How do you get on the first page of Google's organic search?

 

A:

There is no one magic bullet to getting on Google's first page. There are about 200 things you can do, and lawyers who are thinking about marketing do all of them. Basically, however, think about this: Google is trying to return relevant search results when someone types a query into its search box. It will continue to maintain its search engine dominance as long as it produces good results for people. So, if someone types in "How do you bake a chocolate cake?" the results on the first page had better be answering that question or people will start to use other search engines to do their queries.

So, Google is looking to answer people's queries accurately. Google doesn't have an army of human beings reviewing the millions of new web pages that are generated each day to determine what is an "authoritative site," so they rely on computer algorithms. The exact algorithm is a deeply-held secret and changes with some frequency. As Google discovers people who are trying to game the system, they fix the algorithm. You should download the Google Toolbar (free download). One of its features is that it has a bar which will show you the Page Rank of any particular web page. This is a figure between zero and ten, showing you, generally, how Google ranks the power of that page. So, getting on the first page of Google means proving to Google that your page has an authoritative answer for that question. Some of the things that we believe that Google's computers "like" are:

1. Lots of content. In fact, lots of content that appears to be new and fresh is very helpful. This is why blogs will tend to rank highly and rank highly quickly.

2. Inbound links from quality sites. When others in the Internet universe recognize your site as authoritative, they will link to it. Getting inbound links to your site from high Page Rank sites is very valuable.

3. Using your keywords in your header, meta description and page name. This does not mean keyword cramming, but if we are looking for directions on "how to bake a chocolate cake" and there is a page that has chocolate cake and bake as part of its actual name, (i.e., its address) and "bake" and "chocolate cake" show up in the meta description and in the paragraph header, and again in the main opening paragraph, then there's a pretty good chance that the page is about how to make a chocolate cake.

4. Longevity of the site. The longer a web site has been active, the more likely it is to be a legitimate, authoritative site. When a new web site is launched, it is in the Google "sand box." This means that it is not even indexed yet by Google. This can take months.

So, without knowing anything else, the number one thing you can do to get your site ranked on the first page of Google's organic search is to add relevant fresh content endlessly to a site. You should be able to do this without contacting your webmaster. You should be able to use your browser to do updating yourself!