With millions of SERPs out there that can potentially be targeted, it is important to understand how you can rise in rankings in order to be seen. In the past, a few simple optimisations were enough to make it to the first page – and in many cases, be the number one result. While new and trending SERPs can be rather easy to dominate at first, most established search patterns and niches have well-entrenched competition and it is difficult to knock them off of their perches. Ranking for keywords can be a struggle, especially for newer websites and blogs, so it helps to know what you will need to do and what to expect. In the following article, we’ll outline the main elements of ranking keywords and other variables you’ll need to consider as you pursue these goals.

What to Expect

Keyword ranking is quite difficult for many who have just begun their forays into content creation and SEO. Most likely, you will begin with an unoptimised website that puts you at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, it can take many months – even years, in some cases – to optimise a website to its fullest potential. Nevertheless, the most basic thing you can do to boost your website’s PageRank is to begin pinging search engines with valuable content. Inside this content, you should strive to include the keywords for which you wish to rank, sprinkling them in sparingly so that search engines do not believe you are trying to spam your way to the top. With optimised content and a basic website in place, the hard work of marketing and ranking can then begin.

Page Optimizations

Before you can expect to perform your best in SERPs, you must address some basic on-page optimisation considerations. For starters, the speed of your website can be very important in how well you rank (side note: slower websites are not penalised). After that is addressed, it is vital that you ensure page navigation features are well-designed; if search engines are not able to crawl your website in an efficient manner, then some content may not be indexed. Page titles and meta data can be another huge concern – variables such as meta descriptions are projected by search engines in results and can help increase the number of clicks that your website will receive. Last but not least, the format of your content is another vital consideration: poorly-formatted content that does not include headings and sub-headings will bomb with Google and readers alike.

Link Building

Finally, you must invest time and energy into crafting links on other sites and blogs if you want to ascend the rankings of Google and do well in SERPs. Keywords can be incorporated into this, but are less of a variable due to other blogs and websites having more control over the way in which they link back to you. The content that they link to, however, will help boost performance with those keywords as pinging search engines with a combination of links and keywords will be associated with one another. Many people hate the practice of link building, due to the fact that you must rely upon others to succeed. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable and an integral part of doing well in search results.