It is a well-known fact that the content of a website has to be refreshed regularly to improve its ranking or maintain the existing one. Therefore, all you need to do to keep things going is to put out some new content every now and then? Well, not really.
Regardless of how well ranked your current content is, the ranking won’t automatically apply to new additions. Even more importantly, progress is not going to happen on its own eventually. It takes both time and knowledge.
Since you are reading this article, it is a fair assumption that you are not an SEO expert and need advice on how to get your new content up and running. These ten basic SEO tips are just what you are looking for to give Google a nudge about the new content you have on your plate.
Check if your website was indexed
If your website has been available for some time, Google has probably indexed it already. To make sure it has, type your URL into site:yourdomain.com in Google. If Google has already crawled it, the results will show some of the content featured on your website.
Having an index website is a good start. Naturally, there is always room for improvement. The steps that follow will help improve Google’s treatment of your new content.
Recrawl your website
The best way of understanding how Google and other search engines look for and find new content is to picture millions of tiny spiders crawling the Internet web looking for what’s new. Once they find new content, they add it (indexed) into Google.
The spider army works quickly and efficiently. Still, you can help them find your new content faster. Using the URL Inspection Tool, you can request your new URL to be indexed by Google. The more frequently your website gets recrawled, the higher the chances are of your new content will perform better in search results.
Install Google Analytics and Search Console
It comes naturally that Google tools could help the treatment of your new content. That is just what Google Analytics and Search Console do. In short, they analyze your website’s traffic, among others what pages visitors look at the most and any indexing errors and security issues.
Install them and familiarize with what they do. Both are the tools you will use to check whether you did all other steps appropriately.
Use sitemaps
Sitemaps are one of the most frequently used techniques of letting Google know about a new content. There are several ways of doing so with the help of sitemaps. The easiest to execute it would be to simply ping Google in your browser URL.
A sitemap containing the URL can be put in directly into google.com/ping. If it meets Google quality standards, your new sitemap should get indexed quickly, and your new content becomes more visible very soon.
Switch to a faster web host
It’s no secret that Google is putting additional emphasis on overall UX when website ranking is concerned. One of the essential factors of UX certainly is how fast the content loads. And, when the site loads faster, Google can index it faster.
In summary: a faster loading speed creates a better user experience. That results in faster indexing and consequently, higher search ranking.
External linking
Well-linked pages get featured by search engines. In an ideal situation, these links come from renown websites and give additional value to your page. When a search engine comes across an external link leading to your page from a respected and highly ranked website, the page in question would be given higher ranking status.
Getting links from high-ranked pages is far from easy. However, taking into account all the benefits it provides, it is worth all the effort.
Internal linking
If external linking turns out to be a tough nut to crack, don’t despair. Internal linking can be equally beneficial in indexing new content faster and pushing it to a higher ranking. How to decide what pages to use for internal linking?
It is a simple selection. Pick those pages that are ranked the best in search results. Pages with decent Google ranking will have a positive impact on the search ranking of your new content.
Share on social media
Even though social media is not a direct contributor to SEO ranking, it’s common knowledge that various things shared on social media can rapidly go viral. Naturally, this cannot happen with all new content, but you should not overlook the power of social media share.
Therefore, whenever you publish a new content, make sure you share it on all social media channels you are a part of. The initial ranking boom will not be long-term, but the bigger the number of people who see your new content is, the higher the number of possible backlinks. You learned in the previous SEO tips step how important those are.
Meta tags
Another way of helping Google search algorithm better spot and understand website content is the use of meta tags. Since Google search algorithm incorporates user metrics as an essential factor, doing everything to boost those metrics brings results when ranking is concerned.
That means that incorporating keywords into the new content title and meta description that accompanies it will induce a higher click-through rate. As a result of such CTR, you can expect a faster and higher ranking.
Optimize URL
Although optimizing a URL may not have such an impact on ranking as meta tags and linking, it is well-worth including into an SEO tips list. It is easy to do, and provides visible results.
There are two main requirements in creating an optimized URL. It should include one or two keywords and should not have more than 50 characters. That way they will rank well for head terms, as well as long-tail phrases.
Getting a new content indexed and ranked faster is a process that does not happen overnight. And it is a process that has multiple stages. Not all of them are indeed equally efficient, but the best results come as their cumulative effect.
