Win The SEO Race: How To Make Google Your Ally

Google is one of the most popular search engines used today. In fact, over 5 billion searches are performed on Google every day, and since they index nearly every website on the Internet, it’s a great source to receive the information you want.

If you have a website, Google can be a great ally. The popular search engine is an amazing tool that websites need to harness in order to increase exposure and generate more traffic. Although the inner workings of Google are mysterious and its algorithm is always changing, there are a few known techniques that can help boost your Google search rankings.

Add long-tail keywords to your content.

By now, you already know the importance of adding keywords to your content. After all, these keywords are what generates your site in the search results page when a similar query is performed. But while adding short-tail keywords can still be beneficial, consider adding some long-tail keywords to your content as well.

Long-tail keywords are much longer in length and more descriptive. Although not as popular, they can greatly improve your search engine ranking by leveraging a niche audience. So instead of focusing on the one- or two-word keywords you usually implement, try a few long-tail keywords too.

Optimize your website for mobile.

Google has done its research and found that more and more people are performing Google searches with mobile devices instead of computers. If your website is not optimized for mobile, it can impact your relationship with Google. When your website can be accessed through a mobile device, it keeps visitors on your site for longer periods of time and improves your conversion rate. This plays a role on your Google ranking, so ensuring your site is optimized for mobile can help you win the SEO race.

Use more conversational content.

Because Google determined that more and more people are performing search queries via mobile device, it’s also important that you use more conversational content. Instead of using a handful of keywords to perform a search query, users are asking complete questions. By adding conversational content to your website, you’ll be more attractive to Google.

There are a few easy ways to add conversational content to your site without having to rewrite your existing content. You could consider adding a frequently asked questions section to your website that allows you to ask and answer questions in a conversational way. You could conduct interviews with employees or industry experts and place those interviews on your website. You could add customer testimonials to your website. And you could even start a blog. All of these options allow you to easily add conversational content without completely rewriting your site.

Add local content to your website.

Google has started using geolocation technology to hone in on a user’s location to provide them with local results. For example, if a user performs a query in search of a specific item, Google will now provide results for that item that are near the user’s location instead of general websites from anywhere in the world. In order to help your site land in front of potential visitors that are near you, you must add local content to your website. Adding your physical address along with nearby streets, towns, monuments or any other location-based content will help improve your local SEO and ensure that Google becomes your ally.

Transcribe your multimedia files.

Many websites today place multimedia files on their site in order to entertain and captivate their audience. While tactics such as audio or video files can excite your audience, they don’t resonate with the search engines. Google cannot access the content used inside these files, so any keywords or conversational content used in those files will not help improve your search engine optimization.

That is, unless you place the content from those files directly on your site. Placing a transcription of multimedia files directly on your website will give Google physical content to crawl though and use to improve your ranking. So instead of just placing the multimedia file on your site, be sure to include the transcription as well.

Although you may not fully understand Google’s algorithms, a general understanding of how they rank websites can help you implement the right strategies to reach your audience through strong SEO. By using these tips, you will easily help strengthen your website and improve your relationship with Google to be an SEO pro.

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  • Image courtesy of MyBlogGuest

Guest Author: Lizzie Lau is a freelance writer and online marketing consultant with SEOMap.com. Lizzie combines personal opinions and research to create appealing and informative articles on various topics.

Photo by Sean MacEntee

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