There is no doubt that backlinks are a vital part of developing a website with authority in a Search Engine’s Results Page (SERP). When another user provides a link to your website online, this tells Google that your website is a popular place for people to visit to find the answer to their search query. However, building links is not the only method of improving keyword rankings. So, how else can you improve keyword rankings without link building?
There are many factors aside from backlinks that Google considers to be ranking factors. These include:
Keep reading to find out more about how link building works, and how to improve keyword ranking using methods other than link building.
To improve your keyword rankings, you first need to know where you currently stand. There are a number of tools online that can help you to get an idea of how you are ranking for certain keywords. Using tools like SerpApi, Advanced Web Rankings, SEMRush or Ahrefs, you can gauge how you are performing for the keywords that you are targeting.
While backlinks have a significant impact on how well your keywords will rank, they are not the only factor to consider when attempting to improve your keyword ranking.
A poor backlink profile typically tells Google that your website is not holding authority in your industry, and so will not look favorably on your website when positioning results to a query. It is important that the websites that are linking to your site are from reputable sources, with authority.
However, backlinks are the only way to improve keyword rankings…
Of course, link building is not the only way that you can show Google that you are a trustworthy and reliable source of information. Here are some ways that you can improve your keyword rankings without engaging in link building methods:
Have you done enough keyword research into what people are searching for and clicking on? Are you providing a solution to a common problem within your industry? Make sure you are spending enough time researching which keywords you should be targeting.
It is important that users find and enter your website, but it is also important that they stay, and find the answer that they are looking for with high-quality content. Ideally, people that enter your website will leave with more information than they were expecting to find, and potentially convert. This way, your website will gain authority as a hub of useful information.
How are your website’s core vitals performing? Is there anywhere that load times can be reduced? All of these signals are read by search engines, and will affect how your website is ranked.
While it may not be the first thing that people think of when they are trying to improve their keyword rankings, the crawling and indexing performance of your website can have a major impact on your website’s ranking.
On-page SEO can refer to a number of different factors such as internal links, organic click-through-rate, and user experience. Use a free tool such as SEO Quake to get an idea of where your website might be lacking in terms of on-page SEO.
To check your website’s backlink score for free, use a backlink checker. If you think your backlink profile need improving, you’ll be pleased to know that there are steps you can take to improve the links for your website:
Try directly contacting other websites that might provide a link to your website. If they add a link, this will give your website more credibility, and tell Google that your website is a reliable source of information. Likewise, you could target websites that currently link to your competitors, and ask for them to link to you.
It is important that backlinks come from websites that are trustworthy sources themselves. If you are receiving links from websites that are not considered by Google to be reliable, then they could be negatively impacting your ranking score.
This is a fairly easy option to improve your ranking. Simply provide a link to your website on your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other profile that you have online.
By producing high-quality content, more people will trust your website to provide them with the information they are looking for. This should lead to people recommending your website to others online.
Submitting information that may be relevant for journalists to publish is a great way to build backlinks from reputable sources. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and #JournoRequest on X (formally known as Twitter) are great ways of doing this.
Here at Wildcat, our expert team is on hand for all of your SEO needs. Get in touch today to arrange a free consultation and see how we can help with your digital marketing strategy. Alternatively, why not check out our You Ask, We Answer pages for more answers to your SEO questions?
SEO Executive
