So I wanted to write this blog……’2020 Guide On How To Rank On The First Page of Google’ because it has to be the number one wish any website owner would have if they came across a genie in a lamp!  That includes me!

I know that 75% of people never scroll past the first page on a Google search so anything that appears on page 2 onwards is a wastse of time. 

93% of online experiences start with a search engine so we need to have spot on SEO and not only going through the motions of it, but really getting it to work for us.  There are over a trillion searches every month. There is enough traffic for everyone but there are times when it feels like we are being ignored…. well not anymore ! The decks might be stacked against us, so we have got to use every opportunity to get our website ranking on the first page of google. 

Well we all know about SEO right? Im not about to start waffling along about SERP and CTA and other abbrevitions that Ive long forgotten what they stand for, but Im going to show you in this blog exactly what you need to be doing on and off page to tick all the boxes. Short of paying for ads, this will be the best you can do! So get it right ! I do it on every article/ blog I write, but I know I can do it better and I have no intention of waiting years to get the traffic I want. So lets get going ! 

Once you scroll down past the paid ads, we get into the top websites for the keywords we are looking for. These websites need to be researched.. they will have been around a while, and be able to dominate the top page rankings. One thing this shows, at least for me, and probably for you too, is that to start with we have to accept organic rankings (unless we pay for Google Ads)

When you search on Google, Im sure you have seen that the first things that come up are the paid ads.   This is an option but not something that I would really want to do until I had a website that was packed full of articles. So at the start up we can learn from these websites… analyse them, see what backlinks they have, what information they are giving..  Sorry some of the ones to the left here are in Spanish, I live in Spain part of the time so get their search results too.. just shows it doesn’t matter what language you speak, Google still puts the ads first ! 

This Is What Works!

STAGE 1

ON-PAGE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISING

1 KEYWORDS

We can’t use any old keyword, because we are relying on organic searches, so using carefully selected keywords or phrases (long-tail keywords) brings us traffic. These keywords can be searched in various ways, one being using a keyword tool – JAAXY 

Use your keyword(s) in the first 100-150 words of your blog – if your nip up to the top of this one you will see that is what I have done.  This is the only time you really have to use them other than in the title of course. Then write freely.

When it comes to relevancy, the title tag of your page is the strongest, most important signal to search engines, therefore your best keywords must be included in your title tag and use the H1 tag.

2 BLOG

Write your article or blog freely. Google wants its searchers to find what they’re looking for as fast as possible, so organic searches using the right keywords and a blog that is over 2000 words on topic, reflects the searchers intent. The content on organic searching will match the blog, so write with unique information, that is credible, captivating and well constructed. Use a thesaurus and speller check if you have issues in this area. No one will read an article that has spelling mistakes !

Use headings through the blog to give structure and when doing that use the H2 tag. And don’t sit on your laurels when you have written one blog, no time to stop.. get onto the next!

3 TARGET

Your audience is important. You have a target audience so remember who you are writing for and aim your blog at them. There is no point in putting in cool statistics/abbreviations/computer speak if your audience is the UPS guy sitting at the back of the bar, trying to get a side hustle going and just wants plain english.  Lets make it as easy as possible for him to get up and running. 

5 LINKS

Links don’t look like they are important for SEO but you will be surprised. Google likes links!  It is a tactic we use in SEO to signal to Google that we are a quality resource that is worth citation. So sites with more backlinks, whether to external or internal pages, tend to earn higher rank. Don’t ever be tempted to buy links, this will damage the longterm viability of your business. Natural link building  – earm the external links – contact others in your business and link with each other. 

4 METATAGS

Meta tags provide concise information about a website or post to search engines. It will be shown on the search result pages. Don’t igmore them then wait until you have 30 articles to suddendly realise what they are and have to go back through every single one adding them in, which is what I did ! You can add them automatically as part of your all-in-one SEO plugin, but I would recommend checking them to ensure they include your keywords.

The meta descriptions have limited character allowance, which reflects what is actually seen on Google searches. 

6 WEB DESIGN

Google insists on websites that are adaptable to different platforms so the design needs to change from desk to tablet to mobile. If you have a design that isn’t adaptable… change it !

Visitors need to find information on your website so functionality and visual appeal are two important qualities. It needs to be easy for customers too, so this is where design meets SEO.

Web design cannot compromise readability – a site with all the bells and whistles but not user friendly  – SEO optimied – is not going to keep readers.  The speed of loading for your site is also a factor in SEO, and this can be affected by having a ‘heavy’ theme or  images that are too detailed. 

 

8 SITEMAP

SEO is not enough for a website to rank well and get visibility these days.  Competition is tough! So we have to do the best we can to make sure we rank and sitemaps is another way of improving chances. When we make a website, an HTML sitemap is created and placed on the homepage. This allows the reader of the wesbsite to access each page from any page.  This number grows and by submitting your sitemap to google analytics (get an account – its free) and asking them to crawl every time you write a new article, will speed up that ranking process. They look for all your tags! 

 

 

 

 

7 HTML

With wordpress we don’t have to worry about html but its important to understand some html tags that wordpress uses. But they only use them if you tell them to… so you need to know ! 

1. Meta Title  – at the bottom of the blog in your wordpress dashboard.

2. Meta Description – at the bottom of the blog in your wordpress dashboard.

3. Header Tag H1 – use the H1 size if your theme doesn’t automatically use it. 

4. Image Alt Tag – Media tab from your wordpres dashboard, click edit and add  info into – alternative text box. 

5. NoFollow link tags – only use if the link might hurt your domain authority.

6. Internal Links and Anchor Text – usual way to link to other pages on your website. Google like these. 

7. Canonical Tag – use the all-in-one SEO plugin, takes care of this!

9 SOCIAL MEDIA

At first looking, there doesn’t seem much connection with SEO and social media. But follow the scenario… you publish your content on your website and link it to social media where you can get followers whilst your site gains traffic. Your brand grows on social media, and the interations on social media reinforces your brand reputation and respectability. Search engines will index your site higher as a reaction to this,  and searchers find your site organically through a search engine… perfect ! 

 

 

CONCLUSION

Once you get the hang of the on page search engine optimising to do, it will be something you will do automatically, as part of your routine blogging. This way it will become a simple process to know that you have every box ticked in the master plan of getting onto the first page of Google!

Analyse & Increase Traffic 

You can follow your progress with optimisation of your website by using Goolge Analytics.  Its a bit of a nightmare at first to get the code onto your website for it to track your site, but worth the effort as it gives you information about whats working, which keywords are doing well etc.  Try Google Analytics….

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