In many ways, SEO has evolved, but one thing that hasn’t altered is the basic importance of appearing on page one of Google Search results.
The days of 10 basic blue links and a few advertisements are unquestionably past. Even with all of the new SERP features, rich results, and personalised results, ranking on the first page for keywords that matter to you is still the gold standard for organic traffic acquisition.
The click-through rate for a position 10 result (usually the bottom of page one) is 3.11 percent, according to a 2020 research. Although it is modest, it is still greater than average ad click rates.
While the study did not go below the tenth result, it’s safe to assume that after the first page, clicks decline to near nil. When was the last time you looked past the first page of results for a single search?
The battle for a position on Google’s first page might be strong depending on the question. It is, nevertheless, possible with the appropriate labour and SEO effort.
Let’s take a look at some of the most effective, tried-and-true ways for getting your sites there.
1. Improve Internal Linking
Internal linking is the first strategy I recommend because it is one of the simplest to execute and has a major positive impact on your ranking.
One of the major ways Google determines what your site is about is through its internal linking structure.
And the better Google understands this, the more keywords you’ll be ranked for.
Furthermore, carefully applied linking across your sites may help you develop greater topical authority for your important themes, increasing the likelihood of Google wanting to rank you higher for those topics.
Internal linking done strategically involves connecting sites where it makes the most sense for your viewers.
To put it another way, it’s not merely connecting one page to another.
Instead, look for ways that individual sites may supplement or improve the content on the page a visitor comes on.
Not only will your consumers profit from having more relevant content, but so will search engines (and for the same reason: more benefit to their users).
This type of smart interlinking also shows Google that you’ve covered the issue thoroughly, giving them more confidence that the people they deliver to your site will be satisfied.
More internal linking advice from Search Engine Journal (see what I did there?) is available here.
2. Find Your Threshold Pages
Threshold pages are ones that are currently ranked at the bottom of the first page (traditionally, positions 11 through 20).
They will most likely generate little to no traffic for you, but with a little tinkering, they might climb up to the first page’s “money” positions.
They should be at the top of your priority list because bringing existing sites to the top of the search results is typically easier than ranking fresh material.
Begin by segmenting your pages with keywords in positions 11 through 20 using your preferred rank tracking tool.
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Then sort by search volume to see which sites have the best chance of returning visitors.
Apply the rest of this article’s advice to those pages to get them to page one!
3. Research Competitive Content
If key pages aren’t making it to page one, you need to embrace a basic truth: the others have something you don’t.
While we don’t know all of the factors that Google considers when determining why such pages are ranked higher than yours, cross-examination may reveal a lot.
That implies you should spend time examining the landing pages of all the results that rank higher than yours and comparing them to your own. Here are some questions to consider when looking at each competitive page:
- Is the content noticeably better quality (more complete, exudes authority without talking over the intended audience, includes more relevant information and sources)?
- Is it better written?
- Does it contain keywords/topics that your page doesn’t?
- Does it have better internal linking to other pages on their site? Do other relevant pages link to it?
- Is the external link profile (backlinks) bigger and/or of higher quality?
- Does it contain “extras” that might be helpful to visitors (images, charts, videos, tables, etc.)
While you don’t want to copy the pages outranking you, what they are doing that you aren’t can provide good clues on how to improve your page to get in their league.
This method won’t work for every page on your site, but it will help your most essential ones a lot.
Google considers a page’s distance from the main page via internal navigation when determining its relative significance.
The most external connections are usually sent to your homepage, giving it the greatest page authority on your site.
Other pages linked from the main page share the link equity, with those connected directly receiving the lion’s share.
Moving your most important pages closer to the top of the page will boost their authority and, as a result, their potential to rank higher.
5. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
This should go without saying, but if you haven’t already made your site mobile-friendly, now is the time.
We’ve gone passed the stage when mobile devices account for the bulk of searches.
Because mobile-friendliness is a component of the Page Experience upgrade, it’s only natural that Google will favour mobile-ready content when users search on their phones.
Anything you can do to make your website more user-friendly will progressively align with Google’s search ranking algorithm aims.
6. Earn/Build More Links
In terms of rankability, Google has given us a lot more to evaluate these days (content quality and relevance, semantic and entity relationships, and more), but good old-fashioned backlinks remain significantly linked with page ranking ability.
Earning links entails producing material that is both excellent and authoritative enough for other sites to want to connect to it as a resource, whereas developing links entails actively searching out chances for relevant links from reputable sites.
See Search Engine Journal’s great link building checklist for further information on how to earn and develop more links to your sites.
7. Pursue Featured Snippets
Moving up the ladder of ranking positions is difficult (but essential) effort. You can, however, sometimes surge to the front of the class.
Google Search’s Featured Snippets feature promotes one of the top results to a rich snippet box at the top of the search results page.
While the rich snippet sample may answer the searcher’s query, many SEOs have found that Featured Snippets typically attract a lot of traffic since people want to know more than what is displayed in the snippet.
Although there is no certainty that your content will be featured in a Featured Snippet, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances:
- Look at variations of your keyword in Google search to see if a Featured Snippet is shown for any of them in order to identify opportunities. Some SEO tools will identify these opportunities for you automatically. Featured Snippets are most frequently shown for keywords with informational intent or where the query is a question.
- Where a Featured Snippet is shown, observe the structure of the featured content. Is it a table, paragraph text, bullet list, video, or other types? While it may not be necessary to copy the format, it might give you a clue as to the type of content Google prefers for this query.
- Look at your top-ranked page for the query. See how you can improve it to make it more attractive to Google to put in a Featured Snippet.
Above all, keep in mind that for Featured Snippets, Google wants content that clearly, concisely, and accurately answers the intent of the query.
8. Refresh Past Performers
The lifetime of most effective material goes something like this:
After a certain amount of time has passed after the material was released, it begins to rise in ranking and, as a result, in traffic.
However, the traffic it generates will almost certainly deteriorate with time.
What causes this to happen? The following are some probable explanations:
- Newer, better, and/or higher authority content has been published by others.
- The intent of the query has changed over time.
Whatever reason has caused your content to slip in its earning potential, there are ways to revive it and give it new life in the SERPs.
Splice Keyword-Rich Content
When your material is still working well, one option to use is splicing. It may be able to keep the object from deteriorating.
The splicing approach includes locating pages on your site that rank for a larger number of keywords than is typical.
That may appear to be a good thing, but it really means that some of those keywords aren’t ranking as well as they could be.
To splice, you need to figure out which of the current page’s lesser-performing keywords still have promise. These might be searches where the page appears on page two of the results, or when the website’s ranking is low but demand is strong.
Create new content pages focusing on the precise purpose of those keywords once you’ve found those opportunities, and then interlink those pages with your present ranking page.
This provides Google with better landing page targets for a topic category in which you have previously demonstrated authority and trustworthiness.
Expand and Enrich
If your material is nearing the end of its lifespan, you might want to consider terminating it (especially if it is too outdated or irrelevant to recover).
However, by upgrading the page to make it more competitive in the current SERP environment, you might be able to resuscitate it.
To do so, look up the primary keywords for which you want the page to rank and spend some time looking through the content of all the pages that rank higher than yours.
Consider what they provide that your page does not. Is there anything you could add to your page in terms of keywords, themes, features (pictures, videos, etc. ), links, or other elements?
The goal here isn’t to duplicate these rival pages precisely, but to get a sense of what Google could find on them that makes them more useful than your present page.