How to Rank Your Media Website at the Top of Search Results

Today, in order to effectively promote a media website, it is essential to maintain control not only over the quality of the content produced, but also over the audience’s engagement. It is equally important to monitor how the mechanism that orders page functionality according to relevance to queries works. Only high-quality publications can rank in the top search results. Despite the fact that promotion is a complex and resource-intensive process, increasing the ranking of a media website is quite achievable. For this, it is crucial to closely follow the recommendations provided further.

1. Improve the quality of the published information

In the process of creating any textual content, one should focus on criteria such as usefulness, relevance, and substance. Practice shows that for many content creators, this fact remains an unachieved goal. Most specialists tend to churn out secondary, low-quality, micro-formatted publications. Search engines do not reward such behavior, and may impose sanctions on the site concerned.

To avoid falling under such sanctions, follow the guidelines below:

• Maximize depth of exploration on the subject and create comprehensive, multi-faceted material;
• Utilize mechanisms of viral marketing; do not neglect viral content;
• Conduct analysis of the competitive environment, as well as targeting analysis of the intended audience;
• Increase traffic with the help of search optimization.

2. Create a quality site structure

When information on the site is organized into logical blocks, organically structured in a specific sequential order, both search engines and readers can conveniently interact with such a resource.

To competently organize the process of managing categories and sections of the site, follow the recommendations outlined below:

• Conduct a market analysis to identify relevant topics and significant trends at the current moment;
• Refine semantics, distancing from the site’s thematic material;
• Cluster target queries into separate sections and blocks of the internet platform;
• Write texts oriented towards target queries.

3. Increase site loading speed.

The loading speed of a web resource is an important factor, which must be considered in the process of promotion. The latest updates from Google are primarily aimed at distinguishing fast sites from slower ones, and removing the latter from the top search results.

4. Create a mobile version of the site.

Firstly, according to statistics, modern users more frequently access sites via mobile devices. Secondly, in recent years Google’s algorithms operate on the Mobile First principle. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that alongside the desktop version, there is also a mobile one for the site.

5. Eliminate technical errors.

Technical errors can vary: starting from the lack of certain meta tags, to outdated URLs of thematic pages, to errors in CSS formatting. Such mistakes do not only make the site inconvenient in the eyes of users, but also reduce the effectiveness of SEO promotion.

To maintain the site at a proper level in search output, it is necessary to regularly perform technical optimization. This is not complicated, since manually scanning the basic parameters does not require much effort, the process can be automated.

6. Collect relevant keywords.

Engaging in the composition of a semantic core must be done with utmost seriousness and accuracy, as keywords are what allow users to easily find your article among many others. The main thing is not to overstuff the content with target queries, since search engines might penalize this material as spam.

7. Properly fill meta tags on the page.

Experienced SEO specialists know that properly filled meta tags guarantee 50% success in promotion. Such HTML elements as title and description are integral parts of a snippet – a brief announcement of the article that ultimately appears in the search output. It is believed that these tags should correspond to a defined number of symbols. However, in practice the size of the snippet varies depending on the specifics of the target query. It is essential that the title and description accurately reflect the essence of the publication and hold value for the audience.

When writing headings, you should follow the previously presented logic:

• Heading H1 should be unique and only one per page;
• Utilize headings h1, h2, h3 — h6, but create them under specific textual blocks;
• Headings with key queries should be marked as heading N2;
• General headings should be marked as heading N3.

Correctly format ALT attributes:

• Do not insert key queries in ALT tags to avoid spam;
• Make image links understandable for perception;
• Use authentic high-quality images;
• Place thematic illustrations nearby the text.

8. When publishing media content, format according to Google’s recommendations.

How to work with images (Google Reference):

• Choose only relevant images;
• Do not place text above images;
• Create a separate version for mobile devices;
• Align images with the site’s URL structure.

How to work with video (Google Reference):

• Use only those videos that are hosted on publicly accessible pages;
• When publishing video on the site, do not forget to link to HTML tags.

9. Allow Googlebot to crawl all publications on the page.

If Googlebot has access to the correctly displayed material objects, for instance, CSS and JavaScript files, then the content on the page will be shown properly, conveniently. This has a direct impact on the indexing order of the web resource.

10. Check if search engines can crawl your site.

No matter what CMS, framework or JS your site is created on, it is essential to check if search engines can successfully crawl it.

11. Do not place important information in reverse order lists.

Important information, which adds valuable content in the eyes of the search system, must be visible. Otherwise, the relevance of the query is diminished, and the site may fall in search output.

12. Monitor your backlinks.

Structure your site so that backlinks to external resources have the attributes: sponsored, nofollow or noindex.

In conclusion

To elevate an media site to the top of search outputs and maintain a high status over time, it is essential to utilize SEO optimization tools comprehensively. Quality webmasters know that search engines evaluate not only the form of the published content, but also its substance. Therefore, it is necessary to strive to create maximally useful textual materials and not forget about the technical parameters of their formatting directly on the site.