I am in Google’s first page. How did I do it?

When I started this blog I had same problem than everyone else. How do I make Google to find my blog and rank it so that it is visible.

I have read thousands of posts about SEO and I did get exhausted 😉 I am not putting much work on SEO anymore. Pro-bloggers probably think it is stupid to ignore SEO efforts, but most of my posts go out without any kind of SEO check.

After studying SEO advises from niche experts like nichepursuits.com I made a plan and decided to try.

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My plan was to create a list of other productivity blogs.

Why?

I did notice that there was not really list that would be up to date and I believe the list would be good resource, interesting and has the good capabilities to be ranked high in Google.

Some experts say that link lists are not good for SEO. They claim Google would consider them as spam. Others say that it does not matter. Google will just take first 60 links and ignore the rest. I have no facts, but it works for me.

My page was quickly raising towards the first page in Google, but in the beginning it was “dancing” a lot. I am sure if I would build links or when links build up, it will be ranked even higher and even stronger.

I have learned that location of hosting has meaning in which part of the world your page is ranked. So, when checking with browser your SERPs, make sure that you have selected the right location AND use incognito mode so that you don’t get personal results. Google can give you search results based on your personal behaviours.

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number-one-in-google

How did I rank my post to the first page of Google?

I am not claiming to be SEO expert at all. This is my understanding why my page ranked and what you should do to rank your content. Like I said, I am not doing much SEO, but all posts I have done SEO in my mind from the beginning have ranked well. I also know if I would do link building they would rank even better.

My current understanding of SEO is that it is fairly simple. It is about ten things you need to get right and after that your success depends on your competition.

If you are building niche business, the most important thing is right keyword selection! Your keywords need to have big search volume and little competition. It also helps if there are many keywords close to your selected keywords.

First of all Google ranks pages. In the beginning I had several posts with keywords productivity blog in headline and visible in my first page. This blog was really high when you searched productivity blog. After I have moved forward and created posts wider rank of topics ranking has dropped. If I want to rank root domain of this blog the key thing is just what keywords I have in front page.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content based on relevance and easiest way to detect the relevance is to check what pages link to the page and to which pages the page itself links.

Obviously if I have page with links to productivity blogs even the dumbest search engine can realize that the productivity is the topic.

2. Keywords

I did choose one keyword pair I wanted to rank. The keyword pair is productivity blog.

If I would be niche site expert in chase of huge traffic it would not be a good choice. That is not good keyword combination, since it does not have volume of searches. Surprisingly productivity blogs are not searched that much compared to many other topics or blogs.

You can search keywords with Google’s keyword tool or tools like Long Tail Pro.

Anyway, I wanted to rank something that makes sense with my blog. This is a productivity blog, so it cannot hurt if it can be found with Google with words “productivity blog”.

In chase of traffic it is most important to pick right keywords. You can easily rank lots of different keywords, but the income is in traffic and in conversion. If you want to make money choose keywords that have huge search volume, small competition and big CPC.

3. Author rank

Author rank is relatively new thing. It means that you link from your content to your Google plus profile and then in Google plus profile you tell that you are posting in your site. You need to add ?rel=author at the end of the url to tell google that the link is author link.

My author link looks like this: ?rel=author

That way Google knows who is the author of the page and can even place picture in search results.

I believe author rank has big meaning. When I did add author information it immediately boosted the ranking of the page.

Some say that having picture in search results boosts your clicks much. I have no evidence of that, but I don’t doubt it.

4. Google plus

It is widely accepted idea that Google includes social media to rankings as well.

Again, I don’t have facts, but when I received first plusses in Google plus, the page jumped up.

Some people have done experiments with plusses by creating similar content and then giving them plusses. It seems that if others like your content, it will raise up in rankings.

5. Outgoing Links

I already covered outgoing links in relevance. You should have outgoing links to similar content so that search engines know what your page is all about. They also help to get people to your blog to see where it is linked from.

6. Keyword placement

Your keyword should exist in three places.

It should be in the url of your post, in headline, and in text. I have also inserted it to meta data of page with help of Yoast SEO plugin.

Yoast advices to place keyword also in Headings (like h2, h3), alt texts of images and in the first chapter of your page or post. Experts give different advices for keyword density. In general it should be less than 2%.

Spencer Haws from NichePursuits places keyword only once in the text and it seems to produce good results.

7. Incoming and internal links

I have not done link building. If you get links from pages that have high “Page Rank” they will improve your rank. The link quality has big meaning, but also the amount.

But the below picture shows link amount is not everything. My page is high with relatively small link count. I am not sure if I have quality links either and I believe my ranking is mostly based on the factors above.

long-tail-pro

However, links with proper variation of anchor texts will help and you should have them. Your anchor texts should include your keywords, but do not over do it. I don’t know what is proper amount of exact anchor texts, but the experts say that too much exact matches is suspicious. You should not build links too fast either. Everything should look “natural”.

Link your page also internally inside your site. It is easiest way to build links. They are not valued as highly as external links, but they help anyway. They also help your readers and site visitors to find the content you have produced and your bounce rate will improve, which means more page views.

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You might ask does it make any sense to create page that sends incoming traffic out from my blog?

It is valid question.

Good thing is that the page is now ranked in Google and people are bookmarking and even sharing the page. It is also ranked with relevant keywords.

Some of the bloggers have visited to see the list, since they have seen incoming traffic from my blog.

That is good, since some of the key persons from my niche now know that my blog exist. I think it is first step creating contacts.

In general I think it brings more positive than negative things.

What do you think? Did I leave something out?

  • hazelcoach

    Great post Rami, thank you for all the information. I will go over it properly and then give it a try:) https://TheNewMidlifeWoman.com/blog

    • https://www.betterproductivityblog.com/ Rami Rantala

      Thanks. The post is not very detailed, but it explains the factors I believe are the keys for me.

    • https://www.betterproductivityblog.com/ Rami Rantala

      Hi,

      I did forget to say, that if you have any questions, please be free to contact me through e-mail (or contact form)

      /Rami

  • https://blog.relenta.com/ Dmitri Eroshenko @Relenta

    This just saved me from what looks like days of reading and research. I’ve been trying to hire an SEO firm but they all seem to be selling you all the crap that you don’t need to justify their ridiculous monthly retainers. The truth, as always, is simple :)

    I’ve tested your approach with several keywords we want to rank https://www.relenta.com for, and, consistent with your examples, the top two results for keywords “small business CRM” are “5 alternatives” and “4 options” Hmmm! Nice food for thought.

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