There are a lot of ways in which you can increase your search engine rankings other than just keyword optimization.

Adopt Technology

Despite Google announcing as far back as 2014 that secure sites would be ranked higher, several websites still run on HTTP instead of the more secure HTTPS. The cost difference between these two is less than a hundred dollars.

The world is going mobile, and the number of mobile-only internet users is greater than the number of PC-only internet users. Google announced in 2015 that mobile-friendly sites would be ranked higher. Yet only about one in eight sites have been optimized for mobile devices – and it only takes the addition of a few lines of code to do so.

This too need not be expensive. With Google’s Accelerate Mobile Pages project, you could do this yourself.

Country-Specific Domains Lead to Increased Search Engine Rankings For Queries Originating From That Country

Google search rankings are not the same everywhere. If you cater to a particular geographic market, say the United States, the same content on a U.S. site would be ranked higher and shown accordingly to Americans who query for a keyword or set of keywords that are relevant to your business.

Domain names are cheap – and so are hosting fees. So it would make sense to replicate your site on to one or a few country-specific domains, say the countries which speak English, if you cater to those markets as well.

Local SEO

This can be just as useful in getting more business as well as visitors for brick-and-mortar establishments which exist in the geographical world. If you run a bakery, you can type in ‘bakery’ followed by the name of the city or town that you are located in, and above the top-rated search results, you will find three businesses with their addresses, ratings and even hours of operation.

How those three managed to get in is by listing their business on local business directories (Google My Business is good and listing on others like Yelp also helps), allowing ratings and user reviews to show on their website (this can be done by tweaking the code to show star ratings and reviews from genuine, verified users that have been posted elsewhere).

Video

Having a video on your website increases your search engine rankings instantly, because it is the most consumed form of content online. A how-to video is great because of its informational value (and you could shoot this on your iPhone before uploading it to YouTube and embedding it onto your site), but if that is not feasible, a promotional video still boosts your rankings, in addition to having the effect of visitors lingering on longer as they watch it. So the more interesting it is, the better!

Blog

Having a blog section on your site and updating it regularly with fresh content ranks your blog section higher – and this has a ripple effect on your website. However, search engine rankings improve only if there is quality content which provides new and useful information and makes you appear as an expert in your field.

If you're looking for other ways to boost your SEO, let our SEO experts help you!