How to Make your Startup Rank on Google's First Page

by Startacus Admin

When launching a website, every startup dreams of jumping to the first page in the SERPs.

This is the pinnacle of your success. It not only shows that your SEO efforts are fruitful, but also that you have become respected in your industry and relevant to your target audience.

Most importantly, it helps you drive quality and relevant traffic to your site. According to some recent studies, sites listed on the first page of Google get more than 92% of all traffic.

Still, getting there is pretty difficult.

The number of your competitors is rising. Not to mention that the turbulent search engine landscape is constantly changing.

So, ranking well takes a lot of research, persistence and, above all, resourcefulness.

Here are a few steps that will help you boost your rankings.

Rank for the Right Keywords

When entering the world of SEO, one of the first things all startups hear is that they need to do keyword research. So far, you’ve probably bumped into numerous guides telling you how to do so.

Unfortunately, most of them won’t help you.

Why?

Well, most of them somehow forget to tell you that every aspect of your keyword analysis, from your manual research to choosing the right tools, is relative. It depends on numerous factors, including your site’s current performance (its number of pages, quality of content, etc.), your goals, your resources and, of course, your niche.

This is why you need to do your keyword research carefully, step by step.

Ahrefs’ Tim Soulo explained this beautifully in his How to Do Keyword Research for SEO guide.

However, the mere process of keyword research is extremely complex, consisting of a bunch of stages. This is why we won’t tackle it right now.

I’d like to focus on long-tail keywords and their importance to your rankings. Furthermore, the majority of searches are based on these lengthy phrases.

And, the reason for this is simple- it’s more natural and it resembles our everyday communication.

Most importantly, they drive quality traffic to your site. Namely, people searching for long-tail keywords usually know what they are searching for and they are easier to convert. Remember, traffic without conversions is pointless.

Focus on Building Quality Links

Link building is dead.

Link building is a waste of time.

The web is filled to the brim with the headlines like these.

But, is this really so?

Of course not.

Link building has remained one of the most prominent SEO strategies.

The only thing that has changed is a way we do it.

Today, SEO is not just about building links or lifting your rankings. It’s about building authority in your niche, being recognizable for quality and, most importantly, becoming a reliable source of information for both your target audience and other businesses in your niche.

Now, in his Every Damn Thing You Need to Know About Backlinks guide, Four Dots’ Rad Basta reminds us that building a quality link is difficult. Today, lazy link building tactics are considered spam and they’re highly frowned upon by Google.

To prevent getting penalized, you can start with creating and sharing killer content on your blog.

Once your target audience notices the value of your posts, they will link to it naturally. Just remember that there are numerous sites like QuickSprout, MOZ, Ahrefs, HubSpot, Kissmetrics, and Backlinko that generate mountains of quality and relevant links just by producing awesome content.

Post quality content on industry-specific sites.

Google doesn’t want you to exchange links with spammy and suspicious sites. So, do a thorough research and focus on publishing on top sites in your niche only. Pay attention to the site’s DA, PA, backlinks, audience, traffic, niche, and engagement rates.

Leave comments on authoritative blogs in your niche.

Don’t be a spammer. You don’t even have to add a link to your comment at all. Your goal here is to add value to this site’s readers, by making insightful suggestions and providing helpful tips.

Broken link building is one of the most powerful tactics ever.

Its name is pretty self-explanatory- you use tools like Check My Links to find a broken link on an awesome site and offer your relevant content as a replacement.

Write testimonials for the sites whose products/services you’ve been using.

This is an incredibly simple link building strategy that can help you generate some quality traffic straight from the homepage of a killer site.

Do some On-Page SEO

Once you target your keywords, you need to optimize your website pages for them. In his recent infographic, Backlinko’s Brian Dean has recently dissected some of the most important on-page SEO strategies that will help you optimize every piece of content you create. 

When summarized, on-page optimization boils down to the following:

• Optimize your title tags. Make sure they’re authentic, descriptive, and short (up to 60 characters). Add your major keyword and never, ever use generic tags like “Home.”
• Make your URLs SEO-friendly. They need to be short, easy-to-read, and keyword-rich.
• Optimize your meta descriptions. Include a clear CTA, a keyword, and make them relevant and to-the-point.
• Optimize your alt tags to tell Google what your images are about.
• Build internal links to help Google crawl and index your pages.
• Have a sitemap to tell Google about the structure of your site’s content. When Googlebot reads the file, it will be able to crawl content easily.
• Improve your page load speed. You can do so by cutting redirects, compressing images, investing in faster hosting, or using CDN.

Get your Site Reviewed

Creating killer content is an inevitable part of your digital marketing strategy.

However, this is a long-term strategy and it may sometimes take months to see the improvement in your rankings.

If you want to boost your visibility faster, then you should go the extra mile getting featured in round-up posts.

So, how can this be done?

It’s actually pretty simple. If you’re selling a project management tool, for example, then google something like “best project management tools 2018.”

Your aim is to look for roundup-style articles, where an author analyses and compares top tools similar to yours.

All you have to do is reach out to them, asking them to feature your tool, as well.

Unsurprisingly, this technique serves as free advertising, helping you get tons of invaluable traffic.

Conclusions

Soaring to the first page of Google is not easy, but it’s possible if you use the right techniques.

So, analyse your keywords carefully and optimize your content for them.

Make your link building natural and valuable. Don’t limit yourself to guest blogging only. Experiment with other types of link building, as well.

Optimize your site properly. This helps you boost your rankings, as well as improve your customer experience.

Get your product featured on industry-relevant sites.

Hope this helps!

Nate Vickery is a marketing consultant and author mostly engaged in researching the latest marketing technology trends and practices applicable to startups and SMBs. He is also the editor at Bizzmark Blog and an author on The Next Web.

 

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• #search engine

Published on: 8th March 2018