In this article, I will report on growth hacking in general and specifically on one aspect of growth hacking, namely improving a website's ranking.
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What is growth hacking?
Growth hacking was first invented by start-ups looking for a way to generate more reach for their business. Since start-ups often have very little capital at their disposal, they needed a strategy that would do just that.
Growth hacking is precisely this marketing strategy. The motto is "Achieve maximum growth with minimal expenditure." Growth hacking uses many free tools, always works with the latest trends, and requires a great deal of creativity, as you always have to look for new ways to achieve the best possible results.
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Growth hacking = ranking improvement?
Ranking a website among the top 3 search results is definitely not easy. It requires patience and a lot of work.
Even before you have your website created, you should think about its ranking. Some of Google's most important ranking factors include:
- Charging speed
- Backlinks
- Meta data (each individual URL)
- Number of words
- Keywords
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Website loading speed
The first point is loading speed, as this can be taken into account when creating the website.
The loading speed of the website naturally also depends on the hosting provider. I would always recommend a hosting provider that has its server location in the EU, as these have to follow strict guidelines and are usually also the faster servers.
Of course, you can also do a lot to improve the loading speed of your website yourself. It is important to pay attention to the images on the website.
It is advisable to compress them and edit them as best as possible so that the loss of quality is minimal. This will significantly improve the loading speed.
Furthermore, it is essential to set up an SSL certificate, as this is extremely important for the security of the website.
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High-quality keywords
"How do I find the right keywords?"
There is so much discussion and writing on this topic that most SEO novices have great difficulty keeping track of everything.
First, it is advisable to look at your competitors' websites and find out which keywords they use and how high they rank with these keywords.
This can be easily determined by entering the keywords in the search bar and observing where the competition ranks. When searching for keywords, it is recommended to utilize a tool. One free tool, for example, is Ubersuggest.
Home page of the tool provider Ubersuggest
In this tool, you can also enter your competitors' domains and see exactly which keywords they rank for and which keywords they use. You can also enter individual keywords in the tool and get accurate data that makes it easier to select meaningful keywords.
Finally, you can simply ask friends and family what they would enter in the search bar if they were looking for your product or service.
When it comes to creating landing pages, it is worth asking your sales department about the most common terms used in customer conversations. These should then be incorporated into the optimization of a website.
Many SEO novices choose keywords that are searched for extremely often, but are at least as competitive. An example of this is the keyword "SEO." Since many different websites try to rank with this keyword, it is extremely difficult to become visible at all.
A healthy balance between search frequency and competition is recommended here.
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Meta Data
Meta data is a brief description of a website. This is very important for Google, as it provides users with a mini summary of the website.
Without a good meta description, it will be very difficult to rank highly with a website. It is also important to use the right keywords in the meta description, both in the title and in the description.
One tool that is very helpful for creating meta descriptions is the SERP Snippet Generator from Sistrix.
Home page of the SERP snippet generator from SISTRIX
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Backlinks
Building backlinks is one of the most important measures for achieving a high ranking for a website.
As soon as your website is linked to another website, Google sees this as a recommendation and automatically ranks your website higher.
Blogs are the best way to build backlinks. Of course, you shouldn't just use any blog, but only those that are relevant to your product or service.
Many blogs specifically seek guest authors. Therefore, it makes sense to contact these blogs directly and not beat around the bush.
When the post goes live on the relevant blog, it creates a win-win situation: the blog owner gets a free post and avoids the costs of freelancers or in-house writers, and you, the website operator, generate high-quality backlinks.
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Number of words and title
The number of words on a website is often underestimated, as are titles.
The number of words is very important for Google algorithms, as otherwise they often cannot recognize what your website is actually about.
There is no exact, perfect number of words. However, I would recommend a minimum length of approximately 1,000 words per page. Websites that rank very high, however, also have around 2,500 words per page.
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Conclusion
As you can see, it's not that easy to rank a website highly, especially if you're in a highly competitive industry.
If you have a lot of time and want to get involved, it is entirely possible to carry out all the measures yourself.
However, I would always recommend hiring professionals, as they often have more expertise and are also informed about all updates. In the field of search engine optimization in particular, the rules of the game change frequently, which is why it makes sense to hire a professional growth hacking agency .
