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Search Engine Positioning: What Is It & How to Improve

Search Engine Positioning: What Is It & How to Improve

Written by Content Writer
| Last Updated: March 21, 2025

Gone are the days when a bit of content tweaking and optimisation improved your website’s search engine positioning. As an expert, I’ve seen businesses lose valuable traffic because their pages aren’t optimised for search engine positioning.

According to a study, the top three organic search results collectively receive 68.7% of all clicks, with the #1 result alone capturing 27.6%.

Source: Protofuse

Search engines prioritise relevance, content quality and technical factors when ranking pages. If your website will never reach its full potential if it’s not structured properly and lacks optimised content. The good news? With the right strategy, you can improve rankings and drive consistent traffic to your business.

In this guide, I’ll break down the essential steps to improve your search engine positioning. Read on!

What Is Search Engine Positioning?

Search engine positioning is the process through which you continuously optimise your website to appear at the top when someone searches specific keywords. It may sound the same as general SEO but has other relevance than this whole different process which I’ll come to later. If your business isn’t showing up on page one, it’s missing potential customers who are ready to engage.

How Search Engine Positioning is Beneficial?

Search engine positioning is beneficial because it helps your website achieve a strong position through which it gains higher visibility, more organic traffic and increased trust from search engines and users.

Increased Visibility: You know well that most users never scroll past the 1st page of Google. A higher position puts your business in front of more people searching for what you offer. The better your ranking the stronger your brand presence in search results.

Higher Organic Traffic: When one of the pages of your website ranks at the top it attracts more visitors without paid ads. Instead of chasing customers, you can simply rely on this strategy and increase organic traffic on your website.

Enhanced Credibility and Trust: Users trust Google’s top results. If your business ranks on the 1st page, it signals authority and reliability. Hence, more leads and growth for your business.

Search Engine Positioning vs SEO

While learning about Search Engine Positioning, you may find it almost similar to another commonly used term “SEO.” This table outlines the key differences between Search Engine Positioning and SEO, helping you understand how both play a role in Google Ranking Factors.

Criteria	Search Engine Positioning	SEO
Focus Area	Secures higher rankings for specific keywords.	Focuses on overall optimisation to improve search visibility.
Time Frame	Aims to achieve and maintain strong rankings for targeted searches.	An ongoing process that builds long-term authority.
Strategy Approach	Focuses on keyword ranking performance and fine-tuning strategies.	Includes technical improvements, content creation and link building.
Goal	Ranks high for valuable search terms that bring in potential customers.	Improves overall website health and traffic.

How Does Search Engine Positioning Work?

With search engine positioning you can find out where your website pages rank by analysing relevance, content quality and technical performance. The process isn’t much complicated you can take a look yourself:

1. Crawling and Indexing

Search engines crawl websites using bots that scan content, links and structure. Indexed pages are then stored in a massive database.

Steps to Take:

Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console so your pages are crawled faster.
Fix broken links and remove duplicate content that can affect indexing.

2. Keyword Relevance and Content Analysis

Search engines analyse keywords, headings and content structure to determine relevance. If your content doesn’t match search intent, it won’t rank.

Steps to Take:

Optimise headings, meta descriptions and body content with high-intent keywords.
Write detailed and valuable content that answers user queries directly.

3. On-Page SEO and Technical SEO Evaluation

Google checks page speed, mobile-friendliness and structured data to assess usability and performance. Poor technical SEO can push rankings down.

Steps to Take:

Try compressing the images added to reduce the size and remove any unnecessary coding added.
Make sure your website is responsive on all screen sizes and works well.

4. Link Authority and Trust Signals

Search engines evaluate backlinks and trustworthiness to determine credibility. Pages with high-authority links rank higher.

Steps to Take:

Get backlinks from reputable sources to build authority.
Remove toxic or spammy links that can harm rankings.

5. User Engagement and Behaviour

Search engines track click-through rates, bounce rates and dwell time to assess how users interact with your page.

Steps to Take:

Write engaging content that keeps users on your page longer.
Use clear headings and easy navigation to improve user experience.

How to Check the Search Engine Placement of a Page?

The best option to check Google Search Positioning is by using Google Search Console (GSC). Follow these steps:

Go to Google Search Console.

Open the “Performance” button in the left menu.

Check the “Average Position” tab.

Select the “Queries” tab to view the average ranking of your pages for specific search terms in search engine results.

You can also use the “Pages” tab in Google Search Console to check one of your website page’s average ranking based on various target keywords.

To track position changes, open the “Dates” dropdown and select a comparison range. Viewing ranking alongside CTR data helps identify pages that need improvement.

If a page ranks high but has a low CTR, updating the meta title and description can improve clicks. If a page has a high CTR but ranks low, refining on-page SEO positioning techniques can boost its position.

Other Tools for Search Engine Positioning

Apart from Search Console you can consider these tools as well for specific purposes.

SEMrush & Ahrefs: You can get detailed keyword tracking, competitor analysis and ranking history using these two tools.
Google Analytics: Offered by Google as well helps you monitor organic traffic and identifies which pages bring visitors from search.
Rank Tracker Tools: Dedicated software like SERPWatcher and Moz tracks keyword performance across different locations.

There can be other tools as well that can be used for the same purpose.

9 Best Practices to Improve Search Engine Positioning of Your Website

Quick fixes will never work when it comes to improving search engine positioning. For better results, you need consistent optimisation in key areas that influence rankings. These practices can help you make all the improvements you need.

Keyword Research and Optimisation

Google and other search engines analyse what your website is all about. For each web page, you need to use the right keyword and rank higher whenever a user enters the same search query.

Improvement Strategies:

Use any tool mentioned above and search for high-value keywords. You can also filter the keywords and pick ones with good search volume and low competition.
You must target long-tail keywords that match specific search intent which brings qualified leads to your website.
Make sure to naturally integrate these keywords into headings, meta descriptions and website content without stuffing.

On-Page SEO Techniques

Google only prioritises your website if its content is based on everything it’s about. Make sure you add relevant content to your website’s pages and make your On-Page SEO stronger.

Improvement Strategies:

Make sure your Meta tags are engaging, within the required character limits and include the primary keyword.
Your website’s content should be well structured and divided properly into H1, H2 and H3 headings for better readability.
Add alt text to images so search engines understand visual content.