So, just how do you go about getting to page one on Google?
Well, I’m sure you have heard all about page rank and backlinking. And to be fair they are a good starting point with a view to getting your content or website into that coveted page one on spot on Google.
But, it is only true to an extent! You will always experience an improvement in your page rank for any website property with good high quality backlinks from other high ranked sites. This in turn will definitely boost your search engine rankings for your given keyword or phrase.
However, the major problem I see when people are trying to get that elusive page one ranking on Google is this. Most people go for the obvious keyword that has an absolute TON of competition.
Try going for a page one ranking for the keyword “Internet marketing”! Especially if you don’t know much about SEO or for that matter Internet marketing!! To be honest, you won’t stand a chance.
As at June 2009 there are over 95 million pages competing for that keyword!
It happens all the time. New online marketers get seduced by the thousands and thousands of daily searches for a keyword. You can almost see the brain clicking into gear! ”Hey, all those searches, that looks great, I’m gonna clean up!”
However, it’s not long before the reality hits home and the realisation kicks in.
Countless hours of effort and time and you’ve made it to…wait for it…page 99. Well it’s a step up from page 100 where we started!
You do need to be a little cute in your keyword selection!
So, if you are looking to boost your rankings here are seven things you can do – plus a bonus item!
1.
Do your research properly, make sure there are a good number of searches for your keyword. This is vitally important! I have fallen down at this hurdle many times, do your keyword research, you will pay the price if you don’t.
2. If you want to make money, make sure it is a buying keyword, not a research keyword.
3. Work smart! Dig into your niche, don’t go for “dog training” (over 21 million competing sites) but go for “how to train my dog” (only 12,600 competing sites)
4. Get a good keyword research tool – these are a massive help, I use Keyword Elite.
5. Know your market, you need to understand your market and what makes it tick and what the key keywords are.
6. Optimise for high KEI keywords. KEI is Keyword Effectiveness Index. It is the number of searches divided by the number of results (essentially). A higher KEI means more searches and less sites. It therefore follows a higher KEI keyword will be easier to get higher up the rankings for!
7. Make sure the content you write is high quality, original and not over stuffed with keywords (about 5% is the accepted norm).
8. Here’s the bonus! Use the latest social techniques to help your rankings. Like social networking, social bookmarking, authority sites (HubPages, Squidoo etc) and article marketing. The search engines treat these properties as authority sites. So, they get indexed much more quickly.
The bottom line is that it is possible to get a high, even page one ranking on Google. And it is possible to get a high traffic throughput without resorting to costly PPC campaigns, but, it does take more time and effort.
But…it’s worthwhile in the end because organic traffic is long-term traffic as opposed to PPC traffic which is very nebulous, here today, gone tomorrow.
Make sure you have an organic and social traffic startegy in place!