Top 17 SEO Hacks to Boost Your Website to the Top

Top 17 SEO Hacks to Boost Your Website to the Top

Is your website lost in the dark cave of search engines? Do you want your site to rank higher on search engines?

If yes, then you have come to the right place. This article is dedicated to enabling you to take your site’s ranking to new heights. Wondering how?

This article will walk you through some proven SEO hacks that would be a game changer. From building site authority to increasing online visibility, these secret hacks could prove exceptionally valuable, allowing you to drive desired results.

Therefore, continue reading this article until you uncover all the proper SEO tactics. So, are you ready to fill your bucket with top SEO hacks? Let’s get started.

1 – Look For Long-Tail Keywords

Undoubtedly, keyword research lies at the core of SEO, proving fruitful if done correctly. If you want to maximise the time and energy invested in keyword research, focus on finding long-tail keywords. Why? Because there are more chances of ranking on long-tail keywords than shorter ones.

Short-tail keywords have a higher search volume than long-tail keywords but also have high ranking difficulty. Therefore, look for long-tail keywords so that your site can rank as soon as possible. Whatever keywords you choose should be directly relevant to the respective topics.  

To find such easy-to-rank keywords, you can start with a seed keyword to discover its longer variations. Finding the right keyword might take some time, but it pays off later.

2 – Make Proper Keyword Adjustments

There needs to be more than just the right keywords in your bucket; inserting them in the right places is also essential. The appropriate keyword placement enhances the chances of ranking against the relevant search terms. So, make sure your keywords are in the perfect places.

The most crucial spots to insert keywords are the meta title, meta description, first hundred words, header tags, alt tags, and URLs. However, you can also sprinkle keywords in the body text naturally.

Another thing to remember while adjusting keywords is to avoid keyword stuffing. Don’t overfill your content with keywords, as search engines don’t like this practice. Instead, maintain a healthy keyword density of 1-2%, according to most SEOs.

3 – Create Content That Satisfies the Search Intent

Search engines don’t randomly provide results for a query. Instead, they first analyse the input search terms, evaluate indexed sites for the most relevant content, and then generate the results. Mostly, the web pages that satisfy search intent appear in the list.

Therefore, focus on covering the topics so search engines find your content highly relevant for search queries. For this purpose, avoid filling your content with generic information. Conduct detailed research on the topic and include authentic and valuable insights in the content.

Try to address all the readers' problems and provide practical tips to solve those hurdles. This increases the chances of your content being displayed at the top of search results.

4 – Keep Content Easily Comprehensible

Remember, readability and clarity are essential factors that search engines look at while evaluating a site's content quality. Lacking them means making your site less deserving of ranking. Therefore, don’t compromise on the comprehensibility of your content.

Avoid using technical terms and jargon to make your content easy to read. Instead, use familiar words that everyone can understand. Also, abstain from connecting the words with complex sentence structures, as it further enhances the content complexity.  

Use simple sentences and short sentences capable of conveying the message effectively. Also, keep the length of each paragraph up to 3-4 lines. All these practices make your content SEO-friendly.

5 – Ensure Content Originality

Upon finding plagiarism on your site, search engines can penalise it on different levels, like lowering ranking and even deleting it permanently. If you don’t want your site penalised by search engines, always ensure content originality before uploading to your site.

The best way to avoid the risk of plagiarism and ensure originality is to keep an eye out for duplication and add sourced information to content in your own words. 

However, chances of accidental plagiarism still exist. An effective way to avoid such an issue is using a cutting-edge plagiarism detector. 

There is no need to go behind costly tools for this purpose. You can easily find a plagiarism checker free on SmallSEOTools.com and use it to identify accidental duplication in your content. Such a tool will use sophisticated algorithms and an extensive database to determine plagiarised sections and highlight them. It will also display the proportion of unique and original content in the underlying text.

6 – Enrich Content with Stunning Visuals

Remember, readers don’t like content containing just words. Upon finding content with nothing but long paragraphs, they mostly leave the website and go to other sources. This badly influences essential SEO metrics like bounce rate and average time spent.

That’s why make your content worth reading by adding stunning visuals. For this purpose, you can include infographics, illustrations, meaningful images, visual charts, etc. To ensure consistent branding on all site pages, you must create these visuals independently.

Once you enrich each page with captivating visuals, visitors will likely stay on your site longer. Also, it will increase the engagement rate of your site significantly.

7 – Optimise Visual for Search Engines

Adding visuals doesn’t mean creating or sourcing an image and inserting it anywhere in the content. Instead, there are many things you need to do to make these visuals SEO-friendly.

To optimise a picture for search engines, use a descriptive alt-tag with it.  The alt tag makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index images by letting them know what the image is about. Also, compress the size of the photos to avoid affecting site speed.

For this purpose, you can capitalise on an online image compressor capable of reducing image size without compromising quality. 

Also, you can include images’ URLs to the site map to make them more discoverable in text-based and picture searches.

8 – Get Spotted in Featured Snippets

A featured snippet is a short and to-the-point answer that search engines show above all the results against a query. This is specially displayed to let users quickly find the solution to their problem. Getting spots in featured snippets means staying on top and attracting maximum traffic.

If you want your site to appear in featured snippets, you must cover all possible queries, especially those that start with how, why, and can. Moreover, don’t stuff your content with unnecessary details when answering any query. Instead, try to cover your answer in as few words as possible.

After you optimise your content, it is more likely that search engines will prefer the optimised pages of your site to display in featured snippets. This can cause a drastic increase in organic traffic.

9 – Effectively Perform Internal Linking

Internal links improve the SEO of your site in different ways. They provide a comprehensive understanding of site structure to search engines. Also, they make linked pages more authoritative in the eyes of search engines by transferring authority internally.

Therefore, make sure that every page on your site contains internal links. A standard blog post of 1200-1500 words must have three internal links. Well, the quantity of links may vary with the length of the content. Also, ensure that you prefer linking to the most essential pages of your site.

Moreover, when choosing anchor text for internal linking, you must prefer selecting keyword-rich text. Additionally, link each page with a different but most relevant anchor text.

10 – Structure Your Content Appropriately

When you upload content to your site, search engines crawl it and assign it a distinct position in search results. The proper content structure makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index content better. Therefore, your content should be appropriately structured.

Use header tags appropriately to make your content easily scannable for search engines. Remember, content should have only one main header (H1). Usually, this header is used to mark the title of the content. The subleaders from H2 to H6 can be used to divide the information into subtopics.

When structuring your content, use header tags chronologically. For example, all the subheads should come under H1, H3 under H2, H4 under H3, etc.

11 – Make The Most of Title And Description

Title and description hold fundamental importance in SEO. These two content elements can act as traffic magnets. A compelling title combined with a persuasive description leaves users with no chance except to click and see what’s inside, resulting in a high click-through rate.

Therefore, your titles and descriptions should be rich. You can use techniques like FOMO (fear of missing out) to drive maximum clicks. Also, you can create a sense of urgency by using time-sensitive and action-driven words.

Also, don’t extend their lengths unnecessarily, as search engines only show 50–60 words of title and 150–160 words of description in results.

12 – Build A Strong Network Of Backlinks

When evaluating a site's authority, search engines also look at whether it is linked to somewhere else on the web. When they find a site featured on multiple authoritative sites, they perceive it as a credible source of information compared to those with fewer or fewer backlinks.

So, earn quality backlinks to increase your site's credibility in search engines' eyes. In this regard, remember that irrelevant backlinks are not considered a vote of confidence. Each external web source linking to your site must be relevant to your niche.

The more backlinks your site has, the higher its authority becomes. Producing quality content that provides value to readers helps you gain links from reputed sites.

13 – Detect And Remove Technical Issues

Along with on-page and off-page SEO, keeping an eye on the technical essentials of your site is also important. A technically fit website has a higher chance of ranking on search engines. So, make sure your site doesn’t contain any technical issues.

Most sites have unseen broken links that hinder search engines during crawling and indexing. Locate such pages and replace the broken links with the correct URLs. Also, it detects and removes incorrect redirects that irritate visitors and search engines.

Moreover, pay proper attention to problems like missing alt-tags, missing meta details, improper URL structure, crawling and indexing errors, etc. Fixing all these issues makes your site ready to rank.

14 – Extensively Focus On User Experience

The user experience is one of the main ranking factors. All the search engines demand site owners to provide a smooth browsing journey to their visitors. With a poor user experience, your site faces low visibility issues. That’s why make sure your site is user-friendly.

One of the main things on which user experience depends is the design of a website. The web layout matters for both search engines and visitors. So, by cleverly using graphical elements, create compelling and easily navigable designs that entice visitors to stay for a long time.

Many free elegant themes for popular CMSs are available on the internet. If your site’s design is outdated, you can use those free themes to take the user experience to new heights. 

15 – Stay Up-to-date With Latest SEO Trends

Remember, SEO is not a static field. It keeps evolving with time. Every year, new techniques and strategies appear on the scene, allowing you to align your site with the current needs of search engines. Always be vigilant for such updates and trends in the market.

Adapting to the latest changes on time keeps you ahead of the curve and positively influences the overall SEO of your site. Search engines also keep changing their algorithms with time to make the most deserving site appear at the top.

Keep a firm eye on such updates and modify your site according to them as soon as possible. Follow the experts and visit the top SEO platforms regularly to stay current.

16 – Make Sure Your Site Loads Super-Fast

When users click on the link to your website, they expect it to load in 1-3 seconds. The more the load time exceeds this number, the higher the bounce rate. So, ensure your site loads in the first two or three seconds. Otherwise, you might need more traffic.

To improve the site’s speed, check how many seconds it takes to load. For this purpose, you can capitalise on a free tool like Google PSI (page speed insight). Such tools tell the site speed and provide valuable suggestions to load the site faster.

Excessive HTTP requests, large file sizes, lack of mobile optimisation, and absence of CDN are common problems that lower the speed of your site.

17 – Add Your Site To Local Directories

If you run a local business website to target a limited audience, adding your site to local directories is highly beneficial. When your site gets listed in multiple directories, it enhances your site’s local authority in search engines’ eyes.

This increases the chances of getting featured at the top of search results, especially when someone makes local searches. Also, directory submissions make it more likely for you to appear in top businesses. Therefore, you must consider directory listings to enhance your online reach.

However, ensure that you provide the same information in all directories. Also, you prefer to submit your site to authoritative directories, which propagate strong signals to search engines.

To Sum Up

After going through this article, we hope you have become familiar with all the secrets of ranking on search engines. So, stop wasting your time and start benefiting from these SEO hacks today. Remember, a one-time implementation doesn’t guarantee success. You need to consistently apply these techniques to grab a spot on top of search results for the long term. 

FAQs

Author Bio: Anita is a talented content writer who works for a leading IT company. There, she is interested in creating result-driven content. Her favourite quotation comes from Margaret Atwood, who said, “A word after a word after a word is power!” 

She focuses on immense research and uses her passion for storytelling and content writing skills to craft engaging content. She has written hundreds of value-providing articles. Her ability to adapt her writing style to suit diverse audiences makes her write-ups stand out. She can quickly turn complex topics into easily digestible content because of her exceptional expertise, making her a valuable team asset.

She likes to have fun with her loved ones or participate in volunteer work during her spare time. Anita believes in continuous learning and seeks new ways to improve her work.