As a blog owner, you’ve probably asked yourself how on earth to get on Google’s first page. It’s an important question, because Google opens your website up to a lot of traffic. In fact, 70% of Google users never scroll past the first page. So how do you get your blog to appear there? Is it magic? Is it pure chance? Nope, it’s carefully crafted science!
There are a series of techniques involved that are designed to catch Google’s attention. It’s all about proving that you’re the most useful, insightful, and trusted website in your niche. Google wants to show its users the very best websites out there. As you can expect, they’ve become very good at picking the right ones. Before we tell you exactly how to get started, you need to learn a little about how Google works.
Understanding Google
The biggest search engine on the planet has one goal. To answer people’s questions. That means sending them to all the best websites. So, first of all, Google is looking for relevancy. How relevant is your website to certain search terms? Secondly, they’re looking for authority. Are you the very best website in your niche? Google are looking for trust and reputation. Lastly, understand that Google changes their algorithm almost annually. It is constantly growing smarter and more targeted every day. Every Google algorithm update introduces new factors to take into account.
Keywords
Remember we told you that Google is looking for relevancy? Well, it’s looking for keywords. That’s how it knows whether you’re relevant to a certain search term. Let’s say someone searches for “surfboards”. Google wants to show the user the most relevant websites to “surfboards”. It sends crawlers out across the internet looking for that keyword. If it finds the word “surfboards” (and related terms) on your site, you’ll be ranked accordingly. Make sure you’re putting these keywords in all the most visible places (URLs, titles, and meta data).
Backlinks
So, that’s relevancy taken care off! What about authority? How do you prove to Google that you’re the most trusted and respected website in your niche? Well, the search engine giant is looking for backlinks. As you would expect, the more websites that link to your blog, the better your authority. Google places a higher value on links from quality, respected sites too. Your aim is to source organic, natural links from as many places as possible.
Performance
Google will never send people to slow or poor-performing websites. It creates a bad user experience, and it destroys trust in Google as a search engine. With that in mind, websites with slow loading times can forget about a first page ranking. Google’s also looking for usability and simple navigation. Is your site easy to understand and operate? Make sure it is, and you’ll take your blog to the next level. These simple aspects make a huge difference. Start by making sure your website is fast enough to please visitors, and remove any clutter from your site.
It takes patience for these techniques to kick in, but you’ll soon see an enormous boost in traffic! Let us know if you have any tricks or secrets of your own in the world of SEO.
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