How to Actually Improve Your SEO Rankings

As an SEO professional, I’m often asked why Google’s algorithm chooses to rank one page above others. The truth is there’s not one simple answer, as SEO is the sum of all parts, but there are some simple things you do to get you moving in the right direction.

Google's ranking systems are essentially sophisticated AI with a single goal: determine whether a user will find your page genuinely helpful. If you've struggled to improve your rankings, the answer often isn't a technical fix. It's about becoming a genuinely better result for your intended audience and making moves that move the dial.

Brand Trust: Build real trust with your customers; don’t just pretend to!

Google's E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) places trust at its core. However, trust is largely determined by what happens off your website. Your reviews, your reputation, what people say about you in forums and on social media: all of this feeds into how Google's algorithms assess your brand.

For service and eCommerce businesses especially, a sustained pattern of poor customer experiences can suppress your rankings in ways that no amount of on-page optimisation will fix. Simply put, Google wants to surface businesses that users will actually be satisfied with.

The most impactful SEO work is sometimes the most obvious: run a better business, serve your customers well, and earn a genuine reputation for being good at what you do.

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See what your customers are saying about you

Your first step is to audit your brand's reputation honestly. Search for your business name on social media and AI tools and read what comes back. If there are recurring negative themes these will often be your quickest wins – fix these first. Then work on making that improvement visible over time.

• Actively gather reviews from satisfied customers – don't assume satisfied customers will give them organically

• Respond to negative reviews constructively and resolve issues publicly – other people appreciate a company that is working to improve their processes

• Where relevant, make sure author bios and About pages reflect genuine credentials and real people

• Add trust signals appropriate to your industry: certifications, accreditations, licence details, social media accounts, team photos etc.

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Content Quality: Stop writing commodity content quickly to fill a gap

Here's an uncomfortable question to ask yourself: could an AI Overview honestly replace every page on your site? If the answer is mostly yes, you have a bit of a commodity content problem. Commodity content is information that is available across the web simply rehashed without adding anything genuinely new or of value.

There was a time when well-written summaries of well-known information could rank reliably. But with AI now handling many straightforward informational queries, the pages that earn clicks are the ones that go somewhere AI can't: real experience, original research, and genuine expertise.

Ask yourself: what is on this page that couldn't be found anywhere else on the internet? If the answer is "not a lot," that's your content problem.

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• Write from direct experience – not just a summary of what others have reported

• Where possible use original photography and video rather than stock imagery

• Add decision-making context that can only be gained by hands-on experience  

• Structure pages so readers can skim to the answer – clear headings, logical flow

• Keep content fresh and up to date, especially for fast-moving topics

• Remove or noindex pages where you genuinely lack the expertise to be useful

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Idea: Test your content with AI (but don't let it write it)

Paste a page into your favourite LLM (mine is currently Claude, but this changes regularly) and ask:

Does this content add anything genuinely original that isn't widely available elsewhere online? Is this just commodity content?

Then follow up: Give me 10 ideas to make this page richer and deeper, drawing on my real first-hand experience that you are aware of.

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User Experience: Make your site easy for users to enjoy

Google's ranking systems are informed by how users actually behave. Do users stay on your page, complete their goal, or bounce straight back to search results? A site that frustrates users teaches Google's systems to rank it lower over time.

UX improvements don't need to be massive. Often the biggest wins come from simply removing friction: ensuring your customers get to the information they want faster, making the site navigation more intuitive, and ensuring the site looks modern and professional.

• Use a tool like Hotjar to identify where users get frustrated in your current journeys

• Get users to the main content quickly – reduce fluff above the fold

• Improve your site navigation so users can find related content effortlessly

• Invest in a clean, professional visual design – first impressions count and can directly affect trust

• Streamline conversion or checkout flows

• Fix Core Web Vitals issues, especially slow load times that cause users just to give up

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A Useful Exercise

Open Google's Quality Rater Guidelines and search for the term "main content." Read what guidance raters receive about high-quality, easy-to-find main content then apply to your own pages.

Note: Some topics are labelled as “Your Money or Your Life” queries; these are ones that can impact a person's financial or physical well-being. Sites dealing with these sorts of content are judged with a harsher light meaning quality content is even more important for these sites.

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Differentiation: First-hand experience is your competitive edge

We all know AI can generate perfectly plausible-sounding content on almost any topic. The one thing it really cannot replicate is your actual personal experience, that is your advantage - use it. The sites thriving in search right now are the ones that lean into this competitive advantage.

This applies whether you run a service, a product review site, a travel blog, a local business, or a B2B company. Ask yourself one simple question: what do you know from actually doing this that nobody else has written about?

Remember that your unique perspective, gained through real experience, is the one asset that AI systems can only imitate, not replicate.

• Document your actual process – what you tried, what didn’t work, what you learned

• Share specific details that only someone with direct experience would know

• Use your own media: photos, videos, and screenshots created by you or your team

• Add genuine opinions and recommendations, not just neutral summaries of options

• Make it clear why your perspective on this topic is uniquely qualified

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Authority: Backlinks are votes of trust – so earn them

When another website links to yours, Google sees this as a signal of trust and credibility. The logic is simple: if reputable sites are pointing their readers to your content, it's a strong indicator that your content is worth reading. This is why backlinks remain one of the most powerful ranking signals in SEO.

There’s ways you can manipulate this, but you can’t manufacture genuine trust. Buying links, exchanging links indiscriminately, or building links from low-quality directories rarely moves the needle in a lasting way. Let’s be clear here, there are short-term gains to be made, but do you really want to be the one stood in front of your CEO explaining why your site no longer appears on Google or in AI Search?

What does work is creating original, or insightful content that other sites naturally want to reference it.

The best link-building strategy starts with a great content strategy. Publish something genuinely valuable, and the links will follow.

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Think about the kinds of content that tend to attract links organically: original research and data that others cite, comprehensive guides that become go-to references in a niche, tools or resources that make other people's jobs easier, and strongly-held expert opinions that spark conversation. These earn links because they offer something the linking site couldn't produce itself.

It's also worth understanding that not all backlinks are equal. A single link from a respected publication carries far more weight than dozens of links from obscure or unrelated sites. Simply put, quality beats quantity.

• Publish original data, research, or surveys that others will want to cite

• Create genuinely comprehensive guides that become the definitive resource on a topic

• Build free tools, interactive widgets, or calculators that other sites will naturally reference

• Write well-reasoned opinion pieces that contribute something new to conversations

• Reach out to relevant publications when you have content that is a genuine fit for their audience

• Focus on earning links from authoritative, relevant sites – don’t just chase volume for volume sake

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The Bigger Picture

Gaming the system is not only possible, but also happening right now. However, gains are often short-lived, or require significant continued investment to maintain positions. There is also a real risk that traffic will dry up over night – if you’re happy to churn through sites that may be the route for you; if you are looking for long-term growth you are better not trying to game the system.

The sites consistently winning in search are doing these five things:

• Building real-world trust through how they treat customers

• Creating content that goes deeper than anything else available

• Making the experience of using their site effortless and enjoyable

• Showing up with genuine first-hand expertise and perspective

• Earning backlinks naturally by publishing content others want to reference

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