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SEO Guide: How to rank my website first on Google?
Oct 30, 2024 19:47:07 GMT -8
Post by lizakhatun1122 on Oct 30, 2024 19:47:07 GMT -8
In this SEO guide we are going to teach you the most important web positioning factors to position your website first on Google.
No more not getting any visitors: it's time to get organic traffic, teaching you how to do SEO from scratch.
Table of Contents [ Hide ]
1 Main SEO factors in Google
2 Find out what your target audience is searching for on Google
3 Analyze the search intent of the keywords
4 Generate quality content
5 Set descriptive titles on each URL
6 Get links to increase your authority
7 Use internal links on your website
8 Review the page experience
9 Keep long-term branding in mind
10 Take advantage of other ways to do SEO
11 Measure your organic performance with Search Console
Main SEO factors in Google
To rank well on Google, we must ensure that Google values our website positively.
How do we achieve this? By optimizing the factors that its algorithm takes into account , so that we benefit from the position it gives us in its results.
However, SEO is not simple, and thousands of factors come into play. And, among these factors, we can highlight two types:
On-Page SEO : actions you take on your website, such as creating good content, structuring a good web architecture, taking care of loading speed, designing a layout that is suitable for the user, using internal links, or optimizing images so that they weigh little.
Off-Page SEO : actions that can on page seo service help you in positioning, but over which you have no direct control; it is everything that happens outside of your website. For example, receiving direct traffic, people searching for your brand on Google, obtaining links from other websites, or going viral on social networks.
So, answering the question of what SEO is , we could say, in a simple way, that On Page SEO is focused on the experience we provide within our website, and Off Page SEO is the reputation we have built outside our doors.
On Page and Off Page SEO
However, before we go into detail about some of these SEO factors, let's start at the beginning, and that is that all SEO optimization begins with a user search on Google.
Find out what your target audience is searching for on Google
To get traffic from Google, the first step is to know what people are searching for on Google .
But not just anyone, but more specifically your target audience. The ideal is to reach those users who are interested in our products or services or, in the case of covering something massive (such as a general newspaper), what is most searched for.
Think like them, and investigate what their interests, doubts and needs are .
This keyword research is technically known as Keyword Research , and there are certain Keyword Research tools that will help you in this task:
Ahrefs Keyword Generator
Ahrefs Keyword Generator is a free tool that lets you find out what is being searched for most on Google based on a seed word. For example, if you search for “t-shirts,” the tool will return up to 100 derived keywords like “cheap t-shirts,” with an estimate of how many times they are searched per month.
Answerthepublic
AnswerThePublic is another free tool where, by entering a main keyword, you will receive suggestions of what people are searching for on Google about it . For example, by entering the term “marketing”, you will see that there are people asking “why study marketing”, “differences between marketing and advertising”, among others.
Google Trends
Google Trends is an official Google tool that tells you how popular a keyword is , and how that popularity has evolved. This way you can find out if it is a seasonal keyword, if it has gone out of fashion, if it is stable, or if it is in full search boom.
In addition to these tools, remember that if you have knowledge on the subject, you can consider what your target audience might search for on Google , simply by putting yourself in their shoes and answering their questions.
Write down all the keywords you've thought of or found in the tools, and prepare appropriate content for each of them using an editorial calendar.
Editorial calendar with keywords
That is, establish which keywords you have found and want to cover, and prepare content that can rank for them.
Analyze the search intent of the keywords
Search intent is the goal a user has when performing a search on Google :
Do you want to search for information? Buy a product? See a comparison of several products?
Depending on the user's objective, you should try to position them with one type of content or another, so that it perfectly meets their need.
For this reason, you should analyze what is currently ranking on Google for each keyword , and check that you can offer a similar and better result than the competition.
Search intent on Google
In fact, depending on the type of results we see on Google, we find three types of keywords:
Informative keywords : These are keywords where users search for information, and they usually position blogs, newspapers or digital magazines with guides or articles (for example, keywords such as “what is SEO” or “how to position on Google”).
Transactional keywords : These are keywords where users are looking to buy, which is why they usually position online stores with their catalogs, or service sales pages (for example, keywords like “buy white t-shirt” or “hire a writer”).
Navigational keywords : These are keywords where the user searches for a specific brand (for example, “Marketing and Web School”), so they will mainly position results from the official website.
By this, I mean that if we do not have content that is suited to each type, we will have a hard time ranking for any of these keywords.
For example, imagine I want to rank for “SEO consultant,” and all that appears in Google’s first results are sales pages for consultants.
I, however, don't have a sales landing page: just a guide on what SEO is.
In this case, then, I will be unable to position for that keyword, since I am seeing that what Google and the user want is not a guide, but a sales page.
Or if, for example, they rank blogs for a keyword, and I only have an online store with product catalogs, it will also be impossible for me to rank for those keywords without a blog.
One last example: if I want to rank for “Community Manager course”, and only pages with free courses rank, I will have to create a similar landing page to be able to rank as well.
Keywords in Google
For this reason, it is very important to analyze Google before we get down to work: we must identify what it ranks now, to check if we can make a space for ourselves, and how to improve what it ranks now.
Generate quality content
Once the time comes to write content for a keyword, we need to understand what quality content means to Google .
Fortunately, there is a very interesting resource that reveals how to create quality content . In this resource, you will find a series of guidelines and questions that you can use to self-evaluate whether you are doing a good job with your content .
However, not everything is of equal importance when it comes to judging the quality of content, so I will summarize what I consider to be the most important factors for positioning your content on Google :
Original content , not copied literally from other websites.
Offer more and better information than the competition . That is, have added value compared to what already exists on Google (otherwise, why would they have to rank you first, if you don't offer anything new?).
If you are talking about studies or sensitive topics such as finance or health, it is advisable to link to official sources , such as patents, clinical studies or government pages where you have done your research.
Demonstrate that you are a trustworthy website , for example, by describing who wrote the content (with author biographies and their actual expertise in the topics they write about, or with an “About Us” page, or with HTTPS ).
Once the person has read the content, they should feel that they already know everything they needed . In other words, your content should be so useful that they don't need to visit another website.
By fulfilling these requirements, we would have quality content in the eyes of Google, although you can always visit the resource I linked above as a source to delve even deeper if you need to.
An interesting detail is that Google does not penalize content generated with Artificial Intelligence. You can use it, as long as it generates useful content for the user.
If it's not useful, regardless of whether it's AI- or human-created, you won't rank.
Set descriptive titles on each URL
A very common SEO mistake is not thinking about the titles that each section or URL of your website will have, and this is very important because it is one of the factors with the greatest weight for the Google algorithm.
SEO Titles for Google
If I want to rank for the keyword “ master digital marketing Valencia ”, the main title must include this keyword, because otherwise, Google will not know very well which term I should rank for.
Don't make the mistake of using titles that are too generic, too brief, or, on the contrary, too long. Be precise, but at the same time descriptive with the keyword .
Example of a bad title (very brief and without the main keyword): Catalogue – Mobiles
Example of a good title (main keyword appears): Custom mobile phone cases
Or also:
Example of a bad title (too long): Definitive guide to position your website on Google and come out first even without having initial authority
Example of a good title (more specific): SEO Guide: How to position your website on Google
If you want more information and examples, I link you to this official Google resource that exemplifies how you should title the sections of your website , although in this article we have already summarized everything important.
Get links to increase your authority
For Google, not only the quality of your content is important, but also the authority of your website.
This authority is measured especially with links: the more websites that talk about you and link to you, the more authority you will have .
Authority in Google
Imagine if you go viral or make such amazing content that you get linked to from newspapers and other blogs. In this case, each link is a vote of confidence for Google , so our authority would increase considerably.
Especially if the media that link to you also have a lot of authority . It is not the same thing to be linked by a blog that hardly receives any visits and has no authority, than to be linked by a national newspaper with a great impact.
Use internal links on your website
Just as it is important to increase the authority of your page, it is also important to distribute that authority throughout your website.
To do this, we have to use internal links, that is, link from one URL to another that is also part of our site.
For example, if I now link you from here to this other article we have about what SEO is , I am giving you an internal link.
The benefits of using internal links are several:
They help the user continue browsing within your page, finding other useful related resources.
Google will more easily discover all the URLs on your website because it follows the links.
When we link, we transfer some of our authority to the linked URL, which could improve its ranking.
Finally, a tip that will help you is to internally link to articles or URLs that are thematically related , so that they are relevant and truly useful to the user.
If I have an article that talks about ties, it makes no sense to link to one that talks about sunglasses, because they have nothing to do with each other.
But if I have an article that talks about how to choose the best tie, I can link from there to my catalog with the ties in my online store, because there is relevance and there is thematic affinity.
Check the page experience
Although this is a bit more ambiguous and personal, you should try to make the experience within your website pleasant .
This includes aspects such as:
Do not include many intrusive ads that cover the content and prevent it from being read.
Take care of the loading speed to avoid frustrating the user. To do this, it helps to use images that are not too heavy or a fast server.
Check that the design looks good and that the content reads properly , both on mobile and computer. Remember that more and more people visit websites from their mobile phones, so it is important to take care of the design for small screens.
The objective of addressing these aspects, rather than to position ourselves better from one day to the next, is to take care of the image that users have of us , and to build a good reputation for ourselves.
In addition, we must also avoid sending people back to Google : their answer must be on your website, and presented in a nice and correct way.
For this reason, although this has more to do with design and user experience, it is still an important SEO factor to consider in order for our long-term SEO strategy to be effective.
That people, when they read our content, say: “I loved this website, I want to come back later”, both because of the content itself and because of how well everything is presented.
Keep long-term branding in mind
The best thing that can happen to an SEO is that they start doing brand searches . For example, “Marketing and Web School”, “SEO consultant Emilio García”, etc.
This indicates that people want to find you, and no one else , because they had a good experience or have recommended you.
How do we boost these brand searches? Essentially, by doing a good job and taking care of our users. As I mentioned above: improving their experience on the site.
These brand searches are very positive for several reasons:
We have no competition in Google results, since we will appear first.
Google's algorithm will understand that many people want to visit only us, so it will start treating us as someone important in the sector.
We will be less dependent on Google's algorithm and possible drops in rankings, since we know that many people will search for us by brand, and we will always come out first there.
As you can see, working on branding or our online reputation has enormous benefits for SEO positioning. Now it's a matter of being consistent and rowing in the right direction so that our users are satisfied.
Take advantage of other ways to do SEO
Although web page SEO is an important branch, within web positioning there are some aspects with peculiar characteristics:
Local SEO
If you have a local business, you will be interested in covering keywords with a local focus, such as “SEO consultant Córdoba”, for example.
But, in addition to this, there is the possibility of registering your local business on the Google Business Profile platform , where you can create the listing for your local business and appear in the list of local businesses on Google Maps .
Google Company Profile
No more not getting any visitors: it's time to get organic traffic, teaching you how to do SEO from scratch.
Table of Contents [ Hide ]
1 Main SEO factors in Google
2 Find out what your target audience is searching for on Google
3 Analyze the search intent of the keywords
4 Generate quality content
5 Set descriptive titles on each URL
6 Get links to increase your authority
7 Use internal links on your website
8 Review the page experience
9 Keep long-term branding in mind
10 Take advantage of other ways to do SEO
11 Measure your organic performance with Search Console
Main SEO factors in Google
To rank well on Google, we must ensure that Google values our website positively.
How do we achieve this? By optimizing the factors that its algorithm takes into account , so that we benefit from the position it gives us in its results.
However, SEO is not simple, and thousands of factors come into play. And, among these factors, we can highlight two types:
On-Page SEO : actions you take on your website, such as creating good content, structuring a good web architecture, taking care of loading speed, designing a layout that is suitable for the user, using internal links, or optimizing images so that they weigh little.
Off-Page SEO : actions that can on page seo service help you in positioning, but over which you have no direct control; it is everything that happens outside of your website. For example, receiving direct traffic, people searching for your brand on Google, obtaining links from other websites, or going viral on social networks.
So, answering the question of what SEO is , we could say, in a simple way, that On Page SEO is focused on the experience we provide within our website, and Off Page SEO is the reputation we have built outside our doors.
On Page and Off Page SEO
However, before we go into detail about some of these SEO factors, let's start at the beginning, and that is that all SEO optimization begins with a user search on Google.
Find out what your target audience is searching for on Google
To get traffic from Google, the first step is to know what people are searching for on Google .
But not just anyone, but more specifically your target audience. The ideal is to reach those users who are interested in our products or services or, in the case of covering something massive (such as a general newspaper), what is most searched for.
Think like them, and investigate what their interests, doubts and needs are .
This keyword research is technically known as Keyword Research , and there are certain Keyword Research tools that will help you in this task:
Ahrefs Keyword Generator
Ahrefs Keyword Generator is a free tool that lets you find out what is being searched for most on Google based on a seed word. For example, if you search for “t-shirts,” the tool will return up to 100 derived keywords like “cheap t-shirts,” with an estimate of how many times they are searched per month.
Answerthepublic
AnswerThePublic is another free tool where, by entering a main keyword, you will receive suggestions of what people are searching for on Google about it . For example, by entering the term “marketing”, you will see that there are people asking “why study marketing”, “differences between marketing and advertising”, among others.
Google Trends
Google Trends is an official Google tool that tells you how popular a keyword is , and how that popularity has evolved. This way you can find out if it is a seasonal keyword, if it has gone out of fashion, if it is stable, or if it is in full search boom.
In addition to these tools, remember that if you have knowledge on the subject, you can consider what your target audience might search for on Google , simply by putting yourself in their shoes and answering their questions.
Write down all the keywords you've thought of or found in the tools, and prepare appropriate content for each of them using an editorial calendar.
Editorial calendar with keywords
That is, establish which keywords you have found and want to cover, and prepare content that can rank for them.
Analyze the search intent of the keywords
Search intent is the goal a user has when performing a search on Google :
Do you want to search for information? Buy a product? See a comparison of several products?
Depending on the user's objective, you should try to position them with one type of content or another, so that it perfectly meets their need.
For this reason, you should analyze what is currently ranking on Google for each keyword , and check that you can offer a similar and better result than the competition.
Search intent on Google
In fact, depending on the type of results we see on Google, we find three types of keywords:
Informative keywords : These are keywords where users search for information, and they usually position blogs, newspapers or digital magazines with guides or articles (for example, keywords such as “what is SEO” or “how to position on Google”).
Transactional keywords : These are keywords where users are looking to buy, which is why they usually position online stores with their catalogs, or service sales pages (for example, keywords like “buy white t-shirt” or “hire a writer”).
Navigational keywords : These are keywords where the user searches for a specific brand (for example, “Marketing and Web School”), so they will mainly position results from the official website.
By this, I mean that if we do not have content that is suited to each type, we will have a hard time ranking for any of these keywords.
For example, imagine I want to rank for “SEO consultant,” and all that appears in Google’s first results are sales pages for consultants.
I, however, don't have a sales landing page: just a guide on what SEO is.
In this case, then, I will be unable to position for that keyword, since I am seeing that what Google and the user want is not a guide, but a sales page.
Or if, for example, they rank blogs for a keyword, and I only have an online store with product catalogs, it will also be impossible for me to rank for those keywords without a blog.
One last example: if I want to rank for “Community Manager course”, and only pages with free courses rank, I will have to create a similar landing page to be able to rank as well.
Keywords in Google
For this reason, it is very important to analyze Google before we get down to work: we must identify what it ranks now, to check if we can make a space for ourselves, and how to improve what it ranks now.
Generate quality content
Once the time comes to write content for a keyword, we need to understand what quality content means to Google .
Fortunately, there is a very interesting resource that reveals how to create quality content . In this resource, you will find a series of guidelines and questions that you can use to self-evaluate whether you are doing a good job with your content .
However, not everything is of equal importance when it comes to judging the quality of content, so I will summarize what I consider to be the most important factors for positioning your content on Google :
Original content , not copied literally from other websites.
Offer more and better information than the competition . That is, have added value compared to what already exists on Google (otherwise, why would they have to rank you first, if you don't offer anything new?).
If you are talking about studies or sensitive topics such as finance or health, it is advisable to link to official sources , such as patents, clinical studies or government pages where you have done your research.
Demonstrate that you are a trustworthy website , for example, by describing who wrote the content (with author biographies and their actual expertise in the topics they write about, or with an “About Us” page, or with HTTPS ).
Once the person has read the content, they should feel that they already know everything they needed . In other words, your content should be so useful that they don't need to visit another website.
By fulfilling these requirements, we would have quality content in the eyes of Google, although you can always visit the resource I linked above as a source to delve even deeper if you need to.
An interesting detail is that Google does not penalize content generated with Artificial Intelligence. You can use it, as long as it generates useful content for the user.
If it's not useful, regardless of whether it's AI- or human-created, you won't rank.
Set descriptive titles on each URL
A very common SEO mistake is not thinking about the titles that each section or URL of your website will have, and this is very important because it is one of the factors with the greatest weight for the Google algorithm.
SEO Titles for Google
If I want to rank for the keyword “ master digital marketing Valencia ”, the main title must include this keyword, because otherwise, Google will not know very well which term I should rank for.
Don't make the mistake of using titles that are too generic, too brief, or, on the contrary, too long. Be precise, but at the same time descriptive with the keyword .
Example of a bad title (very brief and without the main keyword): Catalogue – Mobiles
Example of a good title (main keyword appears): Custom mobile phone cases
Or also:
Example of a bad title (too long): Definitive guide to position your website on Google and come out first even without having initial authority
Example of a good title (more specific): SEO Guide: How to position your website on Google
If you want more information and examples, I link you to this official Google resource that exemplifies how you should title the sections of your website , although in this article we have already summarized everything important.
Get links to increase your authority
For Google, not only the quality of your content is important, but also the authority of your website.
This authority is measured especially with links: the more websites that talk about you and link to you, the more authority you will have .
Authority in Google
Imagine if you go viral or make such amazing content that you get linked to from newspapers and other blogs. In this case, each link is a vote of confidence for Google , so our authority would increase considerably.
Especially if the media that link to you also have a lot of authority . It is not the same thing to be linked by a blog that hardly receives any visits and has no authority, than to be linked by a national newspaper with a great impact.
Use internal links on your website
Just as it is important to increase the authority of your page, it is also important to distribute that authority throughout your website.
To do this, we have to use internal links, that is, link from one URL to another that is also part of our site.
For example, if I now link you from here to this other article we have about what SEO is , I am giving you an internal link.
The benefits of using internal links are several:
They help the user continue browsing within your page, finding other useful related resources.
Google will more easily discover all the URLs on your website because it follows the links.
When we link, we transfer some of our authority to the linked URL, which could improve its ranking.
Finally, a tip that will help you is to internally link to articles or URLs that are thematically related , so that they are relevant and truly useful to the user.
If I have an article that talks about ties, it makes no sense to link to one that talks about sunglasses, because they have nothing to do with each other.
But if I have an article that talks about how to choose the best tie, I can link from there to my catalog with the ties in my online store, because there is relevance and there is thematic affinity.
Check the page experience
Although this is a bit more ambiguous and personal, you should try to make the experience within your website pleasant .
This includes aspects such as:
Do not include many intrusive ads that cover the content and prevent it from being read.
Take care of the loading speed to avoid frustrating the user. To do this, it helps to use images that are not too heavy or a fast server.
Check that the design looks good and that the content reads properly , both on mobile and computer. Remember that more and more people visit websites from their mobile phones, so it is important to take care of the design for small screens.
The objective of addressing these aspects, rather than to position ourselves better from one day to the next, is to take care of the image that users have of us , and to build a good reputation for ourselves.
In addition, we must also avoid sending people back to Google : their answer must be on your website, and presented in a nice and correct way.
For this reason, although this has more to do with design and user experience, it is still an important SEO factor to consider in order for our long-term SEO strategy to be effective.
That people, when they read our content, say: “I loved this website, I want to come back later”, both because of the content itself and because of how well everything is presented.
Keep long-term branding in mind
The best thing that can happen to an SEO is that they start doing brand searches . For example, “Marketing and Web School”, “SEO consultant Emilio García”, etc.
This indicates that people want to find you, and no one else , because they had a good experience or have recommended you.
How do we boost these brand searches? Essentially, by doing a good job and taking care of our users. As I mentioned above: improving their experience on the site.
These brand searches are very positive for several reasons:
We have no competition in Google results, since we will appear first.
Google's algorithm will understand that many people want to visit only us, so it will start treating us as someone important in the sector.
We will be less dependent on Google's algorithm and possible drops in rankings, since we know that many people will search for us by brand, and we will always come out first there.
As you can see, working on branding or our online reputation has enormous benefits for SEO positioning. Now it's a matter of being consistent and rowing in the right direction so that our users are satisfied.
Take advantage of other ways to do SEO
Although web page SEO is an important branch, within web positioning there are some aspects with peculiar characteristics:
Local SEO
If you have a local business, you will be interested in covering keywords with a local focus, such as “SEO consultant Córdoba”, for example.
But, in addition to this, there is the possibility of registering your local business on the Google Business Profile platform , where you can create the listing for your local business and appear in the list of local businesses on Google Maps .
Google Company Profile