As an SEO expert, I’m asked this question all the time. People have been obsessed with writing content that puts them on the first page of Google for over a decade. I can understand why.
People think appearing on the first page of Google is suddenly going to transform their business. Suddenly, they’ll be found. There’s an element of truth to that, of course. The first result has a click through rate of around 36.4%, the second result 12.5%, and the third 9.5%.
That’s because searchers typically trust that the top result is a legitimate and relevant search result. They trust Google as a brand to show them relevant content based on what they have searched. Google has worked hard to build and maintain this reputation.
They still claim to this day that their number one objective is to present users with the highest quality, most relevant search content. If they ever stop doing this, people will migrate, and they’ll lose the 90% market share they’ve maintained for many years.
So, working to rank on the first page of Google is a worthwhile cause. But how do you do that?
Writing content for page 1 on Google
Bearing the above in mind, the absolute best way to rank well on Google is to write content that is engaging and highly relevant to the people you’re trying to bring through to your website.
If your content brings through users and they read your content, click onto other pages and then convert, that is the absolute best way to improve your rankings on Google, because all of that tells Google that your content is really highly quality, and it is Google’s aim to serve pages like that.
Your users should inform your content strategy from start to finish. You should write content they’ll find interesting and pack it with keywords they’re likely to search.
Using meta titles and meta descriptions to rank for page 1 on Google
Google crawls the web and ranks millions of pages, then stores them in an index, ready for when a user performs a search. When that happens, Google uses its index to present the best result as quickly as possible.
This means that making it easy for Google to scan and index your website should be a key part of your strategy. You do this by using meta titles and meta descriptions.
A meta title is the title of the blog post or page and it appears at the top of your page in the form of a header. It also appears as the title of that page’s listing in the search results.
The meta description appears underneath the title in the search results and you can insert it through your CMS. It tells searchers what they can expect if they click on your website.
Both the meta title and the meta description should be keyword rich.
Quick ways to rank for page 1 on Google
There are other changes you can make that are relatively simple in order to rank for page 1 on Google.
For example, you can use keywords in your URL, which will help Google identify what your page is about. Try to match your URL to the title of the page, as this makes the page feel more trustworthy, and therefore you stand a better choice of ranking on the first page of Google.
Alt tags on images are also important. Google can’t see images, it can only read the descriptions of those images, and you give images a description through alt text. Just like your URL, your alt tag should contain keywords.
Optimise for mobile
Mobile searches are as common now as non-mobile searches, and for that reason you will not find a page at the top of the Google search results that is not optimised for mobile.
A responsive website is best, as this means your page will look great on any screen size, but if you don’t have a responsive website, you need to find a workaround with a web developer.
Focus on user experience
The absolute best piece of advice I can give you is to focus on user experience. This doesn’t only mean writing for your users, but analysing your landing page to determine if it’s easy to read and simple to navigate.
Are there links to other interesting bits of content? Can your users easily find what they need?
The more user friendly your website is, the more people hang around on it, the higher you will rank.
Subhas Kashyap
If you need help with optimising your website to rank on page 1 of Google, I can help. For more information, please complete the contact form on the website, and I’ll get back to you.
