Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has such a wide ranging, diverse set of influencing factors that it can be hard to parse at times. There are (at the time of writing) over 200 different aspects that can change how well your page, content, or business ranks in a search engine.
As such, wading through the miasma of different SEO options you have is vital to making your business viable in the online marketplace.
Good news! In this article we will walk you through some of the top tips that leading experts recommend for getting your content ranking high in the upcoming year.
If you find this helpful, consider checking out our SEO solutions that will be sure to increase your clickthroughs!
For now though, here are our top 5 suggestions on how to rank on Google in 2021!
SERP Layouts: Fraggles Rock
Fraggles are not just the name for Jim Henson’s iconic rocking puppets. It is also a term coined by SEO expert Cindy Krum, Mobile SEO expert, and writer. For Cindy, “fraggles” are what we call those little passages of text that Google highlights on its search pages.
These little fraggle-ments of page content are what pull your particular article or page up as an answer to a searched question or topic.
A fraggle combines a fragment of text along with a “handle” – something that jumps you to the relevant place on a page (think the Wikipedia contents section of an entry).
Google is moving to reorganize its search engine around being a knowledge base more than a site index – making relevant fragments that link topics together cohesively can massively boost your SERP position.
Safe Searching: HTTPS and Trust
This one is simple: The S in HTTPS stands for “secure”. Google has begun to deem regular HTTP links as inherently insecure. What this means is that making sure your website and its related links are encrypted is essential to climbing those search rankings.
If you do not, your website will be flagged with a nasty little tag that labels it “unsecure”. In a world where antivirus and VPN sites are pushing the fear of data theft through unsecured sites in massive ad campaigns, this can kill your clickthroughs even if you do land on that treasured first page of results.
User Retention: Slow pages Lose Viewers
Much SEO advice seems to ignore a fairly obvious set of eyes you need to be appealing to – returning customers.
If COVID-19 has done anything for SEO, it is prove that keywords are not as consistent as we might like. As such, Google is predicted to be moving towards a search-engine model that gives more primacy to user behavior on your site, not just the clickthrough potential.
So, being able to garner as many return users as possible is important to getting your site in high rankings in 2021. You can do this by ensuring your page loads fast across platforms (especially mobile) and checking how your interactive elements work across different devices.
A healthy hive of returning customers can be a powerful engine to drive your site steadily up the rankings, gaining more consistent returning customers. Imagine a slower, search-engine snowball effect, if you will.
Portfolio Power: Backlinking is Your Most Important Tool
We have looked at elements you can improve on the front-facing component of your site. Now, we turn to another powerful tool: backlinking.
Backlinking is what we do when links to previous posts on sites are placed in new webpages. You see it all the time in different outlets, magazines in particular are well placed to link to previous supporting articles.
Backlinks are input or output links that redirect from one page to another. Google considers these as a type of “vote” for a page, so increasing the number throughout your domain will really help in your SERP placement.
Video Killed The SEO Star: Video Content For Extra Backlinking
Here’s a fun companion to backlinking, one of the most powerful tools in your article. Videos are absolute hives for backlinks, and Cisco estimates that over 80% of all online content will be video by 2021.
Videos are watched, shared, linked to, read, and so widely distributed that they become a fantastic way to diversify your SEO strategy.
There are so many aspects of a video you could further optimize, like SEO title, descriptions, and playlists. The playlists are a great tool that performs some nice backlinking, as well as increasing the time spent on your site – all points that register well with google SERPs.
