Ranking higher on Google: step by step

How do you get higher search engine rankings?

You get higher search engine rankings by giving each page one clear query and answering it better than the pages at the top today. Then you remove technical barriers, earn links from sites in your field, and measure in Search Console what works. There are no quick tricks. The order of the work makes the difference.

Research shows why page 1 matters. In 2019, Brian Dean of Backlinko analyzed 4 million search results. Position 1 took an average 27.6% of clicks, and only 0.63% of searchers clicked on anything from page 2 (Backlinko, CTR analysis). This article shows the other side of that coin. Between July 19 and October 16, 2026, it appeared 3,839 times in Google at an average position of 8.1, and it earned no clicks. Being visible is not the same as being chosen.

• Choose one primary query per important page: for example “higher search engine rankings” or “rank higher on Google”. Align the title, H1, introduction, and subheadings with it.
• Make the page more useful than the current top results: give concrete steps, examples, and your own numbers instead of generic SEO tips.
• Remove technical barriers: sound HTML, fast load times, clear images, and readable addresses help both Google and your visitors.
• Measure and adjust: follow clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position in Search Console. Start with pages that get many impressions and few clicks.

Want to be found locally? That has its own track next to these steps: your Google Business Profile drives your visibility in Google Maps and the local results. If your site runs on WordPress, the technical work starts with updates, plugins, and speed; see WordPress maintenance. If you sell online, our page on building an ecommerce website explains how we approach e-commerce SEO from the structure up.

The terminal below holds a real measurement from this site’s own Search Console data: property straffesites.com, August 3–30, 2026, compared with the previous period. It lists the queries where the site sat at positions 4 to 15. That is where a sharper title and description turn impressions into clicks fastest. A typical case is our Google Search Console setup guide. Between July 19 and October 16, 2026, its three main setup queries earned 2,679 impressions at positions 16 to 17, and no clicks.

What AI summaries change for your clicks

Google shows an AI summary above the organic results more and more often, and that costs clicks. Athena Chapekis and Anna Lieb of the Pew Research Center tracked the real click behavior of 900 US panel members across 68,879 Google searches in March 2025. Users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits. Without a summary, that was 15% (Pew Research Center, July 2025). Only 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary itself.

About one in five searches in that dataset produced a summary. For searches of ten words or more, the share rose to 53%. For your page, that means two things. Answer the question behind the query honestly and completely, so the summary can cite you too. And don’t tear up your strategy in a panic: people who type a long question are often exactly the visitors who value a thorough answer.

Start with the question, not the keyword

Keyword research shows which words your audience uses. What matters most is the need behind them: does the searcher want to learn, compare, or buy? Choose one question per page and give every other question its own page. Two pages that aim at the same query take each other’s place. For a practical walkthrough, see the guide on how to search for keywords.

You don’t have to repeat every variant word for word. “Higher search engine rankings”, “rank higher on Google”, and “how to improve my Google ranking” are the same question in other words. Google connects such variants to one page, as long as the content answers the question.

Make the page more useful than what ranks now

Search your own query and read the first three results. Note what they do well and what they skip: a missing step, an example, current numbers, an honest downside. That is your room to stand out. A page that only repeats what already ranks gives Google no reason to put it higher.

Use the main query naturally in the title and the first paragraph, and write the rest for the reader. Show what only you know, such as your own measurement, a client example, or a mistake you made yourself. If you want to prepare website copy faster without losing your own voice, there is a separate guide for that. Google’s guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content states the principle like this:

Google’s SEO Starter Guide puts it even more directly. Compelling, useful content “will likely influence your website’s presence in search results more than any of the other suggestions in this guide.”

Technical basics: four things that help Google and visitors

Semantic HTML and a logical heading structure

Use each HTML element for its purpose. Give a page one <h1>, then <h2> and <h3> in a logical order, <nav> for navigation, and <main> for the content. This kind of semantic markup helps search engines understand the structure, and people using a screen reader can move through the page more easily. You can check your heading structure with the W3C Nu Html Checker by turning on its outline option. MDN explains the building blocks in its guide to the web standards model. Semantic HTML supports accessibility and indexing, but it does not guarantee a ranking by itself.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>My website</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <header>
      <figure>
        <img src="logo.svg" alt="Company name" />
      </figure>
      <nav aria-label="Main navigation">
        <menu>
          <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
          <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>
        </menu>
      </nav>
    </header>
    <main>
      <article>
        <h1>Main title</h1>
        <h2>Title 1</h2>
        <p>Paragraph 1</p>
        <h2>Title 2</h2>
        <p>Paragraph 2</p>
        <h2>Title 3</h2>
        <p>Paragraph 3</p>
      </article>
    </main>
    <footer>
      <nav aria-label="Footer navigation">
        <menu>
          <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
          <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>
        </menu>
      </nav>
      <p>&copy; 2026 Company name</p>
    </footer>
  </body>
</html>

Speed and Core Web Vitals

Speed counts, and that is not a rumor: “Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems,” Google writes in its page experience documentation. Speed alone won’t lift a weak page, but a slow page costs you visitors. The biggest gains usually come from these areas:

• Light images: compress them and serve them in a modern format such as WebP or AVIF, at the size they are displayed.
• Fewer scripts and stylesheets: remove what the page doesn’t use. That helps most on mobile connections.
• Lazy loading: load images and videos below the fold only when the visitor scrolls to them.
• A CDN or a headless website: a static site on a CDN delivers pages close to the visitor. If you also want to manage the content centrally, a headless CMS gives you a separate content layer.

Test your pages with Google PageSpeed Insights and repeat the test after every major change.

Images with a clear name and alt text

Give every image a file name that says what it shows, such as red-city-bike.webp instead of IMG_4821.jpg. Write alt text that describes the image for people who can’t see it. Google uses that alt text together with computer vision and the rest of the page to understand what the image is about (Google Search Central, images). Don’t stuff it with keywords: a plain description works better.

A readable address (slug)

The slug is the last part of the address, after the domain name. Choose short, readable words that describe the content, such as /blog/keyword-research instead of /page?id=1234. Google shows parts of the address in search results, so a clear slug also helps people decide whether to click. Don’t change an existing slug without a redirect, or you lose the links that already point to that page.

Title and description: win the click on page 1

The title and the meta description are what people see in the search results. Google usually builds the clickable title from your <title> element, but it can also use a heading from the page (Google Search Central, title links). The description shown under it often comes from your meta description, though Google may pick another passage that better fits the search (Google Search Central, snippets). So write a title that names the question and says what the reader gets. Keep it short enough to avoid truncation; the Mangools SERP simulator shows how it will look.

Don’t expect miracles from a new title while you sit on page 2 or 3. A better snippet helps most once you are on page 1. Even then, it isn’t automatic: this article sits at position 8 and still earned no clicks in three months. That is exactly why its title and description are the next thing to test.

Links: internal structure and outside authority

Internal links

Internal links show Google which pages belong together and which matter most. They also lead visitors to the logical next step. Use anchor text that describes what’s behind the link, such as “our SEO approach”, rather than “click here”. Google itself recommends descriptive, concise link text (Google Search Central, links). Link from pages that already get visitors to the page you want to see rank higher.

Backlinks and authority

Links from other sites to yours count as a recommendation. Quality outweighs quantity: one link from a trade publication, client, or partner says more than a hundred random links. You don’t have to be a giant. Take our study of 19 web agencies. For “website laten maken” (“website development”) in the Netherlands, an agency with a Domain Authority (DA) of 15 held position 2. Only a hosting company with DA 70 ranked above it. The score of the ranking page tracked its position more closely than the score of the whole domain. That is a correlation in a small sample, not proof that links alone decide the position.

You can see which sites already link to you in the Links report in Search Console. A tool like LinkMiner also shows the backlink profiles of competitors, so you can see which sites in your market give links.

Social media

Social media rarely produces a strong link by itself, but it puts your content in front of people who do write about it or link to it. Share new articles and updates on the channels your customers use. That only works if you give it time every month.

Where does your page stand today?

Before you start changing things, take a baseline. Have one page audited for free on content, technical SEO and links. You get a score on six dimensions, real measurements such as mobile PageSpeed and broken links, and three to five fixes in a PDF report.

Measure, wait, and adjust

Google Search Console shows, per page and per query, how many impressions and clicks you get, and at which position. Start with pages that get many impressions and few clicks: that is where the work sits closest to a result. The guide to setting up Google Search Console walks you through the tool.

Give each change time. Google itself writes that you usually have to wait several weeks before you can judge whether your work had an effect (SEO Starter Guide). I compare only after at least 30 days. An AI agent (Hermes) prepares those numbers every month and works out improvements according to rules I set. I check what goes live afterward.

Conclusion: measurement sets the order

Higher search engine rankings don’t come from a single fix. Choose one query per page and answer it better than the pages that rank at the top today. Make sure your site loads fast and has a clear structure, and earn links from sites in your field.

Then keep measuring. Check Search Console every month for pages with many impressions but few clicks. Work on those first, give each change at least 30 days, and measure again. Repeat that every month: you’ll see what works and can build on it.

Want to know where your own site should start? Get in touch.