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Yes. Since the existing article is already solid, I’d preserve its useful structure but sharpen the intent so this page clearly owns “how to improve Google rankings” rather than competing with your ranking-factors article. Your current page already has a strong 10-part framework and good sections on cannibalization and improving existing content, so I’m building from those rather than replacing the concept. Pasted text Pasted text

How to Improve Your Google Rankings: 10 SEO Strategies That Work

If you want to improve your Google rankings, the answer usually isn’t publishing more blog posts, repeating your keywords more often, or buying a bunch of backlinks.

You need to figure out what is actually preventing the right pages on your website from ranking higher.

After more than 20 years working in SEO, that’s one of the biggest differences I’ve seen between SEO activity and SEO strategy.

You can make dozens of changes to a website and see very little improvement if you’re working on the wrong things.

Instead, I focus on the areas most likely to make a meaningful difference: search intent, important service pages, content quality, internal linking, technical SEO, authority, Local SEO, and the overall structure of the website.

Quick Answer: How Do You Improve Your Google Rankings?

To improve your Google rankings, start by making sure the right page is targeting the right search intent.

Then strengthen that page’s content, internal links, technical accessibility and authority. For local businesses, your Google Business Profile, reviews and geographic relevance can also play an important role in local visibility.

Just as importantly, look for problems that may already exist on your website, such as multiple pages competing for the same intent, outdated content or important service pages that aren’t receiving enough internal support.

There isn’t one trick that makes a website rank.

If you want to understand the factors behind ranking movement before working through the strategies below, I also explain what actually affects Google rankings and which commonly recommended SEO tactics don’t automatically improve them.

Here are the 10 areas I would look at first.

1. Match the Search Intent

Before optimizing a page, search the keyword you’re trying to rank for.

Seriously.

I do this all the time.

I want to see what Google is actually showing.

Are the top results:

• Service pages?
• Blog posts?
• Product pages?
• Local businesses?
• Videos?
• Comparison articles?
• Directories?

Those results give you clues about what someone searching that phrase is probably trying to accomplish.

For example, someone searching:

“What is local SEO?”

is probably looking for information.

Someone searching:

“local SEO company San Diego”

may be looking for a company to hire.

Those are different search intents, and they shouldn’t necessarily lead to the same type of page.

This is why adding more keywords to a page won’t fix an intent mismatch.

You could have beautifully written content, strong backlinks and technically perfect SEO, but if you’re trying to rank the wrong type of page for the query, you’re starting with a major disadvantage.

I explain this in more detail in my guide to search intent.

Before you try to improve a ranking, make sure you’re optimizing the right page for the right search.

2. Strengthen Your Most Important Service Pages

One of the most common SEO problems I see is a website with dozens—or even hundreds—of blog posts while the actual service pages are thin.

That’s backwards.

If you run a service business, your service pages are often among the most commercially important pages on your website.

They shouldn’t be an afterthought.

A strong service page should clearly explain:

• What you offer
• Who the service is for
• What problems you solve
• How the service works
• What makes your business different
• Where you provide the service
• Common questions potential customers have
• What someone should do next

Don’t create a page for Google and another experience for customers.

The page should work for both.

Search engines need enough information to understand what you offer, while potential customers need enough information to decide whether you’re the right business to contact.

This is also where keyword strategy becomes important.

Your most commercially valuable searches should usually have clear destinations on your website.

I call these your money keywords.

Before publishing another blog post, make sure the pages connected to the services that actually generate revenue are as strong as they can reasonably be.

3. Create Helpful Content Around Your Expertise

Blogging can still be extremely useful for SEO.

But I’ve become much more selective about what I publish.

I don’t believe a business needs to publish three articles every week simply because someone said Google likes “fresh content.”

Instead of asking:

“What should we blog about this week?”

I prefer asking:

“What does our ideal customer genuinely need to know about this service or problem?”

Those questions can uncover valuable supporting content.

For example, someone considering a service may want to understand:

Cost.

Benefits.

Risks.

Alternatives.

Timelines.

Eligibility.

Comparisons.

Common problems.

What to expect.

Those are legitimate reasons to create content.

Over time, useful supporting resources can also help establish greater depth around the subjects your business actually knows.

That’s very different from publishing unrelated articles simply to keep a content calendar full.

I’ve written an entire guide explaining how to create SEO content that actually helps your rankings.

And if your website already has a large blog, read why publishing more blog posts doesn’t automatically improve SEO.

Sometimes the next SEO opportunity isn’t another article.

It’s improving what you already have.

4. Improve Your Internal Linking

Internal linking is one of my favorite SEO strategies because the assets you need may already exist.

An internal link simply connects one page of your website to another.

But strategically, those links can do much more.

They can help visitors discover related information, help search engines discover pages, clarify relationships between topics and establish a clearer website hierarchy.

For example, suppose you have an important service page and several useful articles related to that service.

Those articles can naturally point readers toward the primary service page when it makes sense.

That creates a logical relationship:

Supporting content → important service page

Don’t Force Exact-Match Anchor Text Everywhere

Internal linking shouldn’t become another form of keyword stuffing.

Use descriptive anchor text that makes sense in the sentence.

For example, I might naturally refer to:

SEO services in San Diego

working with an SEO expert

Jen Ruhman SEO

my San Diego SEO company

depending on the context.

I don’t need every supporting article to use the exact same anchor.

Internal links should first make sense to the person reading the page.

You can learn more in my guide to internal links for SEO.

5. Fix Technical SEO Problems

Great content can still struggle if Google has difficulty crawling, indexing or understanding your website.

That’s why technical SEO is part of the foundation.

Depending on the website, I may check:

Crawlability.

Indexing.

Canonical tags.

Redirects.

XML sitemaps.

Robots directives.

HTTPS.

Mobile usability.

Page performance.

Structured data.

Duplicate URLs.

Broken internal links.

I also pay attention to Core Web Vitals and general website performance because a slow or unstable website can create a poor experience for visitors.

But there’s an important distinction:

A perfect performance score does not automatically produce a top Google ranking.

I’ve seen business owners spend enormous amounts of time chasing a few extra PageSpeed points while much larger SEO problems remain untouched.

If the wrong page is targeting the keyword, the content doesn’t satisfy the search, or the website has weak authority, getting a performance score from 94 to 100 isn’t necessarily your highest-priority SEO task.

Technical SEO creates the foundation.

The rest of the page still has to compete.

6. Build Relevant Backlinks and Authority

Backlinks are still an important part of SEO, but this is an area where businesses can easily get distracted by numbers.

More isn’t automatically better.

I’d rather see a business earn a legitimate link from a relevant industry publication, organization or community resource than buy dozens of questionable links simply because a third-party SEO tool assigns them a particular metric.

Potential link opportunities can come from:

Industry publications.

Local organizations.

Professional associations.

Business partnerships.

Original research.

Useful resources.

Public relations.

Community involvement.

Expert commentary.

Quality business directories.

One question I like to ask is:

Would it make sense for this website to mention or recommend this business even if Google didn’t exist?

If the answer is yes, that’s usually a much more promising starting point.

If you want ideas, read my guide on how to get other websites to link to yours.

7. Strengthen Your Local SEO

If your business serves customers in a particular geographic area, improving your rankings isn’t only about traditional organic results.

Your website strategy should work alongside your local search presence.

Local SEO can involve:

Google Business Profile optimization.

Accurate business information.

Reviews.

Relevant citations.

Local relevance on your website.

Appropriate business categories.

Links and mentions.

Useful location-specific information.

And, depending on the business, location or service-area pages.

Don’t Create Thin City Pages Just to Rank

One mistake I see is creating dozens of pages that are nearly identical except for the city name.

I don’t recommend that approach.

A location page should have a legitimate purpose and provide useful information for someone searching in that market.

Here in San Diego County, a business may serve customers in Santee, Poway, La Jolla, Carlsbad, downtown San Diego and many surrounding communities.

But that doesn’t automatically mean it needs 20 nearly identical pages.

The strategy depends on the business, its locations, its service areas and what people are actually searching for.

If local visibility is important to your company, start with my Local SEO guide for San Diego businesses.

8. Fix Content Overlap and Keyword Cannibalization

This is one of the most important SEO lessons I’ve learned:

Sometimes improving a website means having fewer pages, not more.

Suppose your website has four URLs all trying to rank for essentially the same search:

Your homepage.

A service page.

An old landing page.

A blog post.

Publishing another page targeting the same thing probably isn’t the solution.

Instead, I want to understand the job of each page.

Which URL should own the primary intent?

Do the other pages serve genuinely different purposes?

Are two pages unnecessarily competing?

Could weaker content be consolidated into a stronger resource?

Does one obsolete URL need to redirect?

Does the internal linking make it clear which page is most important?

This is where a keyword map becomes extremely useful.

One of the principles I use when organizing a website is:

One primary search intent = one primary page.

That doesn’t mean a page can rank for only one keyword.

A strong page may rank for dozens or hundreds of related searches.

The goal is to prevent your own website from becoming unnecessarily repetitive.

I’ve been applying this same process to my own site—reviewing older articles, consolidating overlapping topics and giving important pages clearer jobs.

It’s not as exciting as publishing 50 new blog posts.

But strategically, it can be far more valuable.

9. Improve Existing Content Before Publishing More

Before creating 20 new articles, open Google Search Console and look at what you already have.

This is one of the first places I look for opportunities.

I want to find pages receiving:

Impressions but very few clicks

Rankings close to page one

Declining search visibility

Impressions for unexpected queries

Visibility for valuable long-tail searches

Growing impressions without corresponding clicks

Those pages may already have something a brand-new URL doesn’t:

History.

Relevance.

Links.

Internal authority.

Existing rankings.

Search impressions.

Google already knows they exist.

That makes them worth investigating.

Look for Pages Already Close

A page sitting around position 11 isn’t necessarily a failed page.

It may be an opportunity.

I’d investigate:

Does it match search intent?

Is it the correct URL?

Could the title be stronger?

Is important information missing?

Does it need better internal links?

Is another page competing with it?

Have the search results changed?

Is authority the problem?

Could outdated sections be improved?

This is why I don’t automatically respond to a ranking problem by publishing something new.

Sometimes the best SEO opportunity is already sitting on your website.

And if you have one particular keyword you’re trying to move, follow my step-by-step guide on how to rank on page one of Google for a specific keyword.

10. Optimize for Search in the AI Era

Search is no longer limited to a list of ten blue links.

People can discover businesses and information through traditional Google results, Google Maps, AI Overviews, AI-powered search experiences, ChatGPT and other tools.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve thrown traditional SEO out the window.

Quite the opposite.

I still want a website to make fundamental things extremely clear:

Who are you?

What do you do?

Where do you operate?

What subjects do you have legitimate expertise in?

Which pages are most important?

How does your content fit together?

Why should someone trust the information?

My approach to AI SEO isn’t based on a secret schema trick or special file that supposedly guarantees an AI recommendation.

I want businesses to build a strong, understandable digital presence that can support visibility across traditional search and newer discovery systems.

That includes clear website architecture, useful content, legitimate expertise, external recognition and consistent information about the business.

If AI visibility is a priority, read my guide on how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search.

How to Measure Whether Your Google Rankings Are Improving

Rankings matter.

But they’re not the only thing I measure.

Depending on the business, I may look at:

Organic clicks.

Search impressions.

Visibility for priority keywords.

Visibility of important service pages.

Qualified organic traffic.

Leads.

Phone calls.

Form submissions.

Conversions.

Google Maps visibility.

Backlink growth.

Google Search Console Is One of My Favorite SEO Tools

Search Console shows you how your website is actually appearing in Google Search.

For example, I can see that a page is beginning to receive more impressions before it generates a major increase in clicks.

Or I may discover that a page is appearing for a valuable query we hadn’t originally considered.

Or a page may still receive traffic while losing visibility for one of its most commercially important searches.

That’s why I don’t evaluate SEO using a single metric.

Ultimately, SEO should contribute to the business.

I’d rather bring a company 50 highly qualified visitors searching for exactly what it sells than celebrate 5,000 visitors who have little chance of becoming customers.

Common SEO Mistakes That Can Hold Back Rankings

Some of the most common problems I see include:

• Creating several pages targeting the same intent
• Publishing content without a strategic purpose
• Ignoring service pages while constantly blogging
• Buying large quantities of questionable backlinks
• Using the same exact-match internal-link anchor everywhere
• Creating thin city pages
• Ignoring Search Console data
• Leaving useful content outdated for years
• Expecting SEO to produce instant results
• Focusing on rankings without measuring leads or conversions

The common theme is simple:

More SEO activity doesn’t necessarily mean better SEO.

Strategy matters.

Why Your Rankings May Drop Even When You’re Doing SEO

Another important point: rankings don’t move in only one direction.

A website can improve overall while individual queries fluctuate.

Competitors change their pages.

Search results change.

Google’s systems change.

Search intent can shift.

Your own website changes.

That’s why I don’t panic over every ranking movement.

I first determine whether there’s actually a meaningful decline and then diagnose what changed.

If you’re dealing with a sudden decline, read Why Did My Google Rankings Drop? before making major changes to your website.

How I Approach Improving Google Rankings

I don’t believe there’s a secret SEO button, magic backlink or checklist that automatically moves a business to #1.

Good SEO is cumulative.

I identify the searches that matter.

I determine which pages should rank for them.

I improve those pages.

I fix technical problems.

I strengthen internal linking.

I create supporting content where there’s a genuine gap.

I build authority.

I monitor Search Console.

And then I adjust based on what the data shows.

That’s how I approach sustainable search visibility.

Not:

“How much SEO can we do this month?”

But:

“What improvement is most likely to make a meaningful difference?”

That’s a much better question.

Final Thoughts: Improve the Right Things

If your Google rankings aren’t where you want them to be, don’t assume you need more content, more keywords or more backlinks.

First identify what’s actually holding the website back.

It may be search intent.

It may be a weak service page.

It may be technical.

It may be authority.

It may be internal linking.

It may be overlapping content.

It may be local SEO.

Or you may already have a page close to page one that simply needs the right improvements.

That’s why I prefer diagnosing before prescribing.

I’ve worked in SEO for more than 20 years, and I work directly with businesses rather than handing strategy off through layers of account managers.

If you’re looking for a San Diego SEO expert to identify the highest-priority opportunities on your website, I’d be happy to take a look.

Get your free SEO analysis or call/text me at (619) 719-1315.

Thanks for reading,
Jen Ruhman
SEO Expert & Founder of Jen Ruhman SEO

Frequently Asked Questions About Improving Google Rankings

How can I improve my Google ranking?

Start by determining which page should rank for the search you’re targeting and whether that page matches search intent. Then evaluate its content, internal links, technical accessibility, authority and competition. Local businesses should also consider their Google Business Profile and other local search factors.

How long does it take to improve Google rankings?

There is no universal timeline. Results depend on the starting position, competition, website history, authority, technical condition, content and the changes being made. A page already near page one is a very different SEO project from a new page on a new website.

Does publishing more content improve Google rankings?

Not automatically. New content can help when it fills a legitimate topic or search-intent gap. Publishing multiple pages that substantially overlap can instead create unnecessary clutter and competition between your own URLs.

Do backlinks still help Google rankings?

Backlinks can be valuable, particularly when they come from legitimate and relevant websites. I focus more on the relevance and quality of a link opportunity than hitting an arbitrary backlink count.

Can internal links improve rankings?

Internal links can help search engines and visitors discover related pages and understand how your website is organized. They can also reinforce which pages are important within a topic, but they should be added naturally rather than forcing the same exact-match anchor text everywhere.

Should I update old content or publish something new?

Check your existing content first. If an older page already has impressions, rankings, backlinks or relevance, improving it may make more sense than creating a new URL targeting substantially the same intent.

Do Core Web Vitals affect SEO?

Website performance and Core Web Vitals are worth improving, particularly because performance affects users. But perfect scores don’t guarantee high rankings. Search intent, relevance, content, authority and other factors still matter.

Can AI-written content rank on Google?

Using AI doesn’t automatically prevent content from ranking. What matters is the quality and purpose of the final content. I recommend reviewing AI-assisted content carefully for accuracy, originality, usefulness and genuine expertise rather than publishing large amounts of generic material.

Can I guarantee a #1 Google ranking?

No. Google controls its search results, and rankings can change. SEO can improve a website’s ability to compete, but no SEO professional can legitimately guarantee a specific organic position.

Should I hire an SEO expert to improve my rankings?

It depends on the website, competition and resources available. Some SEO work can be handled internally, while more competitive situations may require technical SEO, content strategy, internal linking, Local SEO, authority building and ongoing analysis.