Every single company that does online marketing wants to be on the first page of Google, and for good reason. But, for small business websites and newcomers, achieving these results through a sustained strategy may seem impossible. Leading companies have already established themselves and gained control over the most popular keywords, which leaves little hope for any website that wants to challenge these organizations.
But, this doesn’t mean you should just stop now and forget about trying. Even though established companies tend to rule the land, we’ve all seen a generic website challenging the top dogs for the first position in some search engine results pages (SERPs).
It’s definitely possible for your site to rank higher even if your small business website can’t bully their way to the top positions with a commanding authority score. The key is to learn the SEO finesse game and develop a strategy that allows you to get good rankings relatively quickly.
As a professional Seattle SEO company, Fannit specializes in helping our clients get to the first page of Google results for relevant terms. We’ve spent the best part of the last decade helping companies develop and grow a solid SEO strategy, so our team has first-hand experience making small to medium sites achieve higher rankings.
In this article, we’ll show you the importance of getting on the first page of Google, discuss how search engines work, and give you tips on achieving higher rankings for your company website.
Resource: The Best SEO Company
Overview: How Google & Other Search Engines Work
According to Google, about 63% of all purchases begin online, so more than half of the people that buy products rely on the internet to research before choosing the best option.
Furthermore, 47% of global purchases are actually completed online, so very soon the internet will be the largest marketplace in the world.
This has placed Google and other search engines in a unique position. Consumers rely on this search engine and similar platforms to help them with the best products and services.
Companies, on the other hand, also rely on search engines but their goal is to promote their services and connect with users who are looking for these solutions.
Search engines have become consumers’ favorite tools because they aim to deliver the most accurate results in order of quality.
If you want to promote your business on Google and take advantage of its ability to connect you with potential customers, you’ll need to know about the different factors that affect your rankings and the way consumers search for products.
In this article, we’ll go over a wide variety of definitions and concepts that affect your rankings in one way or another.
To start with, we’ll go over three of the most basic concepts you have to master.
Keywords
If you’re new to the world of search engine optimization (SEO), you should get used to hearing about keywords.
Simply put, keywords are the terms and phrases that people use to conduct searches online.
Businesses that want to get on the first page of Google have to identify the most relevant keywords and develop materials that include these terms.
This practice will help the search engine categorize your web pages properly, plus it will also increase your chances of getting higher rankings when these terms are searched for.
There are two main types of keywords, which are short-tailed keywords and long-tailed keywords.
We’ll go over everything you need to know about these two later on, but for now you should just know that short-tailed keywords are general and only consist of one word.
Long-tailed keywords, on the other hand, are more specific and they consist of multiple terms.
Needless to say, some keywords are more popular than others. However, it’s much harder to get high rankings for popular keywords and general terms because of the number of quality competitors.
But, companies can also target keyword variations that provide fewer visitors but have less competition and are much easier to rank for.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
The SERPs refer to the results page that Google generates after a search is conducted. It’s important to note that SERPs may be presented in a variety of formats depending on your location, search term, and other variables.
Furthermore, SERPs are personalized according to your search history, so the results you see are not necessarily the same ones that your customers will get.
With this in mind, business owners and marketers can learn a significant amount of information from analyzing these results.
After every search, companies are ranked from top to bottom starting with the first position.
Companies can see who the top competitors are, what pages are ranking for each term, and other campaign details, like the URL structure or meta tags being used.
But, to get an accurate picture of the SERPs most consumers see, you have to use specialized tools that allow you to view non-personalized SERPs.
Besides getting higher rankings, you can also create a strategy that boosts the performance of your actual search results.
Remember, the key to attracting more users is to stand out in a positive way. There are different techniques you can implement to enhance the appearance of your search result.
This allows you to add ratings, opening hours, and give customers more information about your services, which in turn helps you attract more engaged users.
Intent
Unlike SERPs and keywords, the searcher’s intent is a more obscure concept.
In simple terms, it refers to the intention that a user has whenever he or she conducts a search on Google.
There are two basic categories of user intent. The first one is informational intent, which means that users just want to collect information about a specific topic.
User intent can also be commercial, which describes users who are looking to learn more about a product, service, or brand in order to make a purchase.
It’s important to understand the two different types of intent because this will allow you to develop better marketing materials.
Yes, you may feel the urge to only target keywords with commercial intent, but developing informational materials can boost your rankings and give Google solid queues to accurately categorize your site.
Many marketers believe that the team behind the world’s biggest search engine is attempting to create a more semantic internet(based on semantic search).
In other words, the company is trying to provide better results based on the meanings behind the different searches, rather than the words themselves. Theoretically, this would make it easy for users to find solutions and connect with brands more efficiently.
This is part of the reason why strategies like keyword stuffing don’t yield great results anymore, because search engines are starting to look at intent rather than the search terms on their own.
How to Show Up First on Google Search (Top SEO Results)
If you’re about to launch a new business website, you’ve probably asked yourself “how do I get my website to show up on Google search?”
After all, you can’t get on the first page if the search engine doesn’t even know your website exists.
Search engines like Google use simple programs called crawlers to literally read each page on your website line by line.
These crawlers are tasked with parsing and categorizing your site, information that is then sent to the search engine.
In order to invite crawlers to analyze your website, you must add a small snippet of code or turn on the option that signals Google and asks the search engine to index your site.
It shouldn’t take very long for crawlers to index your site after this and voila! Your pages should now be on Google and available to users on the web.
Remember, being on this search engine’s index doesn’t mean anything unless you’re on the first page.
Allowing search engines to index your pages is the first step, but you’ll still have to develop an SEO first page Google marketing plan that helps you get to the top positions.
Does the First Page of Google Actually Produce Great Results?
Now that you know how to show up on Google, let’s take the opportunity to discuss the importance of getting on the first page.
You may have heard jokes about hiding something you don’t want anyone to find on page 2 of Google, but the idea behind the quip does have some base.
Having your site on Google is a good start, but it won’t be nearly enough to get your business website on the first page.
It’s estimated that 3 out of 4 users don’t get past the first page of Google when looking for information. In other words, people are more likely to run another search rather than going to the second page.
This is a good opportunity to point out that even if you get your website to the first page of Google, you’ll have to have a solid strategy in place to convert visitors into customers.
Build and they shall come doesn’t really apply to modern marketing, so you have to implement features that help you capture contact information.
Which, you can use later on to get in touch with your business prospects. There are many different techniques that can help you get on the first page of Google. However, you should create a unified strategy that works in unison to attract and convert leads into customers.
Moreover, companies that get their website on the first page of Google will enjoy benefits like:
More Traffic
With 75% of all users choosing one or more of the top 10 options, companies that manage to get a website on the first page of a search engine will almost always experience a boost in traffic.
And, the more visitors come to your site, the more chances you have of collecting information from users who are genuinely interested in your services.
In addition to the above, organic visitors are the most valuable type of traffic companies can acquire.
The main reason for this is that these users have discovered the website through their own means, so they feel empowered to make the right decision.
Furthermore, these users are actively looking for solutions, so they are more engaged and receptive to your marketing messages.
Organic traffic is also valuable because it’s completely free. Sure, you have to invest resources into developing a strategy and creating your marketing materials, but you also have to do this for PPC and other types of paid campaigns.
On top of that, you also have to pay for each click generated in a PPC campaign, even if it turns out not to be a lead.
Your business doesn’t have to pay for each individual organic lead it generates, so the ROI of these visitors is much higher than other forms of marketing.
Higher Visibility
While they still have their place in some industries, conventional forms of marketing have been losing traction with consumers for years and it’s easy to see why.
But, one thing that online marketing and traditional advertising have in common is the importance of visibility.
If your site is buried in any page below the first one, your visibility drops dramatically. And, the lower your ranking, the poorer your visibility.
Even if you create amazing materials that captivate your audience, it won’t generate the results you want unless you capture customers’ attention.
Fortunately, having better rankings on Google will help create awareness of your brand.
Users know that Google provides search results in order of quality, so having one of your web pages in the top 10 positions will be a testament to your merit.
Your business website’s visibility will be influenced by a variety of elements, not only your rankings.
In addition to getting your website to the first page of Google, you should also include descriptive meta tags and other elements that give users a good idea of what’s on your page. And, you can always implement schema markup vocabulary to draw more attention to your site on SERPs.
Lower Marketing Expenses
As we mentioned before, organic visitors represent the most affordable type of traffic in terms of immediate expenses.
In the vast majority of cases, developing and managing an SEO or other type of organic strategy results in lower marketing expenses. There may be some overlap with your current strategy before you start seeing results, but a successful plan will allow you to focus mainly on sourcing low-price, high-quality leads online.
With the above in mind, there are multiple expenses you’ll need to cover in order to build and monitor your campaign.
No website can get to the first page of Google without a solid plan, which requires the creation of a detailed strategy.
You’ll also need to craft valuable materials and take the time to monitor as well as optimize your campaign.
There’s a variety of web tools that can help you boost the performance of your SEO campaign, but many of these are paid platforms that represent additional expenses.
In order to keep costs low and still get good results, you should consider researching the best SEO company in your area and partner with a knowledgeable firm that takes on your marketing responsibilities.
We’ve covered the importance and value of achieving the best rankings.
But, before we discuss how to get on the first page of Google, let’s go over some of the reasons you’re not getting the results you want.
Why is Your Website Not on the First Page?
If you’re wondering how to get on the first page of Google in 24 hours with an easy plan, you’re not alone.
Unfortunately, achieving results overnight is not really possible because search engines have developed complex ranking algorithms that take hundreds of different factors into consideration. These do a pretty good job of preventing site managers from taking over the first positions overnight.
When this does occur, the glory doesn’t last for very long as Google can remove the business site and take it out of its web index.
The reasons why a specific website doesn’t get good rankings can be summarized into one phrase: bad SEO.
Search engine optimization is the practice of making adjustments to your business website in order to get better rankings on Google. If your business doesn’t have a solid SEO strategy in place, there could be hundreds of variables on your site that are not working in your favor.
Although Google hasn’t shared the exact ranking algorithm, there are many known variables that directly impact search engine rankings.
SEO aims to improve these factors and continuously improve your business website in order to achieve better rankings over time.
By focusing on both on-page and off-page elements, this marketing tactic can help boost your quality score and allow Google to categorize your website properly, which results in better SERP positions.
At Fannit we’ve developed a variety of in-house approaches that can yield results in a relatively short time span, but we’ve also seen what websites with poor SEO look like. These businesses usually experience:
Low Rankings
The biggest downfall of having bad SEO is that it results in low rankings. If your page sits at the 11th position of lower, your chances of attracting traffic and competing with the industry leaders plummet automatically.
And, the lower your rankings, the fewer visitors you will attract, creating a cycle that can only be broken with a solid SEO strategy.
SEO, on the other hand, can help improve your website rankings and create a buzz around your company.
Remember that SEO is a gradual process, but you can start by targeting long-tailed keywords and crafting long-format, authoritative content that accelerates your results.
As your rankings grow, you’ll start seeing higher traffic volumes, so you need to ensure that your website has adequate content and features that capture contact information in place.
Little to No Traffic
Low rankings not only kill your visibility, but they can also sabotage your entire marketing plan.
Even if you’re getting relatively good metrics in terms of conversion rates, you need to get a large number of visitors in order to see significant revenue.
If your pages are tucked away past the first page, you won’t get enough traffic for it to be worth your while.
Good SEO has the ability to increase traffic, but it doesn’t only send random users your way.
The traffic you receive consists of interested users who are looking to proactive learn more about the products, services, and solutions you provide
Traffic purchased from third parties, on the other hand, usually consist of users who have been paid to view your web page, so we strongly discourage this unethical practice.
Wasted Marketing Dollars
Regardless of how much money you invest into marketing, most of it will go to waste if you don’t have a plan to get to the first page. A business website that has the highest positions is usually updated on a regular basis and often has a dedicated team that works to keep the content fresh.
This ensures that the website is future-proofed, protecting the long-term investment.
Simply throwing money at your marketing campaigns without a clear outline may boost your earnings for a short period, but it’s not a suitable long-term strategy.
SEO is a solid strategy because it includes the creation of objectives as well as milestones that help ensure the goals are achieved in the right time frame.
So far, we’ve covered the importance of getting your website on the first page of Google and the benefits it can bring.
Now, to the good stuff — let’s go over how to get your website on top of Google.
How Do You Get to the Top of Google Search Results?
Getting your website on Google’s top placement can give your business a huge boost in terms of sales and brand recognition.
However, remember that SEO isn’t a defined set of steps, but rather a dynamic approach that you need to adapt to your company’s needs.
Get it right, and you’ll claw your way to the top of the rankings. But, if you get it wrong you may have to scrap your plan and start fresh.
There are many steps that can help you get higher rankings for your website, but the same formula doesn’t apply to every company in all industries. By analyzing the top competitors, you’ll find out what steps they’ve taken in order to get high rankings.
You should also inspect your own website and make note of its strengths and the areas that need immediate improvement.
For example, you may notice that industry leaders have strong backlink profiles that yield high rankings. You may not be able to amass as many backlinks in a short period.
But, if you already have a blog with some content, you can focus on publishing more content and distributing it through social media to give your website a better quality score as well as positive social indicators.
Furthermore, you can choose to implement one or both of the following strategies to get you on the top of Google quickly.
Pay-Per-Click Campaigns Through Google Ads
Right, we know this may not be the answer you were expecting in an article about how to get on top of Google search, but give us a chance to explain.
Google Ads can help you show your adverts above organic search results — this is common knowledge by now.
You have to pay a small fee every time someone clicks on your ads, but very much like SEO, it’s often big companies paying top dollar to claim the highest rankings.
However, the vast majority of PPC campaigns are sales oriented, even when the user intent may be completely different.
This is where you can capitalize.
If you research informational intent keywords and find that companies with the top Google Ads positions are trying to sell, you can create a campaign that takes advantage of the gap. Google wants to serve the best search results as well as ads to every user.
If you develop a campaign that targets these informational intent keywords and sends traffic to the right type of landing page, there’s a strong chance your ads will be cheaper and have better performance than competitors.
Yes, this means you would be paying, but you’re almost guaranteed to get great results, and all you have to do is play the game right.
Benefits of Google Ads
Whether you take advantage of the platform’s loopholes or implement it as a cornerstone of your overall strategy, Google Ads can bring many advantages.
Now the most popular ad network out there, Google has developed an advertising platform that gives companies extensive control over their marketing dollars through a list of robust features.
One of the reasons Google Ads has become a popular option for advertisers around the world is its targeting features.
Instead of blasting Google’s global user base, Ads allows you to filter out users by geographical location as well as other variants. You can choose targeting settings that help show your ads to users in the areas you serve or in locations that have a higher conversion rate.
This limits your ads’ exposure to a group of users who are more likely to have an interest in your product.
You can also track the results of your campaign in real-time or analyze historic performance in order to identify different patterns.
By looking at daily performance by times of day, you can figure out the best schedule and show your ads during times when your audience is more receptive. And, you can also identify which ads are providing the best performance as well as the ones that need improvements.
Additionally, some of the benefits of running a Google Ads campaign includes advantages like:
Immediate Results
SEO is a gradual process, Google and other search engines have made sure of that.
Even if you use blackhat techniques to achieve top rankings, there’s a strong chance Google is going to notice and eventually pull you from its top page. And, possibly ban your site from the search engine altogether.
However, Google Ads allows you to show your ads above the organic search results right away.
Remember, we’re not saying you should go full out either.
You should craft a campaign that lets you compete with relevant words that don’t have as much volume, which means that they won’t have too much competition nor a high price tag.
In addition to getting more traffic, users will get used to seeing your name at the top of the rankings.
So, one of your SEO strategy kicks in, you can gradually reduce your PPC budget and transition from relying on some paid leads to running a completely organic machine.
Place Ads on Top of Google Organic Rankings
Getting your website at the top of Google’s organic rankings doesn’t always mean your page will be the first thing users see.
If a term has informational intent, you may see your site come up first, or you may also see a knowledge panel or another element that doesn’t necessarily feature a snippet from the leading site.
And, if a keyword has commercial intent, you’ll likely see a bunch of ads as well as a map above the fold.
In these cases, users have to proactively scroll down in order to find the organic results.
So, even though it’s the pinnacle of organic visibility, the first place on Google’s search results doesn’t actually mean the top placement.
Google Ads, on the other hand, actually allows you to place an ad right below the search bar.
In these cases, the first thing that the vast majority of users see when they get the results is this ad and if it’s relevant it can also draw most of the traffic.
Comprehensive Optimization Options
Like all other types of digital campaigns, your PPC ads need to be reviewed and optimized on a regular basis.
Luckily, Google offers a full set of optimization tools that let you create better versions of your ads.
The search engine’s optimization toolkit starts with Google Analytics, which is the company’s free, yet robust tracking system.
Google Analytics allows you to see a huge variety of metrics that give you a good idea of how your ad is performing. You can see performance statistics from the past few days, weeks, months, or years, depending on how long your campaign has been running for.
And, you can integrate it with other tools or take advantage of the platform’s powerful reporting capacities.
Moreover, the Google Ads platform itself is packed with innovative features that allow you to identify which ad variations work best.
This includes the ability to create split tests, which runs multiple ad variations at the same time and lets you see the results of your experiment head-to-head — all for free.
Organic Campaigns Through Search Engine Optimization
The idea of paying for a Google Ads PPC campaign while you build your organic rankings is definitely worth exploring.
But, we also know that some companies can either choose between SEO or PPC — and if that’s the case, our vote will almost always go to SEO.
There are hundreds of SEO factors that affect the ranking of your website, so you need to ensure that all of these are properly adjusted.
One of the biggest variables you need to take control of is the architecture or internal structure of your website.
Platforms like Google expect websites to follow an organized structure that allows crawlers to read and navigate the website easily.
If the structure is not right, it doesn’t matter how attractive your website is or how much content you have on it, you’ll never get to the top Google positions.
Keep in mind that there are also additional on-site and off-site changes you need to make that boost your ranking.
On-site refers to elements that are on your website, which means that you have direct control over them. Off-site elements, like backlinks, are not in your direct control, but you can still influence which websites link back to your site if you take the right approach.
Some of the variants that affect SEO and can help you rank higher include:
Content Quality
The phrase “content is king” may be played out, but it’s been overused for a reason.
We can’t stress enough the importance of great content.
Even though the main goal of SEO is to get better rankings, you’re trying to get business from real users who will take time out of their schedule to read your content. And, if it’s not up to scratch, they won’t get in touch with your company.
At the same time, Google has been working for decades to create better content assessment protocols.
In the early days of SEO, keyword stuffing, purchasing backlinks, and other shady techniques were enough to fool Google into providing top results.
Today, the amount of effort it would take to figure out how to fool Google would make the entire process pointless.
So, the best strategy is simply to focus on generating awesome content that actually helps your readers.
High-quality content isn’t only helpful, but it’s also written in an engaging and appealing way.
From the layout to the tone and the vocabulary used, make sure that all elements of your business content work to benefit your customers.
Helpful Reading: What is SEO Content?
Inbound Links
Inbound links refer to the websites that link back to your content and let Google understand where you stand in the digital ecosystem. One of the biggest reasons why Google analyzes a website’s inbound links (known as the backlink profile) is to get an idea of how authoritative this site is.
Logic dictates that quality websites link back to other superb platforms, so having inbound links from relevant companies in your industry can give your site a solid ranking boost.
However, controlling your inbound links is no easy feat. Google has cracked down on companies that openly purchase backlinks, hitting them with penalties that lower their rankings.
Getting quality platforms to link back to your site has become an art form, so you need to forge solid relationships with relevant partners and get backlinks the old fashion way.
At Fannit, we manage all parts of our clients’ marketing plan, so we understand how to adhere to Google’s requirements while still landing quality backlinks for your site.
If you need assistance understanding or setting up your backlink strategy, contact us today and we’ll be glad to assist.
Loading Speed
Have you ever tried to access a business page that took a while to load? Chances are, you never actually visited it because you clicked out and tried another website after that.
And, it’s almost certain that the average consumer is a lot less patient.
This simple scenario demonstrates the importance of having a website that loads quickly.
Google evaluates loading speed as one of the most important factors in its algorithm and it makes sense.
It doesn’t matter how good your content is or how user-friendly your interface may be, if your pages don’t load fast enough you’ll never be able to deliver a good experience.
And Google knows that.
Ideally, your website should load in one second or less.
Sure, the threshold may be five seconds according to search, but every second that passes means that more and more people hit the back button.
By the time the five second mark arrives, you’ve likely lost half or more of your potential clients.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of looking for and identifying the best terms to include in your website. Each and every single one of your pages that will appear on Google’s web index needs to have the right keywords in place.
If not, you won’t attract relevant visitors to your site.
The best way to conduct keyword research is through dedicated tools that give you information about each term’s search volume, competition, and other details.
But, there are dozens of keyword research tools to choose from. Google offers a free tool known as the Keyword Planner, but it only provides general information and isn’t always accurate (ironic, we know).
There are also other free platforms you can try on your business site, but only a handful of these provide accurate results and almost all of them require payment in order to unlock advanced features.
At Fannit, we only employ renown, state-of-the-art platforms like AHREFS and SEMrush to conduct keyword research for our clients and find the terms that give each business site the best chances of success.
Resource: SEO Keyword Research (2020 Guide)
Security
Modern consumers are concerned about privacy and security, so you need to create a safe and transparent website that instills confidence in your audience.
It’s worth noting that some of the most popular web browsers have gone as far as tagging websites that don’t follow generated security protocols as insecure.
If your SSL certificate is outdated or has your website hosted on a shady server, you may not pass all the security requirements, which in turn may hurt your rankings.
For example, research conducted by Moz a few years ago found a slight correlation between updated SSL certificates and higher rankings on Google.
And, even if it doesn’t necessarily boost your rankings directly, a secure website will convince users that you’re a professional company that can be trusted.
It’s important to note that SSL certificates can be acquired for free, but the maintenance costs can quickly add up depending on who you get it from.
To avoid any hassle, you can work with an digital marketing agency that hosts your website and takes care of the technical side for you.
Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate, and Click-Through-Rate
Google’s algorithm assesses a huge number of variables, but three of the most well-known are conversion rates, bounce rates, and click-through-rates.
The conversion rate measures how many visitors complete an action you want them to take versus the number of people that actually go to your site.
The action can consist of different things, like signing up for a newsletter, leaving contact information, or asking a question about a product or service.
To increase conversion rates, you have to develop a dedicated campaign and make adjustments that entice visitors to complete whatever action you want them to complete.
Bounce rates describe the percentage of visitors that leave your website right away.
Having some customers leave your site immediately is normal.
But, high bounce rates are a sign that the content on your site is good enough for the search engine, but not for your audience.
Or, it may also be a sign that you’re attracting the right type of user to your website.
Also known as CTR, your organic click-through-rate helps you determine the percentage of customers that clicked on your pages when they appear on search engine SERPs.
If you want to improve your CTR, you need to ensure that you’re targeting the right keywords.
Once you verify this, create better meta tags and consider using schema markup and other advanced techniques.
You can see all of these metrics for free if you add Google Analytics to your site, but you have to ensure that you’re using the tracking system properly.
URL Structure
Believe it or not, the URL structure of the pages you’re using on your site actually affects your SEO rankings.
URLs are a minor ranking factor, but they can still help Google determine the relevance of a page whenever a query is performed.
Furthermore, if your website has a good domain authority rating, having your branded URL can give you a noticeable boost, as long as it follows the right structure.
The most important thing to remember when crafting SEO-friendly URLs is that they need to be relevant to their respective pages.
If Google notices that your URL and content don’t match, it’ll assume you’re using a form of click-bait strategy, lowering your chances of getting the top rankings.
You should also craft simple URLs that are compelling and full of details without being too long.
These show search engines and users what your page is about, so they should be easy to read.
You may want to include as much information as possible, but remember that users already know what they’re looking for. Simply choose the most relevant terms, place them in an order that makes sense, and use hyphens to separate words when building URLs for your business site.
More Helpful Reading: What Is Organic Marketing?
Tips to Get on the First Page of Google SERPs
Learning how to get your website to the top of Google takes some time. You have to master a lot of different concepts and develop a successful strategy, but even then you’re not guaranteed Google first page rankings right away.
There are dozens of different steps you can take and an infinite amount of strategy combinations you can put in place, so you have to find the variables that work best for your company through trial and error.
But, there are some steps you can take to shorten the learning curve and hit the ground running.
Making sure you learn about the different concepts and industry vocabulary is a great start, but you also have to find the best tools and free resources to boost your website performance.
Below, we’ll show you a few general tips that can aid you in your quest to get higher Google rankings for your website.
Update or Claim Your Profile in Google My Business
Google pays attention to a huge number of indicators when determining your website’s search position.
Local listing sites, review platforms, and similar platforms are already a part of the search engine’s algorithm, so make sure to create, claim, or update your profile on Google My Business.
We’re not saying that claiming your profile can be the difference between getting to page 1 or Google page 2.
But, taking control of this and all other profiles found on public directories can have a significant impact on your rankings because it helps Google categorize your website. And, it’s also been confirmed that actual review ratings on free platforms like Google My Business and Yelp are part of the algorithm, so having a positive reputation has a positive impact regardless.
In addition to claiming your free Google My Business profile, you’ll also have to create an online reputation management strategy.
This will allow you to monitor any changes in your ratings across the most important review and listing sites in your industry.
And, you can take action and work on addressing any negative reviews that show up on these platforms.
More Helpful Reading: How to Optimize Your Google Maps Listings
Research Competitor Strategies
Many marketers rely on trial-and-error to find the best mix for their strategy.
But, this can increase the learning curve and it can also waste a significant amount of valuable resources.
The good news is that in most scenarios you don’t have to start from scratch, you can simply analyze the competition and take successful elements from other companies’ campaigns.
Industry-leading competitors have done a lot of groundwork to get where they are, but you can also benefit from their hard work.
You should study these leading brands and dissect different parts of their strategy in order to uncover techniques that you can use yourself. You may find a competing business site that sparks creativity or is using a strategy you didn’t think about.
Remember, you should never plagiarize, but you can find inspiration, blog posts ideas, and other strategies that can be adapted to your company’s needs.
Create New Materials If Needed
Creating new materials has a variety of benefits and you will almost always have to focus on developing fresh materials.
Google evaluates the content on your site every time a relevant search is performed, so frequently adding new pages and other materials will increase your chances of attracting more users.
Businesses that already have a significant number of published materials can focus on revamping these pages and posts to increase their chances of success.
To conduct thorough optimization, you should analyze how your articles are currently performing, find competitors that have the leading posts in those topics, and try to bridge the gap between the two.
Focus on Blogging and Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a form of promotion that focuses on attracting users who are actively in search of your solutions to your site.
A few decades ago, the best thing companies could do to advertise was to put up a billboard or sign and hope that it was visible enough.
Sounds easy, but the fact of the matter is that these ads were viewed mostly by people who were not interested in the advertised solutions and results were impossible to measure.
Today, inbound marketing allows us to identify, target, and attract users who are searching for our products at any given time, making it one of the best strategies for your business.
Furthermore, having a blog on your website will also allow you to update content on a regular basis and give Google more information to categorize your site.
With the right plan in place, you can also create a consistent mechanism that lets you produce high-quality leads through your website.
Build Your Backlink Profile
There are dozens of variables that companies can’t directly control, yet these elements still affect the performance of your website.
Your website’s backlink profile is a great example because it helps give your business its authority score, which heavily influences your position in Google search.
And, unlike meta tags, you simply can’t log in and change these — you need to keep a close eye on your backlink profile and develop a system to add new links and eliminate low-quality ones without being penalized.
Keep in mind that one of the best ways to organically build a solid backlink profile is to produce leading resources in your industry.
For example, companies that focus on delivering cybersecurity solutions can create reports, case studies, and forecasts that allow the audience to understand the challenges that lie ahead.
Which, in turn, should encourage your audience to find solutions and give them the confidence to contact your business.
Implement Schema Markup Vocabulary
There are many technical elements that make up a website, but not many of them have been developed by the top internet platforms. Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, and other leading brands founded the schema.org project.
Schema.org promotes the use of a set of coding vocabulary that helps search engines understand the meanings of terms in your website, rather than simply matching search engine queries with relevant keywords.
In addition to boosting the technical performance of your site and allowing Google to categorize your more accurately, schema markups also impact the way your search results are displayed on SERPs.
For pages that have schema markup vocabulary, Google can present knowledge panels, reviews, product pricing, and other features right in the SERP.
This draws more attention to your search result, but it also gives users more information to base their decisions off of — and it’s free to implement in your web pages.
Also Claim Your Profiles on Review, Rating, and Listing Sites
We’ve gone over the importance of claiming your profile on Google My Business, but remember that every industry is different.
Some consumer segments may not rely on Google My Business or Yelp, but visit more specialized industry review platforms.
If you know that your target audience doesn’t rely on traditional review platforms, you’ll have to research the most relevant options in your industry and claim profiles on these sites in order to stay competitive.
In most cases, a simple search on Google will help you confirm which are the leading review and listing sites, but make sure you choose all platforms that seem relevant.
Develop an Optimization Calendar
Optimization is a necessary practice, but it’s also a relatively new concept so not all marketers know how to take care of this process.
After all, launching a marketing campaign a few decades ago meant you couldn’t change any details once it was live.
But, online channels like search engines and your website allow you to update your website and make changes to your strategy and materials after these have been published.
Successful SEO optimization is all about organization, so you should reserve slots in your business calendar to develop, document, and fine tune your process.
In addition to recording the changes you create, make sure to wait until you have enough statistically significant information before you adjust each page.
Start with Long-Tailed Keywords and Move Up from There
Long-tailed keywords are more affordable, have less competition, and usually boast of higher conversion rates.
This is the perfect formula for website owners that have just started to focus on SEO but want to get on the first page quickly.
You should target long-tailed terms because they will be easier to claim the top positions for. And, once you have control over these terms, you can just your strategy and make a run at more competitive keywords.
Implement Paid Campaigns While You Climb to the Top of Organic Rankings
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — there’s nothing wrong with developing a paid search campaign and using it to boost your strategy until you consistently get customers from your organic efforts.
Google’s index is updated with new websites on a regular basis, but this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to crack the top-10 positions overnight.
PPC campaigns on Google Ads require a higher investment, but these paid search engine placements can boost your branding and let you capture consumer attention.
And, if you start working on SEO at the same time, you’ll likely have a better reputation when your website appears on the first page, so you’ll gradually be able to move away from PPC altogether.
Design a Marketing Plan that Helps You Get on the First Page of Google Today
Learning how to get your web page to the top of Google may take a lot of time and practice, but it can help you improve the performance of your marketing dollars and get the most bang for your buck.
We hope that the article above helps you understand the importance of ranking in the top positions every time there’s a search that’s relevant to your products and/or services.
If you want to develop a search engine marketing strategy and focus on getting the first positions on Google, contact Fannit today and our team of SEO experts will be glad to assist you.
