According to studies, the top position in Google organic search results receives 33% of the total clicks. The second and third positions receive around 18% and 12% of the clicks, respectively. Summing it up, more than 60% of the clicks go to the top three positions. Now, where does it leave you?

Obviously, there’s little that you wouldn’t do to get your site among the top three results, or at least the first page results, which, incidentally, drive 95% of total organic traffic. Luckily, it doesn’t take and arm and a leg to get ranked higher. Skip one million tips and just follow these six from Aashath to hit a huge SEO sixer.

1. Put Site Speed on Steroids

Page loading time affects your ranking both directly and indirectly. Page speed is one of the  search signal that Google actively monitors, and can demote your rankings if your page takes ages to load. Even more importantly, many of your visitors will leave your page if it takes more than a couple of seconds to load.

How to do it

• Check your site speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights and follow the guidelines
• Buy a reputable hosting and keep monitoring page loading times

2. Put Keyword in Page Title

Page title is the first thing Google looks at for ranking your page for a related search query. If the query is “Sydney comedy show,” and your page title says “Sydney laughter night,” you’ve already cut your chances of page-1 results drastically. Remember that the title must be relevant to you page content, and should be exciting to generate a high click-through rate (CTR).

How to do it

• Use Screaming Frog or Moz Tool bar analysis to find and fix existing page titles
• Use SEO Plugings like Yoast or All in one to optimize page titles in WordPress

3. Optimize Meta Descriptions

Meta description is the 160 character snippet that pops up under your page title when your page appears on the search engine results page. Meta description should include relevant keywords, and should be compelling to attract more clicks.

How to do it

• Use Screaming Frog analysis to find and fix poor meta descriptions
• Use SEO Plugings like Yoast or All in one to optimize page metas in WordPress
• Use Google Search Console ( Webmaster) to find and fix duplicate meta descriptions

4. Establish Domain Authority

Search engines rank your site based on your “domain authority,” which largely depend upon the number of “brand mentions,” or the number of direct and indirect links to your site. While some SEOs might suggest guest blogging or even illegal means such as buying spam links or fake reviews, we strongly recommend doing it the organic way—by posting kickass content that gets shared and linked.

How to do it

• Create and publish spectacular content regularly
• Promote your content through social media, blogs, etc

5. Update Your Site

Have you ever been guilty of hiring the wrong kind of SEO, who probably built hundreds of spam incoming links or stuffed your pages with irrelevant keywords or duplicate content? If so, you may say goodbye to your dreams of appearing on the first page. Or else, update your website with fresh content and get rid of spam. Google loves fresh content and hates duplicate content.

How to do it

• Hire a content writer and have your text revamped or rewritten
• Use Google Search Console to see incoming links; then disavow the bad ones

6. Engage Your Visitors

Google ranks your website by measuring more than 300 different search signals. But at the end of it, there’s just one thing Google measures—user experience. Optimizing the experience of its users is Google’s priority number one. If a user comes to your page after searching on Google and sticks around, Google interprets it as good user experience. It means whatever you have on that page is valuable to the user, so Google will show your page to more users.

How to do it

• Match your content with your visitor’s intent
• Design an aesthetically pleasing, neat layout
• Have video or other interactive elements on your page

Hope you’re in great form to hit this much needed six, but if you aren’t, we (verve Innovation) can go to bat for you! Get in touch today and take your first step up the ladder to top Google rankings.