Get higher in Google by 2025 with 16 tips (SEA & SEO)

Introduction

A high ranking in Google is important for your website. This is because it ensures that more people will click on your website, which will also ultimately lead to more sales. There are two ways to find your way to the top: SEA and SEO.

SEA: higher in paid search results (Google Ads)

Let's start with the "easy" way. Maybe you are not yet familiar and are wondering what is SEA: by SEA we mean Search Engine Advertising. Here you create an account with Google Ads and you can advertise in Google search results, among other things. You pay a certain amount per click to Google (you only have to pay if the ad is actually clicked on). The cost per click (CPC) varies per keyword.

Google often puts the ads above the organic search results, however, it is not a guarantee that you will rank high in Google with SEA because you have to compete against others who are also paid advertisers. It is important with SEA that you get the most out of your advertising costs. Therefore, try to do proper research on the keywords you want to target. You can use Google's Keyword planner for this purpose.

Note that the closer the keywords are to the point of purchase, the more expensive they tend to be (e.g., "buy iPhone 12 Pro Eindhoven" will have a higher CPC than "compare iPhone 12 Pro").

Key pros and cons SEA:

• Fast results: The big advantage of SEA is that you come right to the top of the results. You can distinguish an organic search result with the paid search result by the text sponsored or ad listed with it.
• Well measurable: Another advantage is that SEA is very well measurable. You can use Google Analytics for this purpose. All data can be measured and thus offers you the opportunities to make good adjustments.
• No long-term option: The big disadvantage is that as soon as you stop paying, the ranking disappears right away.
• Expensive: SEA is expensive simply because you have to pay for each click, some more than others.
• Time-consuming: You need to do good research on the keywords your target audience uses. Google's Keyword planner can get you started here, though.

SEO: higher in organic search results

The 'hard' way is achieved through SEO: Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, there are "no ad costs," simply because it is not an ad. What is SEO: By SEO, we mean optimizing/improving your website so that it ranks higher in Google's organic search results (it is not possible to overtake sponsored results with SEO). An effective search engine marketing strategy is very important for any business. However, Google's algorithm is constantly changing and this does not make things easier. Therefore, there is no one correct approach to it, but there are a number of factors you can consider when creating content, updating your website, etc. To help you get started, we have listed 16 recommendations to get your website higher in Google.

16 SEO tips to get higher in Google

SEO involves a bit more than SEA, so we've compiled a list of 16 tips so you can boost your shop's Google rankings:

1. Keyword analysis

A very important part of SEO. With a keyword analysis, you map out the keywords that are relevant to your target audience. Here it is also important to look at the search volume. You can write a super interesting article but if nobody looks it up all your work will have been for nothing. There are a number of tools (free and paid) that will help you perform a keyword analysis:

• Ahrefs (paid)
• SEMrush (free & paid)
• MOZ (paid)
• KWFinder (free & paid)
• Google Keyword Planner (free)

2. Create content that adds real value for your visitors

Make sure that when a visitor lands on your page, that valuable information is also available. Among other things, Google takes into account the relevance of your content to the search result when determining your ranking.

3. What is rewarded by Google

If you have done a keyword analysis and would like to share certain information with your target audience that they will find interesting, first look at what is rewarded by Google. What I mean by this, type in the keywords from your analysis and look at the top organic results. For example, if you search for "best VPN," you will see that there are many listings shown in the top organic results. If you want to write a page about why your VPN is the best you will struggle to win a spot in the high rankings on the search term 'best VPN'.

4. Keep your content up-to-date as needed

If you wrote an article about the best vacation destination in 2022, it might be wise to update it for 2023. Simply because it is 2023 and people are also looking for up-to-date information.

5. Use page titles

Each page of your website has 1 title. Try to include in each title on your website the main keyword(s) that corresponds to the content on that page. In your code (HTML), you can find the title back from in the <title> tag.

6. Make (logical) use of your tags (H1, H2, etc.)

Headers make your page clear not only to the human eye, but also to Google. Make use of your tags in a logical order. Use H1 for your page title, H2 for the sections and H3 for the subsections, etc. When doing so, try not to skip a tag (e.g., H1 title and then H3 for the parts).

7. Write a good meta-title & meta-description

The meta-title & meta-description is how your link looks in Google search results. Try to keep your meta-title between 50 and 60 characters, similar to the page title so people don't get confused if it says something completely different.

Try to write the meta-description in about 160 characters. In it, answer the questions: what is this page about and what makes this the best choice? Try to include important keywords here as well.

8. Provide a fast and secure website

It may sound obvious, but make sure your website is secure (https). For this, your website must have an SSL certificate. In addition, make sure your website is fast for all devices. You can use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool for this.

9. Check your website via your mobile

Google values the mobile-friendliness of your website. Therefore, it is important to test whether your website works well for mobile users. You can use Google' s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to do this. If your website is not yet optimized for mobile users, Google will suggest what you can improve. Also, try opening your website on your mobile phone and click around, is there anything that bothers you?

10. Internal linking

Internal linking means links on your website that point to other parts of your website; the links keep visitors on your website. With internal links, you can give Google an indication of which pages are important to you. So take advantage of that!

11. Check for 'broken-links'

This is more applicable to sites that have been live for a while. Sometimes you may have created a page that is now no longer relevant and you delete it. What can then happen is that other pages that had an internal link to that page now have a broken link. So always check for internal links to the page before deleting it or redirect the old URL to a relevant page or just the homepage.

Httpstatus allows you to upload URLs in bulk (for free) and then provides status code for each URL. You can also choose tools like Screaming Frog to crawl your site and then look for broken-links, this ends up working more efficiently, but will require you to educate yourself on this. When doing this, pay attention to status codes that start with the 4 or 5.

12. Linkbuilding

An important part of your ranking is link building. In addition to internal links, you also have external links, which are links from other websites that link to your website. The more links pointing to your website, the better Google will rank your website. Importantly, quality outweighs quantity when it comes to external links for Google.

13. E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness.

To distinguish high quality from low quality, Google uses E-A-T. In it, Google indicates, among other things, that content on your website should be of high quality, indicate who is responsible for your website, reputation information on the Web and a safe, professional & secure website.

14. Structured data

By this we mean the type of data is highly organized allowing it to be understood by machine language. Search engines only understand the codes of your website, which is why you need to lay this out as well as you can. At schema.org you can find information on how to put down certain data in a structured way. There are also plugins that can help you with this. An example is the WordPress plugin Schema App Structured Data that offers schema formatting for the entire website.

15. Let people post comments/reviews

If you have a website where it may be relevant that people can post comments, give them the opportunity to do so. Comments are a great way to boost your website's rankings. In addition, accept reviews from your customers, which also helps your rankings. Note: Do not buy "fake" reviews, because Google is not a fan of these and there is a chance that your ranking will go down.

16. Never start adjusting everything at once!

A last but not least tip, never adapt everything at once. Always try it on a small 5% of your website first, test if it works and if positive, gradually adjust it for the rest of your website. You don't want to spend hours on your website only to see everything go backwards!

Outsource getting higher in Google (SEO/SEA)

Would you like your website to rank higher in Google, but don't have time to do SEA or SEO, or maybe your expertise lies completely elsewhere and you'd rather leave it to someone who knows about it? Lucky for you, there are plenty of online marketing agencies you can turn to for SEO and/or SEA support. Among other things, experienced marketers increase your company's online visibility and traffic among a specific target audience.

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