on Google with a month or even in a few days. 

If you find keywords using this formula and create content around it, then your keywords will rank on Google with a few days or as soon as Google indexes your content.

I have personally used these strategies for finding keywords and achieved great success via it.

If you are site is having decent authority then you can even get ranking on top 15 in a few days.

2. Use long-tail keywords more often

Along with the keywords golden ratio, you also need to include long-tail keywords in your content strategy. Even if you have less authority or a new blog, still you can rank higher on Google using long-tail keywords.

Here are the two important reasons why you should include long-tail keywords in your content:

Less competitive:

The very first reason why you should be including long-tail keywords is that they are less competitive as compared to short-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords generally include 4-5 keywords and with decent search volume and less competition.

Get more targeted traffic:

The other reason why you should be using long-tail keywords is that it gives you more targeted traffic. Such type of traffic is highly conversational in nature and will help you in increasing your sales, revenue and profits.

Here are a few examples of long-tail keywords:

• Best paddle boards
• The fishing SUPs under $400
• Hunting paddle boards and gears
• Fitness paddle board for 2 person

As you can see in the above image that as you target more long-tail keywords the conversation rate also increases.

Hence, combine your keywords strategy with longtail keywords and keywords golden ratio for maximum benefit.

3. Start creating links

I have already mentioned that backlinks are the top ranking factor that Google takes into consideration. Hence, if you want to see the maximum ranking for your keywords then start creating high-quality backlinks from day one.

Many bloggers and SEO experts make don’t focus on building quality links and regret later. 

Even if you have just created a new website then attracting links from high authority websites can significantly boost your keywords rankings. In fact, links will not only improve your keywords ranking but also increase the DA PA and referral traffic on your site.

So start building high-authority links from day one.

Here are some effective link building techniques:

• Guest posting.
• Blogger outreach.
• Article submission.

4. Create long content

The next thing which you need to focus on is creating long-form content. 

Way back in the early 2000s, web-masters and bloggers used to created 500-1000 words article to get them ranked on Google. Today, it is next to impossible to rank a 500 words article on Google.

The average length of an article ranking on the top 10 organic listings is around 2000 words.

Hence, you must focus on creating long content to get better rankings on Google.

In fact, the majority of my content are 3000+ words long and most of them are already ranking on Google.

While creating long content make sure to add value to it.

Don’t just create a guide of 10,000+ words that adds no value. Your content should be unique, helpful, backed by stats and resources.

5. Audit your site

Apart from targeting proper keywords, creating content and building links, you also need to focus on regularly auditing. I have seen many bloggers and SEO professionals not doing a regular audit of a website.

This is a big SEO mistake they are doing.

Regularly auditing a website will reveal all the issues that might be affecting the ranking of your website. It may highlight issues related to on-page, off-page SEO, technical SEO, content gap, toxic backlinks and a lot more.

Hence, it is of utmost importance for you to do regular site auditing.

You can either use paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush for auditing.

Critical website errors are also highlighted in your Google search console account. 

Hence, you must also keep a proper eye on your Google search console account then action for fixing the errors and with that you can earn money online.

6. Update the old content

If you want to get a quick ranking without much effort then start updating your old content. Many of your competitor’ websites might be ranking on Google for a bunch of keywords just by updating old content.

Here is how you can update old content and get better rankings:

• Find more long-tail keywords and use them in your existing content.
• Update old information and make it more informative.
• You can also think of changing your title for a quick boost in ranking.
• Internally link articles if possible.
• Remove unwanted information.