How to get your article ranked on Google?

Every website and blog is made with the ultimate motive of gathering traffic and users.

The best way to achieve this target is to try to rank your website on Google Search Result Pages.

To rank your website on Google your webpage needs to be “Search Engine Optimized”. When we say optimized, we refer to the way a search engine analyzes a webpage in accordance to the relevance of the search query.

For users to use google as the ultimate source of knowledge, google needs to show them the most appropriate results.

To fulfil this condition Google has developed certain algorithms. Based on these Algorithms a website can qualify to either reach the first few search results or be buried under layers of relatively well optimized webpages.

Based on these algorithms, Bloggers have structured a way to Glory. Glory received by ranking first on Google.

Let’s go through these steps to Glory:

Step 1: Finding the right Focus Keywords: before we start with SEO (Search engine optimization) we need to figure out what to rank for. A sports website would want to rank for keywords such as soccer, basketball, an educational website would want to rank for keywords like schools, colleges and an affiliate website would want to rank for keywords such as Amazon Coupons, Amazon promo code etc.

Step 2: Maintaining the right set of keywords the right amount of times: After you’ve figured out the right set of keywords, you need to use them in the content on your website. You need to use these keywords the right amount of times but don’t try to stuff them deliberately (Google is smarter than you think it is). A keyword density of 1.5–2% should be ideal for a webpage. Use of latent semantics indexing keywords (related keywords) is also a practice most bloggers follow.

Step 3: Get your content Structured in the right way: While you write this content, you should be careful to structure this in a better way. Use of proper Headlines H1, Sub headings H2, H3 etc, and using keywords within these headings is the best way to let google know what you are focusing on. Bloggers often structure content in a tabular format to maintain the Readability

Step 4: Adding Images and Infographics: Google just doesn’t read your content but also goes through the images in your post. So adding relevant images (mention the correct caption, Alt text and description in the image) will make both google and your readers happy. Adding Infographics (Images with Information) is the best way to make an article attractive yet informative.

Step 5:Interlinking to other pages:While you write this article make sure that you just don’t leave the readers in the bondage of your article but give them a way to escape to information on other deep corners of your own website.Interlinking by anchoring texts to other pages is the best way and it also helps to rank better on search engines. While you do this, do not link your focus keyword to some other page as it questions the very necessity of the original post. Also, try to interlink as relevantly as possible.

Step 6: External Linking: Linking to your own domain is not good enough, you need to link to related articles across the web so that the user is provided with options to explore if they could not find the answers on your website. Try to maintain a 60–40 ratio of internal to external linking for your page to rank best on google.

Step 7: SEO title and Meta Descriptions: After you have done everything on your page you need to check how you would be shown on the search engines. So to define a SEO title describing the gist of your page at the same time using your focus keywords in it and writing a description that elaborates your content can make your road to glory a lot easier.

Taking care of the above few steps while writing your article can help you rank better on search engines and not just get traffic but provide your users with information in the best way possible. Glory Indeed, Is not far away my friend!

How to get your article ranked on Google? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.