University Marketing and Communications

Five Ways to Improve Your Site's Ranking (SEO)

How do you improve the SEO of your website? Follow these five suggestions to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and watch your website rise the ranks to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).

Steps to Boost Your Website Ranking

  1. Set an SEO Optimization Strategy
  2. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
  3. Update Your Content Regularly
  4. Have a Link-Worthy Site
  5. Optimize for Mobile and Execute Technical SEO

1. Set an SEO Optimization Strategy

Creating an effective SEO strategy involves foundational practices, advanced techniques, and ongoing analysis. Below are key tactics, tips, and steps to consider when developing an SEO strategy:

  • Audit and Benchmark Current Site Performance: conduct a comprehensive site audit to identify strengths, weaknesses, and technical SEO issues such as broken links, slow page speeds, and mobile usability. Benchmark existing metrics to establish baseline traffic, keyword rankings, and conversion rates using tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and SEO software (e.g., Ahrefs, SEMrush). Additionally, perform a content inventory to evaluate which pages perform well and identify those needing updates or consolidation.
  • Competitor Analysis: identify competitors by assessing which websites rank for your target keywords. Analyze their content, including structure, depth, and keyword usage on high-ranking pages. Use tools to discover where competitors are obtaining quality backlinks and uncover link-building opportunities. Pinpoint topics or keywords your competitors cover that you haven't addressed, and create unique content to fill those gaps.
  • Keyword Research and Intent Mapping: use a combination of keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and AnswerThePublic to build a comprehensive keyword list. Focus on finding low-competition keywords that align with user intent and create targeted content around them. Develop topic clusters by creating pillar pages connected to detailed subtopic content to improve site structure and authority on key topics.

2. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content

We believe that on-page SEO is the key to improving search engine success on Google and other search engines. Quality, authoritative, authentic content is the number one driver of your search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content—this is especially true when doing SEO marketing. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site's authority and relevance. Fine-tune your web writing skills and present yourself as an authority on the topic you are writing about. Using your SEO strategy, develop or redevelop content to improve your rankings.

Keywords

Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Think about how your reader might search for that specific page with search terms like:

  • online masters in engineering management
  • what is biomedical engineering?
  • title IX education resources
  • photographing northern lights
  • how to apply for scholarships?
  • when is the FAFSA deadline?
  • what is the difference between engineering and engineering technology?

Multiple Keyword Phrases

It is very difficult for a webpage to achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases—unless those phrases are very similar. A single page may be able to rank for both "biomedical engineering jobs" and "biomedical engineering careers". Ranking for "student affairs" and "dean of students" or "gender discrimination" and "violence reporting procedures" with a single page is unlikely.

If you want to rank for multiple keywords phrases with your website, you will need to make a separate webpage for each keyword phrase you are targeting.

Placing Keywords

Once your keyword phrase is chosen for a given page, consider these questions:

  1. Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in the page URL (by using keywords in folders)?
    1. Remember characters to avoid in URLs
  2. Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in the page title?
  3. Can I use part or all of the keyword phrase in page headings and subheadings?

Answering yes to these questions can improve your search engine ranking. Be natural and user-friendly, though. For instance, you do not want the word "engineering" to show up three or more times in the URL or have the phrase Northern Lights repeated in the page title and also every heading. Readability and usability still trump search engine optimization.

Content

Beyond page URL, title, and headings, content is most influential on search engine rankings.  Optimizing your content is often referred to as 'on-page SEO' or 'page optimization.' Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page—once or twice in the opening and closing paragraphs, and two to four more times throughout the remaining content. Be authoritative. Strategically link to relevant sources and additional information—both within your organizations broad website and even to other websites which are useful to your end user. The content that you create is key to improving your SEO.

Experience and Expertise

When developing your content, it is especially important to lend your experiences and your expertise to your target audience. This will help your content stand out against everyone else's—including the plethora of content being created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) each day. Experiences and expertise builds credibility, engages users, and fosters long-term success. It aligns with search engines' goals of delivering high-quality, relevant information to users and can contribute to a strong online presence and improved SEO performance.

SEO Formatting

Don't forget to use bold, italics, heading tags (especially an H1), and other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases—but don't overdo it. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for the user, not for the search engine. Read more about SEO marketing to help you find new content opportunities.

3. Update Your Content Regularly

You've probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site's relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semesterly for example) and make updates as needed. Introduce new sources where appropriate, make additions and modifications, and keep your content fresh for your audience.

Blogging

Writing additional content, rich with keyword phrases, on your departmental news blog can also boost your search engine rankings. Blog posts can even be shorter updates about the specific topics you are targeting. Interlink your related CMS webpages and blog posts when it helps give the reader a better picture or additional information about the topic.

Metadata

When designing your website, each page contains a space between the <head> tags to insert metadata, or information about the contents of your page. If you have a CMS site originally produced by the UMC web team will have pre-populated this data for you. However, it is important for you to review and update metadata as your site changes over time.

Title Metadata

Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.

For those with a CMS website, the web team has developed an automated system for creating the meta title for each webpage based on your page title. This adds to the importance of using well-thought-out page titles rich with keyword phrases.

Description Metadata

Description metadata is the textual description that a browser may use in your page search return. Think of it as your site's window display—a concise and appealing description of what is contained within, with the goal of encouraging people to enter. A good meta description will typically contain two full sentences. Search engines may not always use your meta description, but it is important to give them the option.

Keyword Metadata

Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn't hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. You'll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 3-7 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be "computer science degree."

Use alt tags

Always describe your image and video media using alt tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page, which is crucial—especially for those who use text-only browsers or screen readers.

Use Schema.org Markup

While Google and other search engines are advanced at understanding content, we have found that implementing Schema.org markup on our webpages—especially published and modified dates—has helped our content crawl and recrawl rates and has influenced how our content shows up in SERPs.

4. Have a Link-Worthy Site

A webpage that is content-rich, authoritative, unbiased, and helps visitors learn more about what they are interested in is most likely to attract links from other websites, which improves your search engine optimization.

Improve your authority and credibility by adding relevant links within the text. Instead of having "click here" links, try writing out the name of the destination. "Click here" has no search engine value beyond the attached URL, whereas "Michigan Tech Enterprise Program" is rich with keywords and will improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to. Always use descriptive links by linking keywords—it not only improves search engine optimization but also adds value to your readers, including those with disabilities or who are using screen readers.

SEO Rankings

Use tools such as Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, or Moz to keep track of your SEO rankings. After 4-6 months, you should begin to see an increase in your search engine impressions. Over the next few months, these impressions should translate into clicks, which you can within your SEO tools and also your web analytics.

Now, you are able to optimize your content to make improvements, rise up the rankings, and serve your target audience.

Why Prioritize Content Creation Over Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO involves actions taken outside your website to influence search engine rankings. While opinions on its importance vary within the SEO community, we believe that dedicating time and resources to creating valuable content for your target audience yields greater benefits for your business.

Quality content establishes your brand as a trusted source, attracting and engaging users, and encouraging return visits and content sharing. While off-page SEO tactics may offer short-term gains, content creation fosters long-term relationships and organic growth. By focusing on relevant content creation, we have achieved better results that scale compared to relying on off-page SEO strategies.

5. Optimize for Mobile and Execute Technical SEO

Ensure your website is mobile-responsive and offers a seamless user experience on smartphones and tablets. Remember to optimize images and other media for faster loading on mobile devices. You can test your website's mobile-friendliness using tools like Google's Lighthouse testing tool.

Work with strong web developers to implement best practices for technical search engine optimization. This includes providing a fast, seamless user experience that is intuitive and high-performing. Compress images, minimize HTTP requests, and enable browser caching. Use a clean and organized URL structure that is easy for both users and search engines to navigate. Implement schema markup to enhance rich snippets and improve the visibility of your content in search results.

These are only a few of the many methods for how to improve your search engine ranking. If you want to learn more about improving SEO, we recommend the following resources: