Getting all my sites to number 1 in Google
This might sound like an obvious goal but for now I am going to focus on getting my existing sites to number one in Google. Most of them are at number one in Google for their main keyword but not all of them.
Normally I start a new site, put up some content and wait for it to get to number one. If after a while it is not on page one or close then I leave it and move on. But as I have vowed to not make any new sites for a while I am thinking I might as well get the sites I have to number one so I can see if any of them will get any traffic.
I have sites for keywords that get, according to the Google keyword tool, anything from 3,000 to 50,000 exact searches a month. As I’ve now realised the Google keyword tool is not to be believed and does not even give a rough idea of searches. This has made me think that I might be sitting on a site that gets 100′s of 1000′s of exact searches each month and I won’t know until I get the site to number one.
So with that in mind I am going back to my older sites that don’t rank well and seeing what I can do to get them to number one.
I’ve never really done any work on back links so I might have to finally get around to giving it a serious go. I will also be adding content which I will probably end up outsourcing as I don’t have much spare time any more. It is quite expensive at £10 for 500 words but probably cost effective in the long run?
Anyone got any tips for getting a site to number one in Google?
I’ve heard people say that the best way to check the search numbers (and get a more realistic figure) is to run a quick Adwords campaign
Is anyone able to explain in more detail how to do this? (for someone that hasn’t really used Adwords before?)
Perhaps an idea for a blog post Joe?
There was a recent post on the A4U forums about running PPC to reveal true searches for keywords, I will have a look and post if I can find it.
Regarding moving up the SERPS I can say that social bookmarking seems to be working for me at the moment, I have been adding content to one of my sites (18,100 exacts a month…apparently!) then bookmarking on about 6 SB sites. The site after initial content and indexing sat at around 8 on page one, and I had another that was sitting at 6. Just from social bookmarking work I have moved the 6 to a 4 and have started getting other pages indexed quicker and the 8 has started to gain some great long tail traffic.
If you are already ranking #1 for a similar keyword then you may be able to rank #1 for another keyword purely on backlinks. Not even decent backlinks, just a few blog comments or article with the exact term you wish to rank for. Google is quite good at picking up related phrases, so if you rank #1 for ‘big tv’ then ‘big television’ should be relatively simple (assuming there is not a massive difference in competition for each term)
That is interesting Ian. How related would the two keywords have to be?
What if I was ranking number one for ‘unicycle tyres’.
How easy would it be to rank at number one for ‘bike tyres’ or just ‘tyres’?
Or how about ranking number one for ‘triathlon suit’ and then to rank for ‘triathlon wetsuit’?
If you are ranking for ‘triathlon suit’ then the wetsuit version should be fairly easy I would have thought.
The tyres scenario is different, not only are you reducing the number of words but also targeting a much more competitive area so doesn’t really apply here.
A recent term I was ranking #1 for was ‘decorators examplecity’ I was also ranking 29th for ‘painter examplecity’ Just by adding 6 blog and forum links of the exact phrase I wanted to rank for after a week I went to #3 for the term and then after a couple of more weeks #1
Each case is separate and it does depend on the competition for each term but definitely worth a try – backlinks and anchor text are very powerful within the google algorithm.
Based on my experience, the Google keyword tool is ONLY useful for giving relative searches – for example, if keyword1 is 10000 and keyword2 is 20000 then you can guess there are more searches on keyword2 than keyword1 but you still have no idea how many.
As regards getting to number 1 in google I don’t think you can beat web 2.0 social bookmarking sites and answer sites like yahoo answers and a few others. It’s a pain in the butt to go on everyday and search for suitable questions but I’ve been doing this for about 2 months, have worked my way up to having accounts with reasonable levels of trust (by answering easy homework questions in the science forums) and I am pretty sure its made a difference to my results.… when I say pretty sure that’s not because my sites haven’t moved up – they have – its just I also do a few other things like article marketing etc. so it’s hard to be sure what’s what – but I think the social bookmarking has been the real contributor.
Hi Affking,
Its really quite basic how you achieved your rankings and resulting traffic. The main feature of your site that get’s you your ranking… Is your Domain Name.
When you have a keyworded domain name, you increase the relevency of your site (providing your content also matches)and you don’t need as many backlinks to rank high for keywords that are related to your domain name.