It’s a no-brainer that SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies in digital marketing. With SEO, you not only improve your rankings to generate highly targeted leads, but you can also enhance your branding.
That’s why, if you have a business website, you should never neglect the importance of SEO.
However, here is the problem!
When you search for ‘how to improve SEO rankings for your company website,’ you are more likely to come across complex and lengthy guides that can make SEO seem overwhelming, leading people to avoid delving into it.
But that’s not the case!
In this guide, I will focus on the key factors that truly matter in 2023 and that you can concentrate on to improve your SEO rankings.
On this page
Improve Core web vitals
In the article on how SEO improves your website, we discussed that SEO focuses on various aspects of your website, including the technical part.
The ultimate goal of search engines is to provide the best user experience to their users. That’s why, when working on SEO, it becomes important to consider all the factors that can influence user experience.
Google has confirmed that site speed has a significant impact on user experience, which is why they have confirmed that site speed is a ranking factor.
Many websites don’t prioritize site speed and may believe it has only a minor effect, so they focus on other aspects instead.
However, this is a big mistake.
Numerous studies have confirmed that websites securing top positions on the first page of search results are much faster than sites ranking lower on that page.
So, this could be an area where you may not be focusing enough, and by doing so, you can improve the SEO rankings of your company website.
Often, company websites have elaborate designs that can slow down their loading times, causing a significant drop in rankings.
In fact, I’ve personally experienced the negative impact of this issue, which is why I always prioritize optimizing site speed before addressing other aspects of SEO.
If you are on WordPress, you can use these tools to improve your WordPress site speed and load your site in less than a second, as mine does.
You can check your company website’s core web vitals here on Page Speed Insights where you will also get suggestions to improve it.
Fix other technical SEO issues:
In fact, website speed is also a technical issue, but it’s way more important than many others.
If your one-time efforts can bring you some decent results, why wouldn’t you focus on such easy tasks?
So, make sure your site doesn’t have 404 pages, orphaned pages (pages with no internal links at all), images with missing ALT tags, or broken external links.
All of these are one-time efforts that can make significant changes in your rankings for sure.
Do appropriate keyword research:
Once you’ve addressed and fixed the technical issues, the next crucial step is to conduct thorough keyword research.
Effective keyword research can yield remarkable results for two main reasons:
- It serves as a pathway to achieving your goals.
- It helps Google understand your target audience
Keywords: a path to achieve your business goals:
Many people make mistakes when it comes to keyword research. They mistakenly believe that simply entering their primary keyword into a search tool and clicking a button constitutes thorough keyword research.
However, that’s far from the truth.
For example, consider this scenario:
If you search for the term ‘Business’ on Ahrefs, you’ll see a wide range of results. Some users might be looking for business analysts, while others may be seeking business loans.
Not all of these searchers are your target audience.
Your focus should be solely on keywords that align with and can help you achieve your specific business goals.
That, indeed, is the most effective approach to conducting keyword research.
It helps Google understand your targeted audience:
The second benefit you gain is a significant improvement in rankings.
By intentionally targeting a specific audience for your company website, you align with Google’s algorithm, which also seeks to understand your audience.
As Google becomes more familiar with your audience and if you have numerous pages targeting the same audience, your overall rankings on Google improve. Many SEO experts refer to this as ‘topical authority.’
In fact, with this strategy, you’re helping Google comprehend your audience more effectively. If your content is high-quality, Google will prioritize serving your pages to them. Consequently, this approach enhances your rankings.
Update your previous content:
Now that you have identified your keywords and refined your audience targeting, it’s time to align your content with these keywords.
You might discover that some of your existing content pieces do not contribute to achieving your business goals. In such cases, it’s advisable to delete these pages and set up redirects to highly relevant pages. This ensures that you avoid having 404 pages and retain valuable link juice.
Next, it’s essential to update your older content, bringing it up to date and optimizing it fully for SEO. This is one of the quickest ways to boost rankings for your company website, as Google places significant value on older pages with current, relevant information.
Additionally, consider enhancing your content with visuals and infographics to provide added value and create link-worthy assets.
During the content update process, pay attention to proper internal linking to ensure a seamless and informative user experience.
Do internal linking appropriately:
As mentioned earlier, it’s important to avoid having any orphaned pages on your website as this aids search engines, such as Google, in crawling your entire site effectively.
Now, the question arises: should you utilize tools like WordPress plugins for internal linking?
Well, these tools can be beneficial in certain situations, but I would recommend doing it manually.
There are two reasons:
- You can optimize anchor text for each internal link
- You can link highly relevant pages with each other
Yes, both are important!
Anchor text optimization for each internal link
Every internal link on your website should be strategically linked to a keyword relevant to your content. You can use the same keyword as your anchor text, indicating to Google which keywords your page is the best fit for.
However, it’s not about targeting the exact same keyword for all your internal links; instead, you should use keyword variants. For instance, if I were to target keywords for this page (the one you’re currently reading), I might choose keywords such as:
- SEO for company websites
- SEO for business websites
- SEO to improve website rankings
As you can see, all of these keywords are highly relevant and make it easier for Google to understand the context and purpose of the page.
Link highly relevant pages with each other
The second issue I’ve observed with AI tools is their inability to accurately determine which pages are highly relevant. They may suggest linking pages under categories, but not all pages fit neatly into a category.
Take digital marketing, for instance; it encompasses numerous subcategories, each containing a multitude of different topics. Asking AI to handle this level of complexity is often not feasible (at least not at the moment).
That’s why it’s essential to do this manually!
Admittedly, if your website has tens of thousands of pages, manual linking may seem overwhelming. In such cases, it makes sense to rely on tools, as having some level of internal linking is better than none at all.
You might be wondering, what’s the best strategy for internally linking pages?
The rule of thumb is simple: only internally link a page if it adds significant value, to the point where at least one out of a hundred users is likely to click the link to access and read the linked page.
Add high-quality content:
Now that your website is fully prepared for takeoff, it’s time to start adding valuable content, such as blog posts and other essential pages.
There are several compelling reasons to incorporate valuable content:
- Targeting Potential Clients: You can reach your potential clients through search engines with different pages at various stages of the customer journey. It’s not limited to just services or product pages; you can also provide information that raises awareness about their issues, offers solutions, and seamlessly integrates your services.
- Enhancing Branding: By targeting potential clients in the early stages and offering valuable information that genuinely satisfies their needs, you increase your chances of winning them over. This approach contributes to building a strong brand.
- Ensuring SEO Safety: Relying solely on a single services page while building numerous backlinks can leave your website vulnerable to algorithmic penalties. In contrast, if your brand covers a wide range of topics that your prospects search for, and you build links to all those pages, you’re more likely to establish your website as an authoritative source in Google’s eyes.
For these reasons, our SEO packages include up to 10 blog posts a month, even in the starter plan.
Build links:
Links play a crucial role in improving your rankings on search engines. While it’s true that you can potentially rank for a keyword on Google without any backlinks, doing so would require an immense amount of effort and a significant amount of time compared to achieving the same goal with the help of backlinks.
In essence, backlinks save you time!
Let me explain both scenarios:
There is a concept known as ranking for keywords without backlinks, which revolves around building topical authority. As mentioned earlier, topical authority involves covering various subtopics related to your primary topic.
For instance, if you run an HR and payroll SaaS product and want to rank for the keyword “HR software for small businesses,” you’d need to identify numerous other keywords that small businesses might search for when looking for products like yours. You would then create content around these keywords and internally link them to your main page. While this approach can eventually help you rank for competitive keywords, it can be time-consuming.
On the other hand, if you prefer not to write hundreds of articles and want to focus primarily on the sales funnel, acquiring high-quality backlinks can help you achieve higher rankings much faster and with fewer resources.
So, it’s true that you can rank for keywords without backlinks, but it requires patience and the luxury of waiting for rankings to improve naturally.
For instance, it normally takes 6 months to show results, it can take over a year without backlinks.
Why not invest in backlinks instead of waiting, especially when you know that time is money?
That’s why we offer up to 5 valuable backlinks each month in our starter plan. If you want to do it yourself, here are easy link-building strategies.
If you can’t do all this your own, then you need SEO services.
Final thoughts:
I’ve shared the best strategies for improving the rankings of your company website i.e., a tech company. It’s not an extensive and difficult-to-implement list; instead, I’ve kept things straightforward and easy to understand.
The three key pillars to focus on for improving the rankings of any business website are:
- Technical SEO: Ensure your website is technically sound and optimized.
- Valuable Content: Create high-quality and relevant content.
- Quality Link Building: Build authoritative and relevant backlinks.
However, it’s important to note that these strategies may not be suitable for beginners or inexperienced individuals. Handling these tasks requires expertise and a deep understanding of SEO.
You may choose to work with a freelancer, an SEO agency, or an in-house team, but avoid relying on inexperienced individuals or so-called SEOs who offer low-quality content (such as 500 to 800-word blog posts) and fake backlinks (links with fake DA/DR), or engage in spammy link-building schemes like web 2.0 or blog commenting.
While working with genuine SEO freelancers or agencies may involve a slightly higher cost, they are the ones who can deliver real results and significantly improve the rankings of your company website.