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- Review your posts every 90 days to identify any issues or new opportunities and update your content if it’s outdated or not ranking.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.
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