“After the 1st page, it’s only the Library of Forgotten and Forgettable Web Pages on Google.”
The numbers agree: since 75% of users don’t scroll past the 1st page of the search engines, being listed after is clearly not the best position for a business or website to be in.
Being on 2nd page onwards of Google is akin to being the last one left when volleyball teams are being chosen – you’re being picked simply because all the other options have been exhausted.
So, how do you make that incredibly profitable leap to the 1st page?
Organic listings on the first page are heaven
Like every business that stepped into the big, wide world of the Internet, you would have tried for that 1st page.
However, if your efforts reaped no results, and you began to tell yourself ‘it doesn’t matter, there are too many players in the market’, then you need to reconsider that statement.
The 1st page of Google does matter. Here are some stats on this:
- 67,000 searches are made from Google every second.
- 93% of all online experiences begin with an online search i.e. by typing into Google since 94.26% of the mobile search market and 89.63% of the desktop search market is dominated by it.
- 39% of the global e-commerce traffic is brought in by search.
Before you think about paying your way to the top of the 1st page, think again. Ads help gain visibility, but nearly 80% of users ignore paid ads in search results.
Organic Search Traffic for the win – helping convert 10x more leads than social media, and positively uplifting brand image by 30%.
Now, the 1st page of Google can show anywhere from between 7-10 organic results. Here is a look at the clicks you’ll get with specific rankings.
So, yes, you are missing out on profitable leads, sales, and conversions by not making a place for yourself on the coveted 1st page. And you need to remedy this situation asap.
How to slide into the 1st page from the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th
Whether you dream of reaching the 1st page with a bang, or quietly sidling in to take your place, climbing up to appear on The King of All Pages is entirely possible. How? Below are a few ways to put you on the road to success:
- Update your content
The traditional approach is to keep on churning out new ideas and new content. This not only requires more effort but is also not a smart way. Because overtime this is what happens:
The freshness of your content keeps declining as does your position in the eyes of Google. The simple solution? Revive old posts and freshen them up again.
Add the feather dusting of new keywords, make the title more catchy, add a point that covers a newly-revealed dimension of an issue, and then update the publicaton date. When Google crawls your site again, you’ll have fresh content that is worthy of being ranked on the 1st page.
In short, work hard at your content but also be smart. Updating it is one of the smartest moves you’ll ever make.
- Check for Broken or Irrelevant Links
Broken links are links which trigger the display of a 404 error message, indicating that a webpage no longer exists. A website can have broken internal linking (non-existent webpage on one’s own site) or broken external linking (non-existent webpage on another’s site).
Broken links can cast a dark cloud over your Google Page 1 ambitions. This is because they turn users off. When a user excitedly click on a link to explore what’s offered further and they don’t find what was promised, it annoys them and makes for negative user experience. As a result, they won’t explore or visit your site enthusiastically (they might just stop altogether).
What’s more they’ll tell their friends judging by the 44% of people who’ll tell their friends about a bad online shopping experience. The bounce rate will increase, Google will see the dwindling response to your website and ka-boom! Your downward descent begins.
The same happens with irrelevant links. They make for bad user experience and push visitors away. Hence, check all your links regularly to make sure they are giving what they promised. This mistake is too rectifiable to not correct.
- Get the keywords right!
The keyword game has changed a bit. Google no longer ranks websites on how closely the typed keywords match the title of the results. Rather, the results are displayed based on how valuable and relevant the content is.
For example, if you type ‘best writing practices’ in Google, here is what you get:
Google susses out that what you really want is to improve your writing, hence, it shows all relevant results which don’t necessarily contain the words ‘best writing practices’ anywhere.
Hence, craft your keywords with the intent of the user in mind. Focus on long-tail keywords as much as possible. The users typing them will be closer to the conversion stage than someone who just types in a phrase.
- Image Optimisation
Images are an underrated way to generate traffic since more efforts are geared towards bettering textual content.
But, Google Image Search had indexed 10 billion images as of 2010 and its daily page views were well over 1 billion in the same year. Imagine how both the numbers would have skyrocketed by now. If you aren’t prepping your images for search, then you are losing out on a big content marketing strategy.
How to remedy: edit the filename of images to match the image content. If you did a product photo shoot for your organic eyeliner, instead of keeping the file name jvnlkne.jpg, change it to organic-eyeliner-2019.jpg. More searchable.
Second, always edit your alt tags. Make them short but close to possible keywords. In line with the above example, you can use ‘new organic eyeliner 2019’ as the alt tag.
Finally, always compress your images before uploading. Use websites like www.optimizilla.com or www.compressor.io
- Get Social Shares and Traffic from Social Media
There is a small percentage of businesses who are doing without social media. The rest of them, however, have jumped on this bandwagon.
And who can resist when you look at the numbers, too? 1 in every 6 minutes spent online is spent on Facebook. 1 in every 5 minutes spent on the phone is spent on Facebook. That’s a lot of time to be spending on Facebook.
Also, 71% of people who have a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend it to their peers. Who wouldn’t like this online yet still word-of-mouth marketing?
So, get on to social media and choose a platform that suits your brand. The traffic that you garner from there will elevate your status amongst Google’s crawlers.
Are you ready for your ranking to improve? If yes, but you need some help in making the journey to page 1, then stall no more and reach out. Your Page One crown awaits you.
