3 Working Methods to Dramatically Increase Your Site Rankings

For most people, blogging is all about creating content and building a brand for yourself. However, if you want to successfully make money with a blog and turn your expertise into a profitable business, you need to start treating it like a 'real business'. This means knowing the ins-and-outs of your site, what your audience is doing when they get to your site and why/how it ranks in the search results. On top of all of this, you still need to keep an eye on your competition and stay ahead of any new changes or trends that might affect your industry.

Something I continually stress to content creators and bloggers is that there are over a billion active websites in the world today — all of which are creating content. So why does this matter? Simple — we don't need more content, we simply need better content.

One of the most attractive means for getting traffic to your site is through the use of SEO and ranking in Google. This is especially true because it's a 'free' process. However, if you aren't going to put in the time and effort to understand what makes a site rank and compete in the search results, you might as well just give up.

To help with this process, today I'm going to show you three simple steps you can take to start improving your site rankings and SEO like never before.

1 – Analyze Your Site and Know Where You are Ranking

The ultimate dream for every site owner is to have their content ranking at the top of Google for their most sought after keywords and search phrases. Unfortunately, this is extremely unlikely to happen if you have a new website, or aren't focusing on your SEO, site optimization and competitor rankings. We all know the basics of SEO, but where most site owners tend to slack off is in the ongoing optimization and ranking process.

Sure, you just went live with a new article on your site and made sure it had over 1,200 words, a fancy keyword-rich title and some nice images to go along with it… but then what? Well, in most cases, you need to start promoting the heck out of it — and not just for the next 24-48 hours, but continually for several days, weeks and months to come. That is how you get content to rank at the top of Google.

At the same time, you also need to be monitoring your content as well. One tool that has been getting a lot of attention lately is Cyfe, which has an SEO Dashboard (which can be seen below) that allows you to track all components of your site when it comes to SEO, keywords and site rankings. By having a platform like this in place to actively monitor your site and it's rankings, you can then track what's working for your content promotion and what it isn't.

There are plenty of solutions out there when it comes to SEO tracking and site monitoring, just be sure you choose one that allows you to see metrics across all platforms beyond just SEO. This is going to help with the long-term success, growth, and rankings of your site — especially if you are going to implement the next two content creation and outreach methods below.

2 – Create Shareable Content and Spend Time on Outreach

Just as important as having the ability to track the rankings and performance of your content, is to have content created that your audience will actually find value in. The content you create for your site is two-fold in that you always want to provide value for your audience, but you also want to have content that other sites will link to and reference as well. As we all know, when it comes to SEO and site rankings… it's all about the backlinks.

Two great examples of shareable content that have worked time and time again are infographics and expert roundup posts. I've displayed two examples of each for you below.

There really is no need to explain what an infographic is because we've all likely seen them a million times. However, my short and simple way to explain them and why they are so important is that 'they bring data to life through visuals'. With all of this in mind… the question is how you can use existing data within your industry to create an infographic for your own site, then share it with your audience and maybe even get picked up in a big publication like Forbes, Inc. or Entrepreneur in the process.  For more actionable tips on how to make this work for your blog, read up on my infographic marketing tips for 2017.

Just like infographics, we've likely all seen and read through a few expert roundup posts as well. Not only have I participated in several of these, I've also run plenty of my own sites as well. You can see a few examples of top expert roundup posts here. So why are you seeing expert roundup posts all over the place as of lately? Simple… they work. Not only do they work for increasing traffic, they are also great for SEO, social engagement, building backlinks and bringing a ton of expertise and authority figures to your site in the process. Want to start one of your own? Simply come up with a unique question that would provide value to your audience, send an email out to as many experts as possible, then post all of their answers to your site in one big roundup. Try it out and see how effective it's 'free' method can be!

Of course, it's one thing to create infographics and expert roundup posts, and promoting them it another. As Brian Dean continually states on his site, "It's not about content creation, it's about content promotion!".

Without the right outreach and promotion in place after such content is placed on your site, it simply won't deliver the results you were expecting. Once your content goes live, make sure you have an outreach plan in place to get it out to as many viewers as possible.

3 – Leverage Your Expertise and Content to Increase Site Power

Sticking with the theme of creating the best content possible and putting in the time and effort to make sure it gets the promotion and attend it needs, we should also focus on the importance of backlinks and getting mentions on high-profile sites within your niche.

In addition to the actual content of your site playing a role in where it ranks in the search results, other metrics such as domain authority, page authority, and Moz rankings will also come into play. The best way to increase these numbers is to continually increase backlinks, social shares, and references back to your site. The more relevant and high authority a site linking back to yours, the more than will be passed back to your site.

A good example of this would be if you or your site was quoted in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Inc., or Entrepreneur. This one link mention along could be worth more than 500+ links from several smaller sites. Easier than done, right?

Again, this all goes back to the time, work and effort that you put into your content and outreach. If you want to get mass exposure and build new backlinks and mentions to your site, you need to put in the work to find such opportunities.

Here are a few great resources to help with the process.

Write for Big Media Sites – It's not easy to contribute to sites like Forbes, Inc. and, Entrepreneur… but it is possible. This list of sites and how to start writing for them should help out.

Guest Blogging List –  Guest blogging is still one of the best ways to reach new audiences and getting exposure to thousands instantly. This site has a list of over 140+ different guest blogging opportunities you can take advantage of.

Infographic Directories – Got an infographic for your site? Get a quick boost by submitting it to each of these free infographic directories. The more exposure you can get for your infographic, the more likely it will get picked up and shared by other publications.

How to Pitch Big Bloggers – If you want to get featured on big name blogs, you need to know how to reach out and approach such site owners. This guide shows you how to get started, while also showing you how not to look like a foolish spammer.

No matter what your expertise is, or the size of your site… as long as you are providing real value, there are always going to be new and exciting ways to get mentions on relevant sites within your industry. Heck, you might even get a mention on Fox News, CNBC, Forbes or any other big name publication.

As mentioned throughout this article — put in the time, work and effort, and you'll be amazing at what results you will find!

Source: 3 Working Methods to Dramatically Increase Your Site Rankings