Rank higher on Google: 7 simple tips

Rank higher on Google: 7 simple tips, straight from Google#

SEO has a problem: everyone has an opinion, and half the advice going around is ten years out of date. So for this article we set a strict rule: nothing from memory. Every tip below comes from Google's official recommendations, the guide Google publishes itself to explain how to show up well in its results. It's less exciting than a "secret technique", but it has one advantage: it's the source.

1. Write for your readers, not for Google#

This is Google's number-one piece of advice, word for word: create content that's "helpful, reliable, and people-first". Its official SEO guide goes further: compelling, useful content will likely influence your presence in results "more than any of the other suggestions in this guide".

In practice: actually answer the reader's question, from what you know and what you've done. Google even poses the test question: after reading, does your visitor leave with what they came for, or do they have to search again elsewhere? If it's the second, no technical trick will save the page.

2. Use the words your customers type#

Google's second key best practice: use the words people would actually search for, and place them in prominent spots, the title, the main heading, link text and image alt text.

The trap is your own vocabulary. You say "document management solution", your customer types "organize my invoices online". Google notes that novice and expert readers search for the same thing with different words: write with the words of the people you want to reach, not the words of your trade.

3. Get every page's title and description right#

Your page title becomes the blue link in the results, and it's what decides the click. Google's official recipe: a title that's unique to each page, clear, concise, and accurately describes the content.

Just below the title, Google shows a snippet, often pulled from your meta description. Here too the guidance is simple: one or two sentences, unique to each page, summing up the essentials and making people want to click. Two lines of text per page is one of the best effort-to-result ratios in all of SEO.

4. URLs that mean something#

Google recommends descriptive URLs, with useful words rather than random identifiers: yoursite.com/services/client-portal speaks to everyone, yoursite.com/p?id=6772 speaks to no one. Parts of the URL can even show up directly in the search results.

Same logic for structure: grouping pages about the same topic in the same directory helps Google understand how your site is organized and how often each part changes.

5. Link your site, properly#

It's stated plainly in Google's guide: Google mostly discovers pages by following links. An article nothing points to is an article Google will take a long time to find, and one your readers will never reach.

Two official pieces of guidance to apply: link your pages to each other where relevant, and get the link text right, so it announces what's behind it. "Our article on the cost of custom software" beats "click here". Internal linking is a topic we know well: we even built a tool that automates it for a media company, thousands of links placed in the right spot, without a human hand.

6. Don't forget your images#

Many people search visually, and Google says so: an image can be the front door to your site. Two moves are enough, straight from the official guide: place the image near the text that talks about it, and give it descriptive alt text, one sentence saying what the image shows. Good for Google, and for visually impaired readers.

7. The most profitable tip: open Search Console#

If you take away one thing from this article, make it this one. Search Console is Google's free tool that shows you your site the way Google sees it: the queries bringing you visitors, the pages climbing, the ones with a problem. It's literally the first step Google recommends after applying its SEO guide.

And above all, read what it tells you. Search Console flags indexing problems, pages it can't read, and offers its own recommendations. It's Google writing to you to say what to fix on your site: few pieces of SEO advice are that direct.

What's useless, according to Google itself#

The official guide devotes a whole section to false good ideas, and it's worth gold. The meta keywords tag? Google doesn't use it. Repeating your keyword everywhere? That's stuffing, against Google's spam policies. The ideal article length? It doesn't exist, Google writes that there's "no magical word count". Writing to a word count even appears on its list of warning signs of content made for engines rather than people.

In other words: half the "optimizations" you're sold have no effect. The time you'd spend on them is better invested in the seven points above.

And when the technical side kicks in#

Everything above is within your reach without coding. But there's another level: site speed, page experience, code that Google reads without obstacle. Google asks that its crawlers see your pages the way a visitor does, and rewards sites that are pleasant to use. That plays out in the site's foundations, and it's our terrain: at Atelicode, SEO isn't a layer added afterward, it's built into the structure from the first line of code. That's what we did for WinUp and its full SEO suite, and it's how we build everything, from showcase sites to platforms.

Your site is slow, Search Console shows errors you don't understand, or you're starting from scratch? Tell us in a couple of lines where you stand.

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Frequently asked questions#