If you have a website for your business, that 1st place position on Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is an extremely coveted position. Ranking for your desired keywords can exponentially improve the amount of business you obtain through your website, and it’s no secret that position’s 1-3 in the SERP get the lion’s share of the traffic, so being in that top spot (or at least in the top 3) is essential.
Climbing the Google SERP ladder is one of those things that unfortunately just has to be done, but it’s a long, arduous journey that involves hundreds of man-hours and potentially thousands of pounds to get there. But if you work hard, and put the effort in, you’ll be rewarded with search engine glory, right? Well… kind of.
Now for the bad news. All of that hard work, stress and money can be undone in an instant. How’s that you ask? Well, Google likes to shift those goal posts from time to time with their algorithm updates. Quite frankly, it’s a massive pain in the backside.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, generally if you follow the rules and keep your eye on industry updates, you should be able to negate any unwanted fluctuations in rankings. Here are some of my top tips:
1. Ensure all of your keywords are tracked
This is a no-brainer. One of the best ways to keep an eye on your rankings is to track them using rank tracking software like rank ranger or AWR. This way whenever there’s a fluctuation in your position you’ll know immediately, even if it’s a 1 point fluctuation it’ll give you the insight you need to produce some content, or build a few backlinks for that keyword before it drops any further.
2. Regularly check Search Metrics for your visibility score
Search Metrics is a great tool, it has a bunch of different reports, but arguably the most helpful is their visibility report. The visibility report is free for up to 6 months of visibility data (keep an excel spreadsheet of your visibility score each week so you can create your own graphs and visualisations if you’re not willing to pay their monthly fees) and will give you a clear line graph view of your visibility over time, even indicating when Google algorithm updates to give you a better understanding of your visibility movement over time.
3. Adhere to Google’s E.A.T guidelines
E.A.T stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. This is Google’s relatively new way of determining whether a site’s content deserves to rank. It favours authoritative content from industry influencers. There are a whole bunch of things to keep in mind, but here’s a few: ensure all editorial content is accompanied by author biographies and is written by authorities in the field, get rid of low value content (or at least edit it) and invest in your website security (ensure you have an SSL certificate installed!).
This isn’t a comprehensive list by any stretch, but it’s a start! I’ll be posting more blogs over time, so be sure to check back for more help and advice in the fields of SEO, Web Design & Graphic Design.
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