Blog
Number one in Google
Posted by Paul Sturgess on February 25, 2009
Good listings across multiple search engines can make or break a website, at Kyan we believe there are no real secrets to search engine optimisation (SEO).
Transparency with our clients is key, we don’t keep our techniques behind lock and key as we believe SEO is not just the responsibility of the web developers, but also of the content creators & writers.
Read on for a few SEO tips to help your website get to number one in Google.
Update (27/04/09)
This article is number one in Google for the search term “number one in Google” (View screenshot). We practiced what we are preaching and optimised this page to prove how SEO works.
Content
Producing good, meaningful content is absolutely critical. We recommend focusing your content on a few key phrases that people are likely to use in search engines. Keep it fresh and relevant to your target audience. Choosing which key phrases to target is essential part of the process. There is little point in being number one in Google for a phrase which is going to generate no traffic. By using Google’s Keyword Tool and Ranktracker software we are able to see what terms are returning results and how competitive they are.
Maintenance
We monitor the key phrases using Ranktracker, tweaking the copy to achieve the best results. In our experience SEO has to an on-going commitment in order to maintain a high position, but with a website built with SEO in mind this can be achieved with little effort.
Incoming links
The more websites that link to your website, the more of an ‘authority’ you are considered. Each link is an endorsement that your content is useful. It is worth noting that links from other highly ranked sites carry more weight than those with low rankings.
Page titles
Matching your page title with a search term tells the search engine that your page contains the content the user is looking for. We also match the first heading on the page as closely to the page title as possible as this re-enforces that the content on the page is likely to be relevant to the search term.
Rich media
Flash videos, graphics, animation and the like are notoriously difficult to index. We use image replacement techniques and alternative text content for flash and images so that your content can still be indexed. This is also great for people using screen readers and mobile phone users.
In summary
This list is by no means exhaustive, but these are the key points to good SEO practice and achieving that elusive number one in Google.
21 comments
Pedro commented on March 04, 2009 at 04:39 PM
nice article.
How can you mantain good content and incoming links for institutional sites?
do you recommend them to create a blog and post more news?
or do you encorage them to open up and share more information?
thanks
SEO Singapore commented on March 08, 2009 at 11:45 AM
This is a great post! I like your philosophy about Transparency with clients is key! No special secrets behind SEO, if all about effort with experiences and best practices behind instead. Many business owner always thought there is any special secrets from SEO agencies that can turn on SEO for any websites. Is not! The theory is simple, Search engine do not own by any SEO agencies.
Robin commented on March 12, 2009 at 09:52 AM
It’s also worth noting that links from low quality sites can be detrimental to your ranking; this is the ‘bad neighbourhood’ phenomenon.
yamaniac commented on March 23, 2009 at 05:05 AM
Well written post there mate!!! I totally agree with this one.. I think these companies that say “we seo optimze your website for all search engines” are all fake.. (That’s wht I think) Content is the king…
Anonny commented on April 09, 2009 at 04:24 PM
looks over to the right
You forgot to mention stuffing your page with irrelevant tags up the ying yang.
mmorpg commented on May 21, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Hello Paul,
Very well said that there is no secret behind SEO. I have read many articles regarding SEO, but didn’t got what actually can bring our website on top page. Can anyone let me know here about the basic strategy by which i can make my website appear on top pages.
Ralph | Vertical Measures commented on May 22, 2009 at 11:02 PM
You do realize that only 110 people found this article because it ranks #1 for a keyword that no one searches…
Gavin commented on June 03, 2009 at 01:54 PM
@ralph Sure Ralph, we understand it’s a nonsense search term. This was just an exercise to prove how you can achieve good page rankings without really trying too hard, and that there is no secret to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Things get a lot more interesting for popular search phrases and you need to work a lot harder to achieve the same results. However this also illustrates why it’s so important to pick the right key phrases to optimize for — Is it really worth the hassle and expense to go for top ratings on the most popular search term when you can achieve equivalent results on terms that are only slightly less popular for a lot less investment. Focused keyword analysis is the key.
fta files commented on June 05, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Google is number one
Jumping Stilts Information commented on June 11, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Writing fresh content also seems to be an area that many websites struggle with, therefore promoting the companies services can be a lot harder for the SEO. I often find it difficult to understand why people who have a site struggle to tell people what service they are providing and indeed what the website is all about. Put it this way, if a website has just two sentences on your services how can you rank for that topic area?
Levon commented on June 12, 2009 at 06:30 AM
By keeping these things in mind, companies would now be able to develop more the strategies that they use in order to keep people visiting their sites all the time.
fta commented on June 12, 2009 at 09:32 PM
Content is the best strategy and always will be.
Silver commented on June 15, 2009 at 05:21 PM
I think if we work hard to build the links, we can get good traffic from Google. In same way, our website can get good position in other search engines as well. All what is need is hard work.
Your tips given here are useful and really good for the newbies.
John Hansen commented on June 19, 2009 at 07:32 PM
google is the only source my websites traffic and i worked hard get the number one position .. but it does not last for long as there is always competition!
Fishing Games commented on June 21, 2009 at 04:44 PM
If content is king, then good SEO is queen. All of this information is very helpful for those new to SEO and even those who’ve been doing it for a while now. Titles, Meta tags, proper tag usage…all so important and lot’s of people forget about it.
host web hosting commented on June 24, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Absolutely amazing work by Paul Sturgess. This post will definitely help in implementing the SEO plans and in turn will fetch good google page rank. I would say this is one stop place to know what SEO is.
vitamin a commented on June 25, 2009 at 05:28 PM
Cool article about SEO and thanks for some useful tips. Can anyone out here tell me, once in how many days does google update the page rank and on what basis will google crawl in to our site?
DSL Anbieter commented on July 07, 2009 at 07:43 PM
People think that getting a #1 spot that fast is something you can do working on it only five minutes a day. You can’t, not anymore. There’s simply too much competition and EVERYONE is trying to rank well.
Laying ceramic floor tiles commented on August 19, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Can you tell me how can I manage my ranking? And can any one tell me how does the it rank? Because I have 3000 back links still I am no having good PR can any one tell me what wrong am I doing?
Thanks
Xaby SEO commented on November 02, 2009 at 03:12 PM
“Good listings across multiple search engines can make or break a website, at Kyan we believe there are no real secrets to search engine optimisation (SEO).”
This lends credibility to your entire article.
First and foremost, no 1 single player dominates the search market.
Secondly, i believe in building seo-friendly sites and not websites built for SEO purposes. Remember, search engines still want to reward those with quality content.
Personally most of information out there are outdated and there is too much junk.
And if you are getting started, do it slowly, this is a marathon, not a sprinting event.
nice article there.
jol commented on February 08, 2010 at 05:12 PM
Detailed step by step instructions
Participating forum can increase the back links
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