I can virtually see the confusion on the faces of my retired and soon-to-be-retired readers out there. For those of you who want to get into affiliate marketing, getting ranked on Google is a very important aspect of getting traffic to your website. What is ranking on Google? Why should I want ranking on Google? And, if this is so important, how do I get my content ranked on Google? Well, I’m here to help you with all of that. While I was learning to build my website, I found that there are a few very important tools you need to get ranked. Here is how to get ranked on Google!
What Does it Mean to Get “Ranked” on Google?
Ranking refers to a website’s position in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). There are several factors that influence whether a website appears higher on the SERP based on the content relevance to the search term, or the quality of backlinks (links to an external website) pointing to the page.
So, when you do a Google search on a subject, a list of articles comes up as a result of the search on the SERP. People generally go to the articles on the first page. You want your rank to be a low number, like 1 or 2, because that means you are listed First or Second on the SERP.
Google has a proprietary algorithm that “crawls” or basically reads your website posts and decides where they rank on the SERP. This is not done by humans! If you think of the billions of pages of information on the internet, there just aren’t enough people to do all that ranking. So, it is done by computer.
Why Does My Content Need to “Rank”?
Affiliate marketing is about getting traffic to your site. You want as many people as possible to be reading your content, because only a small percentage actually “convert” or click on and buy something from your affiliate partners. It’s a numbers game. The more people you have reading your site, the higher the number of poeple who will click through and buy something, from which you get your commissions.
A Boat Load of Patience
Before you can even hope to get ranked on Google, you need to employ the most important tool of all; plenty of patience. Even when you use the tools below, a new website or a new domain name will not rank right away. That’s because one of the things that your are building with Google is TRUST. Google wants to see that you have great content, consistently posted, and shared throughout the internet on a regular basis. It will take a considerable amount of time and content for Google to trust you enough to put you on their first SERP.
So, when you post an article, don’t wait around to see if it ranks. Move on to your next article and your next posting. In my training the instructor says, it’s like that old saying, “A watched pot never boils.” So, first and foremost, write your content, put your ranking tools into each posting, and just keep writing and posting. Eventually, you will start ranking and ranking quickly.
Here are the Meta title and Meta description for this article. In WordPress, you will find this screen at the very bottom of your editor.
Tool #1 – Meta Title
The meta title is the name of an HTML document.
Ever wondered what HTML stands for? Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on the internet. This is from Google Dictionary
The Meta Title is stored in the head data of the HTML document. It can only appear once in the entire document. Optimizing meta titles for better rankings is an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Alternative descriptions of meta titles are the title tag, or page title.
The meta title is basically your keyword or phrase that you have researched on an SEO tool such as Jaaxy.
Tool #2 – Meta Description
The meta description is a snippet of up to 160 characters – a tag in HTML – which summarizes a post’s content. Search engines show the meta description in search results mostly when the searched-for phrase is within the description, so optimizing the meta description is crucial.
The Meta Description is your keyword or phrase, with other information about the content you have written. This is where you can really promote yourself or your brand, by creating a catchy phrase or an attention-grabbing saying.
Tool #3 – Keyword in Your Content (Once!)
You might find in your own research that there are several schools of thought on how many times you should put your keyword or phrase in your content. I have been taught to put in my keyword once, in your first or second paragraph. Otherwise, Google may assume that your are “Keyword Stuffing”.
“Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). From Google Search Console Support
So add your keyword (or your meta title) into your content only once!
Here you will find the Alt Tag. Click the “add media” button at the top of your editor, select a picture or download one, and then the text boxes will appear to your right. Put your keyword in as your Alt Text
Tool #4 – Alt Tags Applied to All of Your Images
Definition: An alt tag, also known as “alt attribute” and “alt description,” is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines. Applying images to alt tags such as product photos can positively impact an e commerce store’s search engine rankings.
In WordPress, when you are adding images to your content, use the “add media” button. This brings up a “wizard” that lets you add Alt Tags, titles, descriptions, etc to your images before the image is added to your content. And you can always go back and edit your images to add Alt Tags. There is also space to provide descriptions and captions. You don’t always have to have a caption, but it is a great idea to put in a description for our Sight Impaired readers. The Alt Tag should be your keyword or phrase.
Tool #5 – Internal Links
Internal links are where you refer back to something you have already written. First of all, it’s handy not to re-invent the wheel, by writing something over again you already wrote. Second of all, internal links give your readers more optional information about the subject at hand without losing their place in your main article.
Internal links also connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website. They can establish a hierarchy on your site, allowing you to give the most important pages and posts more link value than other, less valuable, pages. So using the right internal linking strategy can boost your SEO.
Here’s an internal link for you, my article on SEO.
Tool #6 – External Links
External likes take you to other outside authorities to “back up” what you are saying as truth. A great external link, such as to Wikipedia, (See what I did there? I externally linked you to Wikipedia!) can lend authority to what you are saying, and therefore give you more trust within Google’s algorithm.
“Valuable external links will also help to improve the authority of your website, by providing a viewer with references. Whenever you link to another site, that site will see that you’re linking to them. Then, they are likely to return the favor by linking to your site in their content.” From SEO Clarity
Tool #7 – Embedded Video
Video gives you a boost in rankings, which allows more people to see your site, which means more people will click on your link, but they won’t actually stay on your site very long if your on-page content isn’t high-quality. From Lemonlight
My trainer said that embedded video is optional. It doesn’t need to go into every post, but it’s a good idea to do it for some of your posts. I personally have limited embedded video. I have inserted a couple of training videos in some of my posts, but have not gotten into posting a lot of videos. That will be my next project, so stay tuned, and I will let you know how THAT goes!
How Did I Learn All of This?
I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate, an online community and hosting platform that teaches people like you and me how to create and maintain a profitable affiliate marketing website.
I of course am an advocate for retirees learning affiliate marketing. This is something you can start in your spare time that will bring in extra cash for all of your retirement needs. See my review and other articles by clicking below.
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In Conclusion:
Make it a routine to use all of these tools, each and every time you write a post for your website. With perseverance and patience, you will see your articles start to rank left and right. I know because I have been doing this only a short time, and have over 40 articles ranked using this set of tools. So, if I can do it, you can too! Sign up for Wealthy Affiliate today and learn how to get ranked on Google!
Please put your comments and questions below, and thank you for reading!
references:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/21-minute-ranking-method-in-7-steps/a_aid/13c69a95
https://www.outerboxdesign.com/web-design-articles/google-page-rank
https://en.ryte.com/wiki/Meta_Title
https://yoast.com/meta-descriptions/
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en
https://yoast.com/image-seo-alt-tag-and-title-tag-optimization/
https://yoast.com › internal-linking-for-seo-why-and-how
https://www.lemonlight.com › blog › how-will-video-help-seo-ranking
Excellent article you have written up here and I found it helpful. Getting ranked on google is everything to an internet marketer as that would guarantee flow of traffic to the website. In order to achieve this feet, there is need to focus more on SEO and the tips you have shared here all concerns targeting the content to make it unique and relevant to the keyword searches by potential customers. These tips are really spot on and if well incorporated would definitely guarantee better ranking on google. Thanks
Hi Tracy, thanks for your comments. Yes, I completely agree that getting ranked is EVERYTHING. Affiliate marketing does not work unless you get traffic to your site. And you won’t get traffic if nobody knows you’re out there. So, I thought this would be a good subject for all my affiliate marketing friends to review. Thanks again for reading and commenting. Rhonda
Wow, not a bad one here on the how to get ranked. I have just joined wealthy affiliate so I am happy that you can share a post with such wealthy of knowledge. I didn’t know about the first two on your list. Most of the time, what I hear is that one needs to write good content. You have given a very technical view on how to get ranked. I will bookmark your post for reference. I recommend wealthy affiliate too to anyone who wants to make good money online. Tha k you for sharing this knowledge.
Hi Henderson! Thank you for your complements. Yes, I didn’t know about the meta title and description until I was several posts into my first website. So I thought it would be helpful for some people to know that. I am so glad you are working with Wealthy Affiliate. That’s the platform I recommend as well. Thanks for bookmarking my post, and thanks again for reading and commenting. Rhonda
Rhonda, first off, excellent summary of ranking in Google. I bookmarked your post for reference. I really enjoyed how you broke everything down very plainly. The list of references also adds a nice touch so I can dig deeper if I have questions. The only thing was it took almost a minute for the post to load on my computer. So hopefully you can fix that. Otherwise very relevant info that I will use today.
To your success,
Goldroad
Hey Jay, thanks for reading and commenting on my site. I am one to site my sources, because I get a little bent when somebody copies my work. Also thanks for letting me know that my site is slow loading. I will look into that. Thanks again for your comments. Rhonda
This is very clear and helpful post on getting ranked in Google. I’ve found it so much easier getting ranked on Yahoo and Bing, it’s unfortunate that nearly all of the internet uses Google, which I’ve really struggled to get to grips with in terms of getting to a decent rank. I think I may be guilty, in Google’s eyes, of “keyword stuffing” so perhaps I should address that. Thanks very much for such s well researched and referenced post.
Hello and thanks for visiting my website. Yes, when I first started out, I was a “keyword stuffer”. I had to go back and modify a whole bunch of posts to get them to rank. So I feel your pain! Keep working at it and use these steps, and you will be ranking before you know it. Best wishes to you, and thanks again for reading and commenting! Rhonda