Struggling to get to the first page of Google and other search engines? You’re not alone. With increased competition, it’s a problem many internet marketers have faced for years. As you probably already know, if you can’t get on the first page of Google, you might as well be nowhere. Even for a popular search term with a lot of monthly volumes, getting to page two will get you hardly any hits. Some estimates say you might only get 1% of the clicks for that search for an 11th place (or top of the second page). So that means you need to be on the first page. But how do you do it?
SEO, or search engine optimization, has changed a lot over the last few years. While different techniques come and go, a lot of the basics remain the same. If you really want to get to the first page on Google, you’re in the right place. We’re going to look at a few key tips to try and boost your rankings so that your website or online venture can start to be the success it should be. You’ll need to make sure both your on-page and off-page SEO are on-point, as you’ll soon see.
Let’s have a look:
1. Get more backlinks
You probably already know how important backlinks are for your ranking. If not, then you should. Google and other search engines place a lot of importance on how many sites link to yours. They also look at things like how relevant these linking sites are and the anchor text they use (which will come back to in a minute). We’re also going to look at how the backlinking landscape has shifted a bit in recent year to prioritize the quality of those links over sheer volume, but volume is still important.
When you look at some of the competitors for your specific keyword that you’d like to outrank, you should do research on how many backlinks they’ve got. There are free tools available that’ll help you do this. Look at both the number of total links and how many different linking sites there are. While other factors are important in determining your ranking, you should be able to see how many backlinks you’ll need to start outranking the competition.
2. Target quality over quantity
Remember, quality is as important as ever in backlinking these days. You used to be able to spam your way to the top, but you can’t anymore. While quantity is still important, be careful. Those Fiverr gigs that give you 10,000 backlinks spammy backlinks overnight seem to good to be true because they are. They could even see your ranking penalized or your site delisted. So your priority should be quality, organic backlinks. Often, you might have to build these over weeks and months – but this can’t be rushed.
Google likes to look for natural looking sites that grow organically over time, not ones that suddenly get thousands of backlinks overnight. They also place a lot of importance on what sort of sites are linking to you. A backlink from a big, well-known authority in a relevant industry will be worth a lot more than one from a random general blog. It’s these sorts of high-quality backlinks you’ll want to target the most.
The anchor text you use also makes a difference. Try mixing it up a bit, but get plenty of links from anchors featuring keywords you want to rank for. Make sure they look natural though.
3. Partner with authorities
One of the best ways to get high-quality authoritative backlinks these days is to partner with relevant authorities in your industry. Try reaching out and offering them content, like blog posts or videos. Include a link at the bottom of your content back to you. These sorts of links are great for ranking and you could also get some residual traffic from direct clickthroughs. If the sites you work with are tied into your brand and niche well enough, you could make sales without even needing Google or other search engines.
4. Target the right keywords
Far too many internet marketers are trying to rank for broad terms with the most searches each month. You might like the idea of ranking for terms that get a million searches each month, but the reality isn’t that great. Firstly, these terms are super-competitive. That means businesses with huge budgets and tons of experience should already be ranking for them. Even if you do make it to the first page on Google, you’ll always be under threat. But even getting there in the first place could be next to impossible.
Not only that, but these broad terms often deliver visitors with a broad range of interests. That means you’ll be wasting a lot of bandwidth on visitors who aren’t really that switched on to what you’re offering and won’t be that likely to spend money with you. If you target more niche terms, they’ll be easier to rank for and they’ll deliver you a more fine-tuned audience that’s much more likely to spend money on your site. It’s a win-win.
5. Create sharable content
People love to share these days, so if you can create great video content, it could do the marketing work for you as your followers share it to more people on social media. That way you could get more direct traffic and more link juice for search engines.
6. Use testimonials
If you write testimonials for other sites, they might be happy to give you a link at the bottom. You can do this on a reciprocal basis. It’s a good way to grow trust and also a great way to get backlinks from relevant authorities in your industry that have something to say about you.
7. Write longer posts
Search engines seem to place more importance these days on how long your content is, so the length is normally better.
8. Improve your on-page SEO
Don’t just think about off-page SEO (backlinking). On-page is important too. Install Yoast SEO and make sure all your pages are optimized.
