SEO rankings and FICO scores are a lot alike. Most people know that paying bills on time raises a credit score and ignoring obligations reduces that score. But few people can say, with any certainty, that X payment at Y time will have Z effect.

Likewise, no one outside Google Analytics can reliably predict the exact outcome of certain SEO practices. But in general, if you follow these five tips, your ranking will almost certainly improve.

Select a Good Web Hosting Company

Back in the old days, as in before 2010, load speed meant little in SEO. Most pages were text-only and loaded easily. But with the prevalence of images and video, speed is much more important for searchers. It’s also important for SEO. Google punishes your site if searchers pull up a page and then quickly click away because the page doesn’t load properly.

To select the right hosting company, get lots of information from places like HostGator review. This is a decision that you cannot afford to get wrong.

Pick a Good Keyword

Again, back in the old days, this SEO improvement tip was the only one that mattered. Google and other search engines zeroed in on keywords and ignored almost everything else. Today, keywords are still near the top of the list, but they are more like a first among equals.

There are plenty of tools, like Google Keyword Planner, to help you. In a nutshell, broad keywords like “dog toys” are not nearly as efficient as specific keywords like “small dog toys.” Try to think like a searcher and use key phrases that searchers will use.

Post Quality Content

If your blogs and landing pages have quality content that adds value to the reader, Google will find you and so will potential customers. All posts should be at least 400 to 500 words. They should also stick to the keyword and not ramble.

On a related note, post lots of blogs. Fresh content is the best way to compete with the pay-per-click advertising sites at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Research indicates that sites with at least sixteen blogs a month had quadruple the web traffic of sites with zero to four posts per month.

Pay Attention to Structure

All posts should have a title which contains the keyword (or a close variation of it) and at least two headers. At least one of these headers should also contain the keyword.

These tips help Google and humans. Search engines have a better idea of what the post is about if you place keywords in this way, and that helps your ranking. Furthermore, most people scan websites as opposed to reading them. So, a scannable structure helps your SEO rankings as well. If people like what they see, they keep coming back.

Insert Links

Links to external sources give your posts additional authority, and Google likes authoritative blogs. Avoid linking to a competitor’s site. Instead, stick with high-authority .gov, .edu, and .org domain names whenever possible. Use internal links as well. Such links encourage visitors to bounce around your website and look at different content.

Honorable mention goes to proper use of images, metas (meta description and meta title), and link building.