With more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, not only is there more content and competition than ever before, but it’s also now harder to rank at the top of Google more than ever as well. This is great for Google, but not so great for the millions of sites fighting for organic peak position on that elusive first page.

No matter the size of your business or brand, it’s a common goal for everyone to rank higher and more often in the search results. And when everyone has such a goal in place, only those who put in the necessary time, work and effort to understand what methods are working best, are going to see the best results.

Unfortunately, with more competition than ever before, the idea of simply creating content and ranking, is no longer a working method. Instead, it’s not just a matter of how much money you can throw at the problem, but instead understanding the process of how to properly research the best keywords and audiences to go after, and making sure you have a solid content creation and promotion in place.

Here are five excellent methods to help increase your chances for ranking higher in Google.

1 – Use Call to Action Triggers and Keywords in Your Title

Just as important as using the right keywords and phrases within the title of your content, is using trigger words to gain attention and invoke call-to-actions.

As highlighted by Granwehr, an SEO and marketing agency, the reason for this is two-fold.

The first is that allows site owners the ability to create content that is more targeted towards what the end user is looking for. The second is that it can improve the click through rate for your content listing in Google-which can further help increase your ranking and positioning.

In addition to covering why call to action triggers and keywords are useful to SEO and site rankings in Google, the site also covers the many different factors that come into play when doing any type of on-site and off-site optimization for your site rankings. Such methods include page speed, keywords, backlinks, heading tags and more.

Before hitting publish on your next article, be sure to look at your title and see if not only has the necessary keywords in place, but also relates best with what your audience is looking for. And don’t forget to take advantage of the other ranking factors that other sites might not be using.

2 – Focus on Longer Content vs. More Content

In previous years, many site owners and bloggers thought the best way to rank more often in Google was to continually push out as much content as possible. However, with there now being more content online than ever before, it’s more about quality over quantity.

Many reports are now showing that articles should be over 1,200+ words, and even upwards of 2,000+ words of even better results.

In addition to improving your chances for ranking, having less article content on your site can also make the backlink building and social promotion aspects of your site more effective.

This is something we can clearly see, thanks to the graphic and data provided by SerpIQ. Higher ranking content in Google simply has a higher average word-count, versus those in lower ranking postitions.

3 – Build a Variation of Anchor Links to Your Content

Another important element to ranking content higher in Google, is knowing what type of keywords to go after and how to use the correct anchor text. Of course you will want a few nice keywords and search phrases as anchor text to your site and articles, but don’t go too crazy.

After all, backlinks and references to your site should look authentic and natural. This means you will want to have a nice mix of generic, branded and keyword anchor text links back to your site.

A few examples of generic and branded would be ‘click here’, ‘see more’ and the domain name and brand of your site. Below you can see a wide range of anchor text variations provided via SearchEnginePeople.

4 – Promote Your Content Across All Social Platforms

The Google algorithm is changing all the time and it’s actually made up of many different factors and metrics–many of which still aren’t exactly known today. However, we all definitely know that social media does play a role in this ranking process.

For this reason and more, it’s important to share your best content across all social platforms, while also trying to get more likes, shares and links to your social content as well.

With Google putting a lot of weight on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s important to make sure these solutions are all part of your marketing and backlink building promotions.

And as highlighted by Social Media Examiner, it’s extremely important to put in the time and effort to create custom images, text and headlines or your content promotions across each social platform.

5 – Reference Reliable Sources and Data

Just as important as many of the other ranking factors highlighted already, if you want to gain the trust of your audience and Google, you will want to rank highly trusted authority sites within your niche. This would also apply to well-known news sites and outlets like Forbes, Inc, and TechCrunch.

While some people have their own preference on linking out from their sites, it’s almost always a good idea when linked to trusted authorities and news sources.

Not only will this help without your outbound link structure, but it can also improve the quality of your content as well. Also, don’t forget to reference sources whenever quoting or posting data to your site.

This is also something Moz has continually referenced, as they are a perfect example of a website and brand that has become quite a reliable reference.

Working Methods to Continually Rank Higher in Google

As you can imagine, implementing each of these methods into your content creation and marketing efforts isn’t just a one time deal. To continually rank higher and more often in Google, you must continually add more content to your site, update existing articles and always be gaining more backlinks and social shares.

With all of that being said, be sure to start implementing these working methods today. And if your site isn’t currently ranking as high as you’d like it to, be sure to skim through the list of recommendations above, and then modify any of your existing content to meet these needs.