How to Rank a Website on the First Page of Google?

How do I rank my website on the first page of Google? This question arises in the mind of each and every entrepreneur and business owner. The reason behind this is pretty much clear. Rankings on the first page attract more traffic and visitors. These new visitors can provide new leads and sales to the business websites. 

In fact, it becomes highly beneficial and essential for businesses to retain the first page positions on Google in order to stay afloat in these unprecedented times. However, it is not easy to rank a website on the first page of Google due to the level of competition and traffic. Even experienced and skilled digital marketers struggles in ranking their website on top positions. So, how can a common business owner can think of first page positions?

Keeping this issue in mind, our experts had prepared some tips through which you can rank a website on the first page of Google. These tips will assist you in ranking your business website on the first page of Google for generating new leads and sales to improve the business functioning.

Tips to rank a website on the first page of Google:

Ensure Proper Technical SEO

Technical SEO as the name suggests deals with the technical parameters of a website. These technical parameters include responsiveness, robots.txt file implementation, XML sitemap generation, error 404 page implementation etc. 

Check whether your technical SEO parameters are up to date and properly implemented. This ensures that the Google crawlers can crawls the website easily whenever a search query is asked in the search box of Google. Without these parameters implementation, Google couldn’t be able to reach your website for showing results and your page won’t be ranked anywhere in the search results.

Some of the major technical SEO parameters of a website which are essential to rank a website on the first page of Google are as follows:

• SSL/https security certificate
• Error 404 page setup
• Robots.txt file setup
• XML sitemap setup
• Site description
• Mobile friendly
• Broken links check-up

Before going to next step, make sure that you have optimized the site from a technical SEO view. If not all, ensure that above mentioned parameters are implemented in your website. 

Remember, if your website is not optimized from a technical SEO view, then it will not be ranked in the search results. It doesn’t matter; how genuine your content is or how much backlinks you have, Google simply won’t recognize whether to crawl your website or not.

Pro tip: You can use free software on web to identify which technical parameters you are lacking at. Some of these free tools are SemRush, SEOQuake, Ahrefs, etc. 

Ensure On-page SEO

After technical SEO setup, Next step is to do proper on-page SEO. On-page SEO is an integral part of search engine ranking algorithms. 

On-page SEO provides essential information to Google for showing a page in the search results as per the nature of website and the search query.  

The crawlers of Google catches the information regarding a particular search query through on-page SEO factors like keyword title, description, descriptive URL and several others. If the information within these factors matches the search query then Google display it in the search results. 

Some of major on-page SEO factors important to rank a website on the front page of Google are as follows:

• SEO friendly URL’s
• Alt tags for Images
• Internal/external linking
• Target keyword density
• SEO friendly content
• Meta title
• Meta description

Use compelling and attractive title along with the description for getting better ranking than your competitors.

 Always remember, proper technical SEO ensures that Google will recognise your site to index and show in the search results. But if you have properly done your on-page SEO then there are better chances that your website/webpage will be displayed on the front page without any additional efforts. 

However, ranking a website on the first page of Google directly with on-page SEO depends upon several factors. These factors include keyword competition/traffic, uploaded content and images, domain authority, etc. and many more. 

Pro Tip: You can check your on-page SEO status using some freely available softwares on the web such as SEOSitecheckup, Neilpatel, Ahrefs, SemRush, etc.

Improve your Core Web Vitals

After the execution of technical and on-page SEO, another major factor to focus on is improving core web vitals of the website. Optimization of core web vitals such as largest contentful paint, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift, etc. is very useful component of a website, when it comes to user experience.

Recently, Google rolled out another major core update in May, 2021 for improving its search algorithms. Through this update, Google is giving more importance to the user experience of the visitors. 

“Yes”-you heard it right; core web vitals will be included in the Google search algorithms to rank a website in the search results of Google. 

From now on, this new May, 2021 Google search algorithms update will be ranking the pages on the basis of user experience too. So, do not ignore the core web vitals if your website is not ranking at top positions.

Some of the major core web vitals considered by the Google in the search algorithms includes following elements:

• Bounce rate
• Page loading time
• Visual stability
• Total blocking time
• largest contentful paint
• First input delay
• Cumulative layout shift

As a major Google search algorithms factor, it is highly recommended by the Google to optimize these core web vitals. Some of these factors can be optimized easily without any experienced developer. 

You can easily resolve some of these errors automatically by yourself too, if you are using a CMS like Word press. That’s because, a CMS comes with its own plugins to optimize some of the core web vitals for improving user experience. Some tips to optimize the core web vitals using a CMS are as follows:

• Choose a fast and reliable web hosting server 
• Set proper caching policy 
• Optimize your images for file size and dimension
• Minify your CSS and Java scripts
• Remove unused javascripts and plugins
• Reduce your initial server response time
• Avoid enormous network payloads and long thread tasks 

These tips will let you optimize some of the elements of your core web vitals through CMS plugins. However, if you are not using any CMS, then it is highly recommended to consult an experienced web developer or a website development company to avoid any damage to your website.

Pro Tip: You can use freely available tools on internet such as GTmetrix, Pingdom, Google page insights, etc. to identify the core web vitals which should be optimized.

Post Content on Regular Basis

You have often heard that “content is the king”. 

This, indeed is true, in the case of online advertising and branding. 

Now a days, one can easily say that “with great content, comes great rank”.

If you have relevant and genuine content on your webpage or website, then Google will recognise it as a reliable source to fetch the information. This fetched information, then displayed in the top results of search engine i.e. on the first page.  In addition, great and genuine content attracts more online visitors which will also assist your website in reaching to the first page. 

Content also made it to the list of Google search algorithms. As a result, your content also plays a key role in the rankings of your website. 

Moreover, sometimes Google copies a snippet from your content which is displayed boldly at the first position of search results. Google only takes this snippet only if you have very reliable and genuine content which satisfies the needs of the audience. Once Google fetches this snippet, it becomes very hard for your competitors to replace you in the search results.

Some of the key points for writing a mind blowing piece of content for attracting web visitors as well as Google are as follows:

• Ensure that your content is readable to audience from every group
• Avoid plagiarized content (<5%)
• Use proper passive voice (<10%)
• Insert headings and sub-headings
• Use more transition words
• Avoid long paragraphs
• Use variety in sentences
• Ensure proper keyword density as per total words 

Content which is easy to read and contain meaningful information is shared more often by the public. This drives additional traffic to the website without any efforts from your side. Remember, you have to make efforts to drive traffic if you don’t have good and attractive content. 

Take a look at this article if you are looking to drive more traffic to your website.

Keep the heading of your content straight. Tell readers what your content is about. Convey your ideas and suggestions clearly to your audience. Don’t misguide them, instead show them path to righteous.  

Keep updating your old content so that it can stay on the top position for a long time. Remember some visitors often use rss feeds for staying tuned with the latest posts. Updating your old content will let them know that you have modified the content so they can easily reach to your website again.

Pro Tip: You can see the traffic of your top competitors through freely available tools such as Ahrefs, Google Analytics, Neil patel, etc. For identifying plagiarized content on your website; you can use free tools such as Copyscape, Sitecheckerpro, Duplichecker etc.

Generate Strong Backlinks/Off-page SEO

Backlinks are considered as the backbone of the off-page SEO activities. These backlinks transfer the link juice from one website to another. This link juice is useful in enhancing the domain and page authority of your website. It is highly advisable by the Google to get the backlinks from the domains having high page authority and domain authority for better results. 

Moreover, getting backlinks from high authority domain improves your ranking very effectively as compared to domains having low authority. This diverted traffic plays a major role in the Google ranking as web traffic is another major factor of Google search algorithm. Websites having high traffic are ranked higher in search results which provide an upper edge in reaching to the first page of Google search results.

Backlinks are the part of off-page SEO activities. Some of the major off-page SEO activities which will rapidly improve your ranks are as follows:

• Web 2.0 site building
• Social bookmarking
• Article submission
• Blog submissions
• Guest posting
• Press releases submission
• Blog commenting

These above mentioned activities are also known as Content marketing activities or the main activities. These activities are capable of boosting your business rankings on Google in a comparatively short span of time. But “consistency is the key to SEO”, so perform these activities on a regular basis and see the results “yourself”.

Apart from these, there are other off-page SEO activities too such as directory submission, business listings, classified listings, document/presentation/PDF/image/video submissions etc. These other activities serve as a strong support to your main activities for stability in the rankings.

Pro Tip: Always use Moz toolbar while working on backlinks. Through the Moz toolbar, you can easily identify the domain/page authority, Spam score, linking domains etc. Identification of these allows you to determine whether you will get a good backlink from the domain or a toxic link.

Conclusion

A giant search engine platform like Google do not consider only a single aspect in order to rank a website on the first page of Google. The ranking algorithms of Google contain over 200 factors for ranking a website. Only Google knows which factor is used on which day. So, don’t ignore the health warnings of your website. Keep a track of your website through regular testing and content improvements. 

No one is aware about when Google will hit their website through its ranking algorithms and core updates. So, keep optimized all these above discussed factors for achieving first page rank on the Google. 

If you have any queries after reading this article then consult to our digital experts. Click here to schedule your free digital marketing consultation.