Let’s face it, for most of us who maintain an e-commerce website the goal is to reach the first page of search engine rankings.
As much as we might want to believe there is some magic wand we can wave and achieve this, the truth is that it takes some work to get there and work to stay there, too.
Page rank is based on a number of factors. These include the architecture of your landing page, link structure, design elements, keyword use, time it takes to load, and other factors (some of which are not all that clear and seem to constantly change) that determine ranking for particular keywords.
Achieving Page One Rankings and staying there is almost a constant battle due to the vast number of websites that are being created daily. There are a few things you can do, however, to turn the odds in your favour.
Change Is Good For Page One Rankings
Perhaps the first and most important thing to remember is that where websites and their page rankings are concerned, change is good. Static content will not increase your rankings over the long run.
Make sure that you add new content often. Each time you do, your site gains the attention of search engine bots. If you run a WordPress blog, your blog posts are automatically pinged, making it easier to get to the top and stay there.
Including Long Tail Keywords
Consider the keywords on which you are trying to gain Page One Rankings for. The most used are also the ones with the most competition. For instance, if your business sells video games, a search for this very broad term will return over 230,000,000 results. Getting to the top of that pile is going to be very difficult.
The long tail keywords, or those located along the right-most side of the bell-shaped curve for keyword popularity, might present a more achievable goal when it comes to SERPs. Take a look at the number of results you get from inputting “action video games for Nintendo Wii” – far less. Focusing on this narrower term may be a better option for your website.
Split Testing
How do you know if your advertising is really working in terms of page ranking? For one thing, you need to analyse the results of your campaign. Is your PPC campaign really driving traffic and upping your position?
Perhaps the best way to determine what ads are most effective is to institute split testing. This refers to duelling ads being run simultaneously, each one with slightly different content. After a month of running these two ads, take a look and see which one resulted in more clicks. Run a report that shows cost per click for each. A higher number of clicks at a lower cost will better help you get to page one. Lose the other one or rework it to be more effective.
Quality Score
Does the Google Adwords’ quality score affect your page ranking? It seems that the answer is yes. Your website’s landing page quality score is based on a number of factors too numerous to mention here. But it does involve how related your content is to the keywords and how positive the experience at your page is for the visitor.
Use split testing as described above and look at the ads in relation to how they affected your quality score. Chances are if you stick with the ad that most increases your quality score, your page rank will also rise.
Search engines’ page ranking is a fickle mistress. It can be changed upon a whim with no apparent intervention on the part of the webmaster. Just remember to follow these tips and stay on top of your SEO efforts to enjoy the greatest amount of time on Page One Ranking.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Sphunn!
Great advice, and well written too. The amount of people that peer down their noses at long tail search amazes me. Is the money of someone putting six words into Google somehow worth less than the money of someone putting in two?
.-= Andrew Nattan´s last blog ..Five Simple Steps to Successful SEO =-.
I couldn’t agree with you more Andrew, the long tail seems to be forgotten by many marketers. Long tails are great for fast rankings and I highly recommend finding the right ones for your target market.
Hi Sean. I’m about to launch my Sales Training Consultancy here in the U.K. Unfortunately, I’m a COMPLETE technophobe(I type one fingered and my IT skills are non-existant). However, I will be relying solely on Google etc for prospecting. How can I really get to page 1 and stay there??? I don’t understand how the system works but NEED to learn. Basically, my site (when up and running) will carry the words Sales Training at the top. Then a banner, then text and a side bar menu with 4 click options. Sales Training is mentioned throughout the site. Is this the way forward? What are tail searchers? Does the whole thing work on cost per click? (I always thought Google etc was FREE???)
Really hope you can help this old Sydney boy (Clovelly)
Regards….Dave
Hi Dave
Your question is not something I could answer within a blog comment, as there are a huge amount of factors in achieving high organic rankings on Google.
There are 2 ways of getting on the front page of Google:
. If you have no idea what SEO is, you will really need to do your homework on it to get a better grasp of it.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): This is where you optimise your site for particular keyphrases you want to be found for when people search on Google. The traffic that is generated from this is known as “organic traffic” and it is free
Pay Per Click (PPC): This is where you set up a Google Adwords account and pay to have your ad displayed on Google and you will be charged each time someone clicks on your ad. It can be very effective and is the fastest way to appear on the front page, but if you don’t fully understand it, it can cost you bucketloads of money.
Tail Searchers? Do you mean long-tail keywords? if you do, an example would be optimising your site for the keyphrase “Sales Training UK” rather than just “Sales Training”. The first one is more targeted and has a lot less competition.
Hope this helps – Sean
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the advice. It’s very definetely organic clicks I’m after. I’ve just been made redundant (merry Xmas to you too BOSS!!) so I’m scrabbling around trying to keep a roof over our heads! Things are not good here in Pom. i’ll take your advice to heart and study!
Thanks again and take care
Regards…..Dave
Great advice to achieve page one ranking. It is not so easy to get the page one rank. If we modify our content regularly it will help us to get good ranking.. I too agree with Split testing and Quality Score.
But i can’t understand why i should i use Long Tail Keywords.. Is it really helps??
Hi Ashley
Glad you liked the article. You are right, it’s not an easy task to achieve position 1, especially with short tail competitive keywords. This is one of the reasons you may like to target long-tails, less competition, and possibly more relevance. As mentioned in the article, if you try ranking for “video games” it is reasonably untargeted to a particular type of game, and the competition is huge. Going more long-tail on a phrase like “video games for nintendo wii” is much more targeted to a particular audience and has a lot less competition, making it easier to achieve high rankings.
Regards – Sean
Ashley
Basically long tail keywords will have a lot less competition. I use them all the time and I can attest to their effectiveness. Just remember the phrase you choose must also have a reasonable amount of searches. It’s no good have low competition if nobody is searching for the term
.-= Gee´s last blog ..Choosing Keywords and Understanding Their Importance =-.
Hi Sean,
These are all great tips to get page one rankings. So far I’ve made the top 10 on Google but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I still need to work on my keyword research and my SEO.
I understand that PPC will drive traffic to my site. I just wanted to be able to get page one rankings naturally. So for now, it’s back to chasing the long-tail keywords.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
Hi Sean
I did not realise how much work is involved in getting to a number one ranking, now I can salute those people that do. In saying that I am not put off in achieving a no 1 ranking and a highly successful and profitable IM business.
Long tail keywords, in fact all keyword research is at the top of my learning agenda and the first thing I will be learning after this competition. I will not be using PPC until I really get my head around SEO and keywords and get my site into a workable order but I have saved the URL of this article as it has loads of great information. Thankyou.
.-= Elly Wilson´s last blog .. =-.
Thanks Sean,
It’s really interesting to find out that your actual PPC ad will increase the Page Rank of your website.
Is this because it is a direct link between google and your website?
The goal of all Internet Marketers is to achieve page one rankings and I’m a strong believer in the use of long tail keywords to help achieve this.
I know when I go online with the intention of buying a particular type of product I use long tail keywords to conduct my search. I try to be as specific as possible so I can locate what I’m looking for as quickly as possible.
I’ve preached this searching approach to friends, relative and as many people as I can. (Say, maybe I’ve been subconsciously building my client list). So when I’m searching, the vendor who has utilized long tail keywords is going to end up on page one as a result, just where he wanted to be. The vendor with the less precise keywords will just be lost amongst the crowd.
I guess I should also check to see if there are plugins for Joomla and Drupal that provide automatic pinging. That would save a bit of time helping reach page one status.
Good article.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..Psycho- =-.
Hi Sean,
I have a better understanding now on how to achieve #1 page ranking on Google. Long Tailed Keywords are important as you have explained here.
SEO and PPC play an important part also in helping with page rankings on Google. You have in the past shown YOTA forum members step by step on how to take a website from zero to #1 on Google. I know you can do it.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
I tend to go for long tailed keywords now that I have learnt the benefits of keyword research. Before I was uneducated I would choose popular keywords and then wonder why my site never ranked. I am having a lot more success to achieve page one rankings now I have changed my ways. I just have to learn more to keep my site on page one once its there.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Anxiety Separation in Children =-.
How long is too long?
I generally tend to focus on 3 or 4 word keywords, however the real search volumes always seem to be on the short tail keywords. Going past 4 word for many niches doesn’t seem to get you much traffic.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.