5 Keys to Better Placement on Google

If the website for your business is receiving some traffic from Google but not as much as you'd like, there's a good chance you're looking for strategies to improve your rankings.

Although there isn't a secret solution to instantly boost your site to the top of the results pages that are most important to your business, there are ways to start moving in the right direction.

To improve your site's rankings, here are five things you can begin doing:

Expand Your Site's Content

Providing the best possible experience to their users is what Google cares about the most.

Since Google is a search engine, delivering highly targeted results is a big part providing a great experience. A common mistake businesses make is thinking that their business should rank highly for dozens of keywords even though their site only has a couple of pages.

In order to rank well for a specific search topic, not only do you need a page that's specifically crafted around that topic, but it needs to be packed with information that people who are interested in the topic are going to find useful.

Keep in mind that the information you provide doesn't need to be limited to text. Pictures, videos and links can all be valuable additions to your text content.

Optimize Key Pages

In addition to creating new pages for topics your website doesn't currently address, it's also worth taking a look at your existing key pages and seeing how you can improve them.

The main thing to remember is that optimizing your pages isn't just about adding keyword phrases to them. Instead, it's ensuring that they provide real value to anyone who visits them.

Establish a Social Presence

The algorithm Google uses for determining rankings has more than 100 individual factors. Although there's no confirmation about how much influence social metrics have on rankings, it's definitely an area where Google seems to be interested.

While there are plenty of reasons to use Facebook and Twitter for marketing, Google+ is most likely the social network that has the biggest impact on rankings. Since your time is limited, that's the best place to focus your attention.

Find Opportunities to Attract Links

Another benefit of establishing a social presence for your business is it will give you a chance to network with others.

By building online connections, you'll open up opportunities to attract links to your website. For example, if you write a post and know it will be especially useful to the audience of a blogger you know, you can send them the link, and then they'll most likely share it through their own blog.

Avoid Penalties or Technical Problems

You should definitely take advantage of the free diagnostic and monitoring tools Google offers. Using these tools will ensure your rankings aren't sabotaged by a technical problem.

It's also important to steer clear of overly aggressive SEO tactics that can result in penalties. If you come across offers like "100 links for $5," the best thing to do is pass without giving them a second thought.

Improving search engine rankings generally takes time.

But as long as you enlist the above strategies, you will definitely be able to get on the right track.