First Page of Google – How do you get there?

Landing on the first page of Google is unlikely to happen unless your site is optimised for Googles search engine ranking factors.  Basic on-page optimisation is the first step to getting on the first page of Google.

Domain names when possible should be kept short and to the point.  It also helps to keep your product, post or service URL short.  Search engines and visitors will find your website easier when you use URL’s that accurately describe the page content.  Keywords; words that clearly and very specifically describe what you make it easier for Google by using the most common phrases and basic language.  Keywords are important because you don’t want to rank high in a search where people are searching for terms completely unrelated to your business.

Writing is also key.  Write a lot, related topics to your business, things your intended or current clients want to read about or likely interested in.  Make what you write add value your prospective clients, not just Google.  Because your website will be constantly updated, Googles crawler will notice you, and your chances of ranking higher will increase. Provided you are writing about topics relevant to your business.  Your keyword density will automatically be higher enough to boost your rankings.  It is the consistent production of articles that is required to achieve good results.  Once you stop writing eventually your rankings will decrease due to outdated content leaving you right back where you started, therefore consistency is key.

A few technical aspects to remember, check how high you rank and the HTML output should be valid. Images should be named properly and have captions and proper attributes etc.

It is a difficult job to try and work out exactly what Google is looking for.  The aim is to try and look for some major signals that Google is likely to use, in order to provide us with Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).  Important high-quality sites receive a higher Page Rank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search.  Important pages mean nothing if they don’t match the query though.  Therefore Google combines Page Rank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to the search.  It goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page but rather examines all aspects of the page content (and the content of the pages linking to it, i.e. all the articles the business is writing.)  Google uses all this to determine if the keywords are a good match to the query.

Ultimately to rank on the First Page of Google, these are key factors to consider;

• Content relevance and SEO rank-Google displays on the first page of search results the most relevant content that matches a keyword.
• Inbound links and SEO – The quality of inbound links pointing to your domain or page is an important ranking indicator.
• Content quality – develop the best content to attract inbound links to your content; Google wants to deliver not only the most relevant but also the highest quality search results.
• Technical Issues – Common technical issues include duplicate content, dubious inbound links, improper redirects and poor navigation.  Google wants to deliver a positive user experience so poorly structured content on sites will not likely earn high ranking.
• User Engagement- Get people talking, landing on your site being interactive.