Oh the number of times I have people ask me ‘how to get to page 1 of Google’ or ‘how can I rank at the top of Google’ and the short version is, it takes time, effort and a plan.

Not the answer I know you wanted- sorry!

There is no quick fix and if anyone promises you one, run for the hills because it’s not a guarantee and it could be a costly lesson to learn. I’ve had clients come to me after being forced to learn the hard way from others promising ‘I can get you to the top of Google’ for it not to happen full stop, OR, for it to happen for things/ services they’re not even interested in ranking for within Google (I’ll explain this bit more later).

Whilst it’s not a quick fix, there ARE some things you can do that will help get you there- and if you’re not interested in putting this work in yourself, it’s an area I can help you with.

Just tell me how to get to page 1 of Google already

I’m getting there I promise!

In this blog, I’ll give you a few pointers of what those things you can do are that will increase your odds or getting to page 1 of Google, or at least nearer to it than you’d be doing nothing at all.

Write regular content

Yes, you have a website, (you likely wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t) but when was the last time you put anything new on the website? Nothing since launching, yeah you’re not alone in doing that- a lot of people launch their website and then walk away from it and then wonder why they’re not ranking well, anf then how to get to page 1 of Google. 

It’s all well and good getting your website set up correctly for SEO purposes pre-launch, but if you’re doing nothing else with it, search engines will just look at your website and think it’s stale full of old content and it’ll bump you down the rankings (against websites that are newer or with regular content). Things change over time, new information is discovered and shared, and Google agrees, and that’s why it bumps up websites that create fresh content.

Not sure what content to write, how some ideas:

• Get a blog going- (like this one) full of lovely tips and advice for your clients
• Produce some case studies- show off that cracking job you did recently and upload some pictures to go alongside
• Testimonials- your clients love you so update your website and increase the number of testimonials you have
• Update your services- you realised since launching that there are some other areas of work you do, great, get it on the website and tell people about it

Make sure you’re set up correctly

Whenever you write something on your website, are you checking things are set up correctly and you’re actually optimising your content? It’s all well and good writing the content, but you NEED to set it up correctly and optimise it, after all, it’s your only way to tell Google WHY it should be paying attention to you and why they should be ranking you higher.

Areas you need to set up include (but not limited to):

• Metadata
• Meta tags
• Alt tags
• Image filename
• Headers
• Keywords
• Title tag
• URL
• Keyword in H1, H2 or H3 Tags
• … FYI these aren’t all of them, just a few

Hit the lower level Keywords or Keyphrases

Keywords or Keyphrases are the words that you want people to type into search engines and then your website shows up in the results for; it’s a word that describes the content on your page or post best. 

Whilst it’s tempting to use a short keyword or keyphrase that you’d instinctively type, you’ll actually have much more luck going for phrases that aren’t searched for as often or have more words in them e.g…

• Keyphrase 1: ‘Sofabed’ gets 1,500,000 searches per month
• Keyphrase 2: ‘Red 2 seater sofabed’ gets 8,800 searches per month

The reason for this is that those big search result keywords will be used and targeted at by the larger companies who have a lot of budget and people full time working on it and you just can’t compete with it. You’ll have more luck going for the longer keywords (long-tail keywords) that will have fewer search results, but you’re more likely to get to page 1 of Google for. The added benefit of this too, is that people will be really homing in on what they’re specifically after, rather than widely searching for anything relating to it, and you can get the interest of those specifically looking for what you’re offering rather than those that might be interested.

BUT, and this is a big but, make sure the key phrases you use are ones you ACTUALLY want to be searched for. This is where many people promising they know how to get to page 1 of Google become unstuck, they can do so for reaaaaaally long-tail keywords with very low searches per month, but the phrases are often for things unrelated and sometimes, for services you don’t actually offer e.g a boiler service company ranking for roofing repairs.

Call To Actions (CTA’s) and links

Throughout your website, you should have CTA’s added, usually directing people to your contact information or pageContact.  Your CTA should be a link to somewhere else on your website or a pop-up within your website, basically, anything that keeps them on your website for longer and keeps their interest in you and what you’re selling.

And as for links, that’s a whole other topic we can spend a long time talking about- the short version is, make sure you have links from your website to other relatable websites, and wherever possible, get your website linked back to from legitimate sources. Google will look at this and it basically tells them people are listening to you, and you to others and so you’re respectable and knowledgable.

Write something people like

Boring topics and content won’t get read, and that’s the point of you writing it- so it gets read, and then hopefully people read your other works and then contact you for a quote/ purchase an item/ find out more.

That includes writing it in a style that’s relatable to your audience and using words and terminology they’ll understand. As an example, for my own website, I’ll write similar to how I talk in real life, it’s easy to understand, with natural pauses and with material that people read. My business isn’t a financial institution, nor a government one, and so I don’t write like it is. I also know that the people visiting my website are my clients (or potential ones) or people who just want a bit of help and guidance, so I write with that in mind,

Break the text up and add some images

No one wants to read pages and pages of words, it looks boring and hard to read at first glance and will likely put people off. My recommendation is that unless you’re a novel or research paper, you need to break the text up.

Whilst you could do this with bullet points, statement phrases, bold text or headers (mini titles for each of your sections- e.g the bit ‘Break the text up and add some images’ above this section is a header), the easiest and best way to help you know how to get to page 1 of Google, is with me telling you about using images.

Now it’ll help aesthetically if those images are related to the words you’re writing, but sometimes a special ‘play on words’ in your images can be interesting and keep people reading what you’re saying as they want to find out more. How to get to page 1 of Google doesn’t need to be a magic act (do you now get why I’ve used the image I have within this blog)?

The main thing though, is that you label the images correctly within the code as it gives you another way to use your keywords, and gives search engines another tick in their requirement boxes; afterall, search engine logic is simple: the more a keyword phrase is used on a webpage, the more likely that is what the page is really about.  

Mobile and load speed

Now this one is a biggie for so many reasons, your website NEEDS to be mobile responsive and fast if you want to get to page 1 of Google, these are just a few reasons why:

• People prefer fast websites- a slow one will put people off and they’ll go elsewhere
• More than half of internet searches are made using mobile devices 
• The numbers of mobile purchases are increasing, whilst the number of desktops is decreasing- mobile is on the rise
• People spend longer searching the internet on their mobiles than they do on a desktop

Importantly, Google knows all of this and so websites that conform to and perform better on mobile devices and run faster will automatically rank higher in search engine results than other websites will.

Repeat the steps all over again

Ranking well on any search engine requires constant work, tweaking, testing and improvements and then even more work. It’s not a quick fix and you might find that one day, something that works might not work the next, this is because search engines like Google are constantly changing themselves and tweaking their own algorithms to make searching the internet a better experience for its users.

Yes, you read that right, Google is constantly changing the goalposts just as you get used to them- useful I know!

That’s why it’s worth planning your changes and making a strategy of the content you want to show up in search results for, and THEN put steps in place to ensure you’re hitting the right spots.

So there you have it, just a few ways you can help yourself get to page 1 of Google. 

I want to stress that this isn’t a complete list of how to get to page 1 of Google, this isn’t something even I promise but it IS something I can help you work TOWARDS. Giving you all of my tips and knowledge in a blog would put me out of a job, and I like to eat and have a roof over my head and so I need money for that. 

If you want to know more, don’t feel comfortable to do the works yourself or simply just don’t have the time or resources to put these measures in place yourself, I can help. SEO is one of the services I offer so get in touch to find out more.