Ranking well on Google can be the difference between success and failure for your online business. If that sounds a little dramatic, consider that the top 3 Google search results account for about 54% of all clicks. And the #1 result typically receives 25% of all clicks. But increased traffic isn’t the only benefit of Google rankings. Get that top spot for the right keywords, and your brand awareness and conversions will skyrocket. In this article in very easy steps, I’ll show you how to rank number 1 on Google so you can start taking advantage of these benefits.
What you’ll learn in this step by step guide
- Keyword research is crucial to choosing keywords that have ranking potential and are relevant to your business.
- To choose realistic keywords you need to consider 4 factors: keyword difficulty, search intent, business potential, and search volume.
- Help search engines understand the purpose and context of your content by including relevant keywords in your article and paying attention to on-page SEO (search engine optimization).
- Increase the visibility of the content by promoting it through link-building, email, and social media after publishing.
- Create content hubs to cover multiple aspects of a topic and help you establish thematic authority that can boost your Google rankings.
- Analyze your competitors’ content to save time and effort. They’ve already done the research to find out which topics search engines consider relevant.
- Track your keyword rankings, impressions, and pageviews over time to monitor the results of your content efforts.
- Review your posts every 90 days to identify any issues or new opportunities and update your content if it’s outdated or not ranking.
1. Keywords Research
The first step to getting your content on the first page of Google search results is to invest significant time and effort into keyword research. Specifically, you need to identify keywords that your target audience is searching for online and that your site has a realistic chance of ranking well for. To start, make a list of keywords relevant to your business. For example, if you're building a website for a construction and supply company, some of your seed keywords might be concrete repair, driveway repair, sidewalk repair, and foundation repair. Or you could start with tools of the trade like trowels, sledgehammers, groovers, and concrete floats. You can use the Keyword Surfer Chrome extension to easily generate even more ideas. Simply type your keyword into Google and Surfer will do the rest: Do this a few times and you'll have a solid list of relevant keywords that fit well with your niche and that your potential users are searching for. But you won't be able to appear on the first page of Google for all the keywords you identify in this step. Depending on how authoritative your site is, you'll need to narrow your focus.
2. How to choose realistic keywords
It can be tempting to target the most searched keywords on Google. But they're also the most competitive keywords, which means they'll be harder to rank for. If you focus on keywords that are realistic targets for your website, you'll do better in the Google rankings. To do this, consider these four main factors when choosing your target keywords:
Keyword difficulty
You need to determine how likely your site is to rank for any of the keywords you're considering. Choose a keyword that's too competitive, and your content will get buried in search results. A simple way to get an idea of keyword difficulty is to browse through search engine results. For example, here’s what Google’s first page shows for “concrete float”: Over 28 million results! And the top of the list is dominated by big retailers like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Amazon. No matter how you look at it, that’s tough competition. But if we look at one of Surfer’s suggested related keywords, the situation is different. Here are the Google results for “concrete float vs trowel”: There are still about 1.4 million results, but the top few are all informative articles from other business websites and blogs. No ecommerce giants in sight! There’s also a question from Stack Exchange in the top 10 results. That’s a good sign, because it means people are visiting forums to find answers they can’t find in other places online, like blog posts. If you can fill that gap with your content, you have a good chance to rank. Overall, this premise is a much less competitive keyword than "concrete float."
Search intent
You should also have a solid understanding of what users are looking for when they search for a particular keyword before you try to write an article for it. You can get a pretty good idea about what Google considers the search intent for a keyword by looking at the SERP. Taking the "concrete float vs. trowel" example above, we see that the top results are about teaching people how to make concrete float vs. trowel. We focus on what these tools are and how to use them. In particular, Google shows results that help people understand how they can perform their own repair work using a concrete float and trowel. This is certainly relevant to the work our hypothetical concrete repair company does, so it could be a good choice. But there are still other factors to consider.
Business potential
Before you decide to write an article targeting a particular keyword, make sure you know how that content will bring real value to your audience. Specifically, if you can satisfy your potential reader's search intent while writing about topics related to your business, you probably have a winner. It's better to rank for high-volume keywords that are relevant to your business than to target less suitable phrases just because they have a high search volume.
Search volume
And speaking of search volume, it's important to choose keywords that have enough monthly searches to drive good traffic to your site. But don't overlook low-volume long-tail keywords. Some very specific phrases with modest search volume can have a lot of conversion potential. For example, most SEO tools show that "best concrete floats" are searched for less than 100 times per month. But the odds are pretty good that people who search for that term are looking to buy concrete floats. If you can get your review article on the first page of Google, your chances of converting some readers into buyers are pretty high.
3. Include related keywords in your article
Google and other search engines are getting better all the time at understanding the search intent and context of a user's query. This helps them deliver the best and most relevant results for each search. You can help Google understand where your content fits in by including terms related to your main topic in each of your posts. By including semantically relevant keywords, you improve your chances of ranking well for various related terms because you are leaving clues about the questions your content answers. However, it’s not always obvious which terms should be together in the same article and which would be better off on separate pages. For example, “sidewalk crack repair” and “garage floor crack repair” may sound very similar, but the Google search results are completely different.
Luckily, you can use Google itself to find great related keywords for your blog post. Here’s how: 1. Start typing your seed keyword into Google and note the other keywords that come up in the autosuggest dropdown. 2. Look at the questions in the “People also ask” section. 3. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and note the terms Google lists in the “Additional searches” section. 4. From these three tools, make a list of additional keywords to include in your article. 5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for new sets of keywords until you have enough meaningful words for your blog post or until you get bogged down in repetition. Not all of the keywords you collect using this process will fit the article you’re writing, so the final step is to figure out which keywords you want to use. For example, filter out keywords that don’t match the intent of your post. In our “sidewalk crack repair” example, Google tells us that related searches include both “sidewalk repair kits” and “driveway crack repair”: If we weren’t writing about driveways, we’d skip using “driveway crack repair” in our post.
4. Perform on-page optimization
Paying close attention to on-page optimization gives your content the best chance of ranking on the first page of Google. By including your keywords in four basic areas of each post, you help search engines understand the context and intent of your content.
Specifically, the four places where you need to include your keywords are: Page title The page title indicates the basic topic of your article and also appears as an H1. The text in the title tag should be 60-70 characters long and contain your primary target keyword. It should also be an actual title that humans can understand. Header tags (H2-H6) The sections and subsections of your post should be well organized to help the reader follow the content flow. However, don’t use your primary keyword in the H2-H6 header tags for these sections. Instead, target the keyword variations and related keywords you discovered in step 3 above. This provides additional signals to search engines about the overall scope and purpose of your article. URL Structure Include your primary keyword in the URL structure of your post. This is another signal to search engines about the topic of your post. You should keep your URL as short and simple as possible while still including the target phrase.
Meta Data Meta descriptions are used to provide you with a concise summary of your article, as per 155-1 62 characters. This is basically your promise to search engines about what you will provide to readers, and it also appears below your page title and URL on search results pages. Adding one or two keywords to your meta description can help improve search rankings. The meta description is also a chance to entice potential readers to click on your content. Keep it short and catchy, but make sure you give the searcher a sense of what they will get to learn if they read your post.
5. Promote your post
Writing and publishing your post is only half the job. You also need to promote your article to ensure that as many people as possible read it. Here are the three main ways to increase traffic to your content:
Build links Email and social media may give a quick influx of traffic to your blog post, but it will be a short-term boost. And it won’t help improve your organic search results. For long-term growth and continued organic traffic, you need to build links to your article from other websites. In fact, according to Brian Dean at Backlinko, "The #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than the #2-#10 positions." Here are some ways to build backlinks to your content: Write guest posts By writing posts on other blogs, you not only expose your content to a new audience, but you also get a quality backlink to your site -- if you do it right. When running guest posting campaigns to build backlinks, look for opportunities on sites that meet these criteria: 1. The site has content that is relevant to your site. 2. The site is legitimate and authoritative. 3. You get at least one dofollow link to your content. You should also try to guest post on multiple unique domains rather than posting multiple times on just one or two sites. Fixing broken links Many sites have broken links that point to articles that no longer exist or that are having technical issues that prevent them from loading. You can help those sites while getting some new backlinks by pointing out the problem and offering your content as an alternative to the broken link. Competitive analysis Chances are that your competitors have backlinks from sites that aren’t linking to your content. Most SEO tools these days give you a full backlink profile for any domain, so it’s not too difficult to find out who’s linking to your competitors. Once you have a list, find the sites that aren’t linking to you. Then, reach out to see if you can write a guest post, or point out a piece of content on your site that would make a good reference (backlink!) for one of their articles. Brand mentions A relatively easy way to find backlink opportunities is to search for your site or company name on Google. Look through the results and identify any sites that mention you in their content but aren’t actually linking to your site. Then contact those other sites and thank them for the mention and ask them to go ahead and add a link to your site. Backlinks from authoritative domains are one of the strongest ranking signals in SEO, so you definitely need to invest some time and effort here. You can use a cold email tool like Postga or Mailshake to help you set up and manage your link-building campaigns. Email your subscribers While link-building is important to making your posts successful in the long run, you should also send out emails to your list right away. Not only will you get exposure to the new content, but your email list is more likely to engage strongly with the post and may even point out your mistakes. You can also get your post in front of other people’s lists if you have existing partnerships. Post on social media You should also share your new content on various social media platforms. You won’t get long-term results from social, but you can get some initial traffic. Social media marketing is a great way to connect with your wider niche community and perhaps get some brand mentions.
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