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The first page of Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs) is a royal achievement, something that’s worthy of being flaunted. 

But have you ever wondered why nobody ever explores beyond the first page of Google’s search results? It’s because Google is reputed to display the most relevant and credible information based on your search query on the first page itself. Anything found beyond the first page is often irrelevant to the user with pages that may not serve the user’s interest or search intention. 

How Can Websites Rank On The First Page? 

The answer is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of driving targeted visitors to a website through organic search results. SEO activities commonly include developing high-quality material, optimising content for certain keywords, and building backlinks. 

What Should Be Your Main Goal With SEO? 

SEO enables you to get free and meaningful traffic to your website on a regular basis, thus increasing your position on Google’s SERPs. Through a high-ranking website with the help of SEO your goal should be to boost online presence, generate leads and improve web traffic and as a result, grow your business online. With SEO your online business can reach more prospects through organic search and eventually turn into customers. 

How Does SEO Work? 

Google is built with such an algorithm that it works in real-time to fetch you the best and most relevant information based on your search query.

For example, try and Google “best juices on a hot summer day.” 

Google will read this query and index & crawl through numerous websites, retrieve blogs, videos, images and other types of content on website pages that hold information about the best juices on a hot summer day. 

Indexing & Crawling: Google must be able to locate your website in order to index it. To do this, they utilise pieces of code known as “bots” or “spiders” to crawl your website and go through all of your pages. While crawling your site, the bots collect information that helps them understand what your site is about. This is why SEO is so vital if you want your site to rank.

How Does Google Determine Which Information To Display? 

Let’s talk about organic content first. 

When you search “best juices on a hot summer day”, Google very well knows that you are not looking for a skin-care routine or ways to reboot your computer. This is why Google primarily looks for pages that closely relate to the user’s search intention. 

But, Google won’t simply fetch an article or a website that repeatedly uses the term “best juices on a hot summer day.” This is because, as you can see in the image below, there are about 13 million results that carry the same term on their web pages. 

Therefore, apart from appropriate keyword usage, Google looks at three main factors; known as Google’s E-A-T principle. Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Please note that EAT is not a ranking factor but among Google’s Quality Raters that determine your search ranking. 

The amount of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) is very important. Please consider the following while publishing content on your website: 

● The expertise of the creator of the content creator. 

● The authoritativeness of the creator of the content creator, the content itself, and the website. 

● The trustworthiness of the creator of the content creator, the content itself, and the website. 

For example, taking the example of the “best juices on a hot summer day”, the website page with high E-A-T for advice on food, nutrition, health, lifestyle and news websites will be displayed higher on the SERPs than on other pages. 

While organic results are displayed based on merit, paid content works slightly differently. 

Paid search results include the term “Ad” before the listing; this is where a business has paid to have its page appear at the top of the list. This may be accomplished through a Google Ads search campaign, which charges you a modest fee for each individual who clicks on that link also known as pay-per-click (PPC). The paid search uses relevant adverts to generate visitors to your website. 

What Are The Prerequisites For An SEO Strategy? 

To prompt Google in recognising your brand or business, you need to create content based on expertise, authority and trust. However, the relevance of the content is equally, if not more important. 

Streamline the following before putting together an SEO strategy. Ask any good digital marketing agency and they will tell you the same. 

Determining What Do You Want To Be Known For

Answering this question directly solves the challenge of establishing expertise on Google. If your product or service is about health and fitness, you should aim to be well-known in that industry. This can happen if you are able to get industry experts with high credibility to write content for your website. Google recognises trust, authority and credibility and will reward your website with a high ranking for the same. 

High-Quality Website Is Not Just About Text

Publishing relevant content should never be limited to text. Your website loading speed, its user interface, and universal resource locators (URLs) are equally important. 

Search engines dislike long sequences of words with complicated structures. As a result, keep your URLs as short as possible by optimising URLs. Set them up to include only the main keyword or page name if possible. 

The website’s loading time – the time it takes for a user to be able to see the complete page — is used by search engines as a measure of quality. Make sure you have the necessary tools, and skilled personnel along with creative content creators, on your SEO team that can take care of optimising these elements of SEO. 

Keyword Research

No SEO strategy can be commenced, let alone complete, without keyword research. Since you already know what niche and domain you want to establish authority in, performing keyword research should not be a complicated task. You can find effective seo agency if you still find keyword researching a complicated endeavour. 

Common tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs can be used for researching keywords. Make sure you target the most searched-for terms in your niche and create unique, relevant and informational content on these topics. 

Lastly, you can also use these keywords to spot trends and create other forms of content on social media platforms on these topics. The goal is to establish a presence on Google by smartly using the keywords you discover, on your website pages. 

Where Do You Include These Keywords? 

Winning Google’s favour for indexing and crawling depends on keyword usage naturally, strategically yet authentically throughout the webpage. Here are some key areas that will help Google recognise your content based on keywords: 

• URL 
• Post Titles & Headings 
• Image Alt-Text 
• Meta-Title & Meta-Description 

Follow these steps for optimising your website for search engines and see your website rankings skyrocket! 

All the best!