Are you trying to get to the top of Google, but you aren’t sure how to? Read this article to learn how to get to the top of Google. Using an expert SEO agency is one of the first steps you can take.
Are you after the coveted number one spot in Google? Get in line. There are a lot of people ahead of you.
Even with all the competition out there for the number one spot, it’s still worth trying to get there. Reports show that 93% of all digital experiences begin with a search engine. You need to be at the top if you want to get the attention of more customers.
If you need to know how to get to the top of Google for your site, this post will help. Below are 9 tips that will help you get your number one rankings.
1. Create Long-Form Content
Things have changed in SEO over the past few years. It isn’t nearly as important to rank number one for the highest searched keyword.
Creating long-form content allows you to target several more keywords in a single article. You don’t want your content to focus solely on your primary keyword. Your goal is to create content that answers every question a visitor has about a topic. Known as Semantics SEO, this technique uses LSI keywords.
By doing this, you can build authority for your page. Google will recognize this and start ranking you for your secondary terms.
Once your page has enough trust, it becomes much easier for you to start ranking for the keywords with higher search volumes.
2. Set Up Your Meta-Information
It’s hard for Google to know what your webpage is about if you don’t tell it. Your meta-tags will help do this.
The common meta-tags you need to set up are your title and description tags. These are the titles and descriptions you see show up in your search results.
Try to use your primary keyword in these tags. After that, it’s all about creating engaging meta-information that convinces searchers that your website has the answer they are working for.
Your goal with this is to increase your clickthrough-rate. If Google sees that people searching are clicking through to your site more often than others, it’s a signal that your content is excellent. You can get higher rankings as a result.
3. Optimize For Rich Text Snippets
If you’ve searched Google lately, you’ve probably noticed a change with the Google search results. Much of the time, they will answer your search query directly on the results page.
This information comes from rich text snippets. Google will look at the top results and find information on the page to display in the search results.
These snippets often overtake the number one position on Google. If you’re having trouble getting the number one spot, you can optimize for these snippets and take the number zero position.
You can do this by using structured data on your website. Structured data are unique tags that give Google more information about your content. If you organize your content in a way that Google can easily read, it will be more likely to use your information for its snippets.
4. Build A Mobile Optimized Site
You can’t build a website for desktop users and be done with it anymore. Estimates show that 57% of all internet traffic in the United States comes from mobile devices. The chances are that you have similar numbers for your website.
If you don’t optimize your website for mobile, people with smaller screens are going to have a harder time reading your site. They will be forced to scroll left and right on their screen to read your content. This isn’t a good mobile experience.
You can solve this by investing in a mobile-first design.
These designs start with mobile users in mind. You start your website design to first target smaller screens. Once this design is complete, you start adding pieces to your site to cater to people with bigger screens.
It’s easier to add to a design to subtract from it. This process will lead to a website design that is done more quickly and cheaply.
5. Optimize Website Performance
Have you ever measured how long it takes to load your website? If it’s more than a few seconds, you’re likely losing visitors.
Studies show that the average website visitors give a site 15 seconds to get their attention. If you waste this time loading elements of your site, you’re going to cause your visitors to leave before they get a chance to read your content.
This is even more important with the increase in mobile users. You can’t be sure that everyone who visits your site is on a fast internet connection. A website with a large file size will be even slower for these people.
The problem with this is that Google can see that people are leaving your website. If your site can’t give people the information they need, Google isn’t going to rank you.
The first place to start is your images. If you have an image-heavy website, your pictures will make up the most of your website file size. Run your images through an image optimization program to reduce their total file size.
The next step is to delay the loading of images that show up later on the page. This process is known as lazy loading. Doing this will stop images from downloading until the user needs to see them.
6. Secure Your Site
Security is one of the hottest topics in the world today. There have been more data breaches in the past few years than there ever has in the past. Nobody is immune to their websites being attacked.
If you don’t take the steps needed to secure your website, anybody can intercept your visitor’s website traffic to see what they’re doing. Luckily, this isn’t hard to do.
You can secure your website by installing an SSL certificate on it. These certificates used to cost quite a bit of money.
Luckily, services like LetsEncrypt allow you to do this for free now.
Your security certificate will encrypt all the traffic between you and your visitors. Even if someone is monitoring your visitor’s web traffic, they won’t be able to see what’s happening. You won’t need to worry about someone having their data or credentials compromised.
Google has stated that a secure site is now being considered in its ranking factors. Make sure you take the time to send this signal.
7. Get Authority Backlinks
Even the best on-page SEO work won’t guarantee you the top Google result. If you are trying to rank in a competitive industry, you probably need backlinks to help get you there.
You can’t get backlinks the way you did in the past. People used to get as many spammy links as they could to get their site ranked. It worked, too.
Today, quality matters more than quantity. Your goal is to get links from authority sites in your industry. Start by forming relationships with other people that run websites that relate to your business.
You can start by using your connections to get guest posts. For these backlinks, you provide a piece of content to another webmaster. When they post your content, they will link to your website with the keyword you want.
You can also use your relationships to collaborate with others. Find win-win scenarios that help both of your websites go up in the search results.
Of course, link building is one of the most labor-intensive processes for increasing your Google rank. Talk with an SEO expert to see how they can help get you links.
8. Check Your Site for Duplicate Content
Do you write unique content for every page on your site? Unfortunately, you can still have duplicate content somewhere.
Check your category, author, tag, and shopping pages to see if any content there overlaps with your main pages. If you use content from your pages to display descriptions on other pages, Google can still flag this information as duplicate.
When this happens, it can hurt your search engine rankings.
Your first option to solve this problem is to write unique descriptions for all your pages. Doing this will remove all duplicate content on your search pages.
If you have a lot of content, this will be a lot of work. In cases like this, you can use a canonical tag.
This tag is your way of telling Google that your page is the original. Any copy of that content on your website should be ignored.
9. Submit A Sitemap To Google
Google is smart, but it isn’t infallible. It can still make mistakes when finding the pages on your website.
Your pages won’t get indexed in Google when this happens. The good news is that you can use a sitemap to tell Google where all your pages are.
Sign your website up for the Google Webmaster Tools. You can submit your sitemap to this tool.
The good thing about doing this is that it is a one-time process. Your sitemap will update automatically, so Google will always have a record of your website pages.
Now You Know How To Get To The Top Of Google
Getting to the top of the search results isn’t an overnight process. You need to do great work over a long time before you start seeing results. However, now that you know how to get to the top of Google, you can be sure that you have a better chance of getting there.
If you’re looking for more ways to get visitors to your site, our blog will help. Keep reading to learn the latest tips and tricks for advertising your website.
