How do I get to the top of Google?
So what’s the secret to getting to the top of Google’s search engine? Nothing. There is no secret and there’s no reason to pay an SEO firm or consultant to get you there, honestly … you can do it yourself if you have the time to learn and implement the basic advice of people who know what they’re talking about.
First, let’s establish that one simple fact … there are no secrets. In fact, everything you need to know is online at the Webmaster Guidelines at Google and for those of you need even more help, there is plenty of places here on my site to read about what Google wants.
Now, I should point out that I’m not a Google expert or even an SEO specialist (although I do offer similar services). I’m an organic marketing specialist if that title even exists … in order to do that I believe a website must meet three basic guidelines:
Technical
A web page is a computer document, much the same as a document produced by Microsoft Word and just like word processing documents it has to be opened and read by other computers. Now, we’ve all tried opening a WordPerfect document in Word or an OpenOffice resume in Pages and it always ends the same right? …. it doesn’t work. Why not?
The reason it doesn’t work is simple, the basic structure of how the documents are written are not compatible with the software trying to open them. The web works the exact same way. Web browsers from Lynx to Internet Explorer open your web page documents and read the content. If they can’t read the content, they can’t display the document … makes sense right? OK so here’s the kicker … Google uses a tool called a web spider to crawl your website in order to read the content and add it to their index. If your web page is poorly written, Google can’t open it and has to move onto another website.
So rule number one to getting to the top of Google? Make sure that Google can read your website.
Design
There’s a catch-22 when it comes to Google, Google doesn’t care about design but Google cares how your web content is designed. Technically, it couldn’t care less about your websites looks but it does care about how your website is structured, how the content is organized and how the overall site appears to both spiders and people visiting your web page.
In order to make sure that your website ranks well with Google, you’ll have to ensure that your documents are properly structures, the content is readable and that it appears the same to search engines as it does to people. Often times, I have clients ask if they can upload Flash version of their website but hide Google friendly text in a hidden layer somewhere on the page … sure you can but that’s not being very honest is it?
Rule number two to getting your website at the top of Google? Design content for people, not robots.
Content
Rule number three, have great content.
Honestly, I can’t make it more clear than what I’ve written here. Take a moment to stop thinking about Google as a company or a website to beat and start thinking about it as a group of people who are working towards a common goal, as I’ve written before … they’re very smart people and they spend a lot of time trying to make the Internet a better place, so when they catch people trying to scam them by breaking these simple rules … don’t be surprised to find your website banned.
Good points… and as long as you have a good on-page optimization, it makes linkbuilding a whole lot easier, because then you don’t have to try and rank a piece of crap website.
-Jack
Content is Key. I’ve noticed that not only good content, but updating frequently. It seems more and more new content attracts Google. Thanks for the Tips!
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True. Content is the key thing.
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II agree content is king but when I first launched my site I had a blog with regularly changing interesting content and it went up and down the results pages, even disappearing altogether. I soon learned that being a new site, Google didn’t know what it was about. Once I figured out what I was going on I managed to turn things around and we are on page 1 for 2 of our key words and page 2 for the other right now. Took a few months though.
Nice points you have Christopher. I believe that content does take the most portion when it comes to SERPS. If your SEO is good, your design is good, but your writing and content sucks, you won’t get better SERPS too. In the Web2.0, I believe that content does take 60% of the SERPS, agree?
Regards,
Lee
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nice post, google care unique content, so increase your ranking
I agree the content is the king as the first two items you mentioned in your article are not too difficult to do. On page optimisation is very important, coupled with the good content it will make google crawler happy
Link building is the process of getting other web pages, and web sites to place a hypertext link to yours, which generates direct targeted traffic to your site, while more importantly increasing your search engine visibility and rankings. Building links to your site should be an ongoing process of research, communication and attaining quality in-coming links to your web site.
What an excellent article it is. Also, apart from other points, building backlinks is the key to get into the top of Google. As of result of my hard workd, my website has reacehd to the second page of google with this keyword–> “Software Testing” from a keyword competition of more than 6 crores.
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To be honest, I am not sure if it is 60% content. I have seen many websites rank highly with duplicate content, and with very little content. So I am guessing that having great content is a great way to gain an edge, but in my honest opinion is not even close to being at 60% of the pie to great rankings.
A person can get a non-authority website’s content on the first page of Google simply by beginning at keyphrase that are non-competitive. Then as the site gains authority, more competitive keyphrases can be ranked.
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Creating great content is the path to getting ranked that seems most right for me. It is a lot of work added to my already packed schedule yet it seems direct and forthright.
Aside from which, I’ve got a few things to say :-)