Topic: Search Engine Optimization

How do you get 1st page rankings on Google?

SEO Toronto - Insiteful Solutions

It can be very difficult to get listed on the first page of Google’s ranking results.  There are so many tools, services and companies out there that will guarantee that they can get your website listed on the 1st page of Google!  First thing to look out for is any company that guarantees first page organic search engine results. No one can guarantee organic search results, if this were the case why wouldn’t everyone? The search engine ranking algorithms are constantly changing.  Your SEO person or company will need to keep up to date on the algorithm changes to keep your rankings high.  It can be very hard to guarantee or even figure out exactly what will get you on the first page of Google’s ranking results. Here are some proven practices to get you started.

Before you begin your search engine work make sure you know what you’re doing.  Research the keyword terms or phrases you want to be found for.  Find the words people are searching for that will drive traffic to your site, not only driving traffic you want the right type of traffic that will convert into a sale or have them complete your call to action. Don’t believe anyone who tells you SEO is something you can do one and you don’t have to worry about it again, SEO is not something you can do once when you build your website and then forget about it.  If you want to get higher rankings you will have to continually update your content and search engine work.  There are over 200 different factors the search engines take into consideration before they determine your ranking position and this is constantly checked and re-checked.  Search engines really like to see websites that are regularly updating relevant content, as the goal of any search engine is to serve the most relevant results based on the searches search phrase.

SEO Start-up Checklist:

  1. Keyword research, to find the most relevant targeted keyword phrases that are searched most often
  2. Measure you content and optimization against your online competition
  3. On page optimization for the chosen keyword phrase or phrases
  4. Make sure there aren’t any coding errors
  5. Test page speed
  6. Make sure your website is mobile friendly
  7. Stay within the relevancy and keyword density guidelines

Search engine optimization requires a great deal of time and work to become known as an authority in your industry or area.  If you ignore this practice of the overall optimization you won’t get the best results. While there are so many services, tools and companies out there that it’s hard to know which one to trust or where to go for white hat seo.

Search engines rank quality websites in their search engine results.  We mentioned the Authority term earlier and this is referred to often when discussing SEO.  This always comes back to showing the user and the search engines that you really know your subject and you are the “go to” company because you have proven you are an authority on your subject in your content.

There are several elements involved in building a website that has ranking authority.  You need to make sure your web page content is good quality content, arranging your content in such a way that you engage your audience. If your website has the most relevant properly optimized content based on the searchers phrase your website will rank.  If it’s not relevant and as current as possible it won’t rank well.

You know have the issue that everyone wants to be listed on the first page of the search engine ranking results.  The person or company that does the most will generally get better rankings.  If your competition is spending more time and energy on search work they will get better rankings.  Make sure you are investing your time and energy on the right keywords or keyword phrases that are going to drive targeted traffic to your website. Do your research if you haven’t  you could ultimately be wasting your time getting great results that don’t generate a great ROI, make sure you have all your ducks in a row before you can expect great results.

Search Engine Optimization does take time and the old saying that slow and steady wins the race definitely applies here.  There are no quick short cuts that will provide quality ranking results that will remain in the top ranking results.

Mobile-Friendly Design a Must

It’s not a secret, Google rewards websites that are optimized for web. For more than a year a website’s mobile performance plays a direct role in how Google ranks it in organic search results. The relationship between mobile design and search will only increase with Google’s upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm change on April 21st.

The Internet’s most powerful search engine has publicly warned that websites lacking a good mobile experience will be penalized. This is the time to ensure your website is 100 percent mobile-friendly.

So, where do you start?

Speed – Ensure that your website loads quickly on any mobile device. A common way to start is to optimize you images and videos to appear quickly. That’s the time to make sure your mobile site is coded cleanly and there are no unnecessary elements running.

Make Sure Stuff Works – Video, audio and other media can really add to the online experience, but they can also hurt you mobile experience. Ensure the videos you’ve added to your site can play on any device and avoid media which depends on third-party plugins such as Flash.

Blocked Content – Google wants to see what’s on your website and they don’t like being fooled. Google sends ‘bots’ to crawl your website, these bots tell Google what your website is about. This information is used to determine the relevancy of your site to people using Google search. Sometimes website owners will use code to block or misrepresent content to Google, this is done to give an inaccurate snapshot of a website. Make sure Google can easily see the same content humans can see.

Mobile 404 Errors and Redirects – If you browse the web with your phone or tablet you’ve probably encountered websites that block mobile users from viewing certain content. Usually mobile users are shown an error page when trying to access one of these pages, they are then redirected to a mobile friendly page. The upcoming update will attempt to stop this practice. It’s important to offer the same content to all visitors to your site. Make sure you desktop and mobile sites offer the same content.

Don’t Oversell Your App – Building your own mobile app is a great way to connect to your customers, but it’s important to not oversell it. Do not require people to download your app to view any of the content on your site.

The upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm update from Google shouldn’t come as a surprise. Basically, it defines rules that most web sites are following and rewards them for doing so. Take some time and ensure your website complies. Need some more help? Our team loves talking mobile, feel free to contact us to learn more about improving your mobile experience.