SEO rankings are a tricky business. Google makes over 3000 algorithm changes per year. SEO isn’t
something that you learn once, and it’s good to go forever. If you aren’t continually testing, you won’t outrank your competitors. We have a couple of ways to improve your SEO rankings in 2023. Here are some test ideas for you to try and improve your SEO rankings:
1. AB Test your headlines.
You want to come up with a handful of different headlines and then test them against each other. You can use tools like Clickflow.com to do this. The reason that this is important is that
Google uses metrics and if someone does a search for something and 1000 people do the search for the same term, and everyone clicks on the 1st result instead of the 2nd result. That tells Google that the 2nd result is more relevant. It doesn’t matter if the 1st one has better SEO or backlinks. Google doesn’t care. It shows them that the 2nd result is more relevant, and the second result should be ranked number one.
A couple of things that you can do to ensure that your headline title gets more clicks:
You can add the years to the end of the title, i.e., “updated in 2023.”Ask questions in your title tag, “what is SEO?”Evoke curiosity such as “the three benefits of sleeping 7 hours; the 2nd thing will shock you.”
Continually test your title tags, and we like that ClickFlow will give you ideas on what you can do to help you improve your title tags.
2. Create separate headlines for social media and SEO
Everything that we have found, what is loved by social media, is the total opposite of what Google loves. Using words like shocking and amazing and effortlessly do a lot of good things as far as gaining social shares, but we are seeing a new trend in which people don’t necessarily click on those keywords for Google because they think it’s Clickbait. You want to create separate titles for your SEO than you do for your social media. There is a tool called Open Graph that allows you to use different tags to be used on social media.
3. Produce a Lot Less New Content.
SEO rankings don't always count on new content. What we found is that SEO rankings improve when we update old content and make it fresh. Improve the user experience, not just a word here and there, but actually, update the content.
4. Consider Improving your Time on Site.
Google is about user metrics. This includes click-through rates, bounce rates, time on site, etc. All these things can improve ranking. It’s not about how many pages have the most links should be on top; it’s the page that users love the most. A good way to improve time on site is through videos and podcasts. Putting a video to watch keeps people on your site longer. A podcast will keep people on your site longer. Other ideas are quizzes, longer articles, and having an open discussion with the users in live time where you respond back and forth.
5. Load your HTML files from a CDN
Page speed is important in Google’s rankings now. The faster your page loads, the higher you are going to rank. Even if you get a better server, that is not going to guarantee that your page is going to load faster. What you need is a CDN. Content delivery network companies have servers all around the world. That way, when someone in India uses your site, that information is delivered to them from a server in India.
6. LSI and Search Intent
Don’t just focus on the main keywords with the highest search volume. Sure this may drive a lot of traffic. This takes a lot more time and a lot of effort. Go for the most qualified traffic. You want to optimize for conversions, for revenue. Go further down the funnel and use keyword search terms and phrases that your qualified buyers are really looking for.
7. Double Down on Video Content
Most people aren’t into doing videos. You are going to be your harshest critic, but don’t worry about that. Google is starting to rank videos more as well as podcasts. They are pulling out the audio transcribing and using it to figure out what it should rank. YouTube SEO is different from Google SEO in which when you rank, it generates within the first 24 to 48 hours. You don’t have to wait for months.
If you would like to know more about how to improve your SEO rankings, contact us at 608-422-4376 or email info@shelleyssocialmedia.com
We also have transparent pricing. Please click on our website here to see the SEO Packages.