How Can I Get Ranked on The First Page of
Google?
Every web site owner wants to see their web site on the first page of Google and Yahoo and the other major search engines. We all know that the majority of searches never go past the first page of results, so it's obvious that it would be every web site owner's goal to be ranked number one. With only 10 results displayed per page, it can be difficult to reach the top 10, especially when every other person that's targetting your keywords is going after the same rank.
The question now, is how can I reach the first page on Google if so many others are trying to as well?
How Do Search Engines Work?
I laymans terms, search engines send out "spiders" or "robots" that crawl the internet searching for content to associate with related keywords. When you search for the word "Website" the results that are displayed is the result of those robots scouring the internet for content that's related to the keyword "Website." When Google associates content with a keyword, as long as it identifies the resulting page(s) as relevant, it will then index that page so that it can be displayed in future search results for others to find.
Google uses it's own algorithm to assign rankings and relevance to each page it finds on the internet. The results are Google's opinion on the value of a specific page and it's value related to specific keywords. The quality, quantity and relevance of each page on your web site will have a direct effect on the PageRank of your web site as well as the position you're web site is display in search results.
What is My Google Rank Based On?
While search engine optimizers do their best to figure out exactly how Google ranks pages and the best ways to acheive the best search engine results, nobody but Google employees know exactly what works and what doesn't. Every company that provides search engine optimization or SEO has their methods that will almost always be kept secret, there are a few constants that everyone relies on to help increase Google page rank and to get on the first page of search results.
What Can I Do to Increase My Google Rank?
Article Submission
One of the longest running and most proven methods to acheive a high pagerank isArticle Submission. Article Submission is the practice of submitting custom written, informative articles to submission websites. These web sites accept articles from authors on a wide range of topics, some submission sites will be niche specific, while others will accept all types of articles and seperate them in to relevant categories. Submitting content to article submission sites can improve your search engine ranking by creating back-links to your web site, RSS feed subcriptions and exposes you as an "expert" in your market so long as your articles are informative, keyword rich and unique enough to gain reader interest. The problem with these web sites is they are generally over exposed, so your competition will likely be using them. The content is generally repetitive and just about any article submitted has already been seen somewhere else on the site. With that said, article submission web sites are a great place to start increasing your search engine ranking.
Web Site Keywords
In order to show up in search engines, there must be a search. Google and other major search engines will display results based on specific keywords in the search submission. For example, when a search is performed for the phrase "I want to know about web site design," search engines will identify the keywords "web site design" from the phrase and display results relevant to these keywords, Depending on your industry, your chosen keywords will vary. Your keywords should be researched and chosen wisely, you want your chosen keywords to be relevant to both your services and your web site's content. In order to increase your search engine ranking, the keywords you indentified as relevant to your web site must match the content that is found on your web site. If your web site is targeting the keyword "web design" but your content is nothing but information on lawn mowers, Google and other search engines will disregard you for your lack of relevance to those keywords, and you will not show up in search results.
Web Site Content Relevance
In order for your web site to rank high on search engines, and for that matter show up at all, you must have valuable content to display. When the Google robots crawl around your web site's content, they are analyzing it for relevance to your chosen keywords, if they approve it, the content will be indexed and it will be available to be displayed in search results. You are most likely creating a web site that you want people to find, so you need to be giving them content to search for and to look at when they finally find your web site on search engines. Creating quality content is the single best way to ensure your web site will be found by search engines.
Web Site Link Building and Popularity
Just like in high school, the more friends you have, the more people will know about you, so the more likely you are to come up in conversation, the same can be said for search engine rankings. The more popular your web site is, or the more links that link back to your web site, the more likely you will be to show up in search engine results. While search engine results are based on content quality and keyword relevance, Google PageRank appears to be directly related to link popularity. The more incoming, and once again relevant, link you have directing to your site, the more Google robots will find your site, which in turn will increase it's popularity. As discussed before, there are many ways to increase the number of back links to your site. While massively submitting your URL will increase the number of links, it's important to remember that quality takes some precident over quantity as the search engines rely on relevance more than they do the number of links you get. If you have a ton of relevant back-links you will get a much higher page ranking, if you have a ton of back-links that are completely irrelevant to your web site, you risk damaging your ranking.
A Few Ways to Increase Link Popularity:
- Article Submission
- Business Directory Submission
- Link Exchange
- Requesting Back-Links
- PPC Advertising
- Blog Commenting
- Forum Commenting
- URL in signatures (blogs,forums,emails,etc)
Social Networking
Social Networking has become a great way to increase site visibility and is an amazing platform to market your business and communicate with customers. There are now hundreds of popular social networking sites, some that are niche specific, that you can use to advertise your business. Social media is a great way to advertise your products, interact with customers on a personal level, and gives you an entire new medium to attract customers to your brand. With a bit of research, you can find the social networks that will fit your specific needs, but the following social networking sites are a must for small business and web site owners:
- Facebook - Interact with customers directly, post company information, specials, and even custom landing pages to attract new customers. Facebook receives millions of views daily, and is by far the best social networking site to start with for your small business. Check out our latest articles in our Blog on using Facebook for Small Business and other social networking platforms.
- Twitter - Twitter is great for networking with your industry, as well as researching trends and seeing what your followers and customers might be saying about your business. If you happen to have a blog, posting links to your blog posts on Twitter can help get you some more followers as well as subscribers.
- LinkedIn - Whether you're posting a new job opening, or trying to find a sub-contractor, LinkedIn is the place to be to network with professionals. They allow you to link directly to your web site from your profile, show you who's working where, and gives you a great platform to network with like-minded business professionals.
Forum and Blog Commenting
Once you have your own blog going and you're pumping out articles, it's time to start following and networking with other bloggers in your niche, as well as joining and commenting on forums relevant to your industry. Commenting on forum posts and blogs is a great way to increase links to your web site, and is a great way to drive some new viewers to your web site.
- Forums - Be aware, if you are commenting and posting in a business related forum, especially if it's directly related to your industry, know that this is not the place to spam links. Use these platforms to interact with others in your industry. Create interesting discussions and get things brewing between industry professionals. You will get called out for spamming, and for providing content that lacks any real relevance or use to the forums. Using forums to post and comment is a great way to increase links and indentify yourself as an expert, but be wary of spamming and abuse at it may affect your reputation.
- Blogs - You want to drive traffic to your blog that matters? Start commenting on blogs that interest you, as well as blogs of other people in your industry. Many people will say only to comment on blogs who's source code allows for "follow" links, so that search engines can link to you. I say comment everywhere. Sure, a few of your comments may not get you linked to, but those links can still be read by actual people, and those are the eyes you're really after. Include your web site address in every comment you post, and if people liked what you had to say, you just gave your web site some interested eyes.a
