February 19, 2008
How to Achieve a First Page Listing on Google – Part 2
Today I want to show you how you can get your homepage listed on the first page of Google for a more competitive keyword.
My own campaigns show that having several different articles based around long tail keywords ranked on the first page of Google brings in far more traffic than concentrating on just 1 main keyword.
Long tail keywords (a keyword with at 3+ search terms) are far easier to rank for because the competition is not nearly as fierce.
Not only does this method bring in more traffic it also helps to get the site a higher page rank. Which although not necessarily that important to us, it does give the site an impression of greater authority.
When you build a new site I would suggest you start by writing good quality, relevant articles to bring in an immediate stream of traffic.
Side note:
I usually have 5 articles already on the site before I start seeking traffic from the article directories. That way you should avoid being placed in the ‘Google Sandbox’. This occurs when a site suddenly starts to receive lots of inbound links over a short period of time.
If Google thinks this looks ‘unnatural’ it will place the links in the ‘sandbox’ for many months before allowing them to register. By having 5 pages already set up, you can spread the links across the site instead of concentrating on one particular page, usually the homepage. A steady increase of inbound links is what you’re aiming for.
A Simple 3 Step Process
Please understand, this article is not supposed to be a comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optimization. There are whole books devoted to the subject and nearly everyone has a point of view concerning it.
This is merely a post on what the very best methods are working for me, right now. And I see no reason why they won’t work equally as well for you too.
There are 3 important considerations/steps, (especially if you are building niche sites) that you need to do in order to rank well in Google:
- Ensure your web page is relevant to the keyword you are targeting. There’s no point in trying to rank for the phrase ‘fly fishing in Alaska’ if your page is about anything other than ‘fly fishing in Alaska’. Makes sense but often overlooked.
- Make sure your title tag contains the correct keywords. It is important to use the keywords in your title to help with your page ranking but you also need to ensure it appeals to human searchers too. E.g. instead of just using the phrase ‘fly fishing in Alaska’, you could use something like: ‘The best lakes for fly fishing in Alaska’.
- Get lots and lots of links.
That’s pretty much all you need to concentrate on. Numbers 1 and 2 are straight forward and easy to do.
The real secret however to ranking well on Google is getting as many inbound links as possible.
Everything else falls into insignificance compared with the power of receiving links to your website. And knowing how to obtain these links will get your homepage ranked on the first page of Google for your chosen keyword.
It took me less than 8 weeks to achieve a top 3 position on Google for a very competitive keyword using just inbound links to do so. I’ll show you how I achieved this in a minute.
Due to 3 Way Links 'terms of service' I'm not allowed to reveal my keywords. I had originally mentioned them in this article but have now removed them. My appologies for that and to Jon Leger of 3 Way Links who I have the utmost respect for.
I can promise you though that this blog is still ranked in the top 3 for my main keyword phrase.
The ONLY reason I am positioned in the top 3 for that search term is because I have more inbound links to my homepage for those keywords than all the other 13+ million competing websites below me.
But the beauty of it is that I only have approx 260 inbound links for that keyword.
Not All Links Are Created Equal
Again, don’t get too hung up over the whole link debate that rages on regarding what type of links you need and what you should avoid etc. Here are my findings on the subject:
- Any inbound links to your site will either help your rankings or won’t help your rankings. But they will not damage your rankings.
- One way links are far more important than reciprocal links.
- Make sure your links have the right anchor text.
- Make sure your links come from a variety of diverse locations. i.e. different IP addresses. This will happen naturally as you seek inbound links from a variety of sources.
- Make sure your links don’t happen too fast (particularly for new sites). You don’t want to be placed into the ‘Google Sandbox’. A natural looking, steady increase in inbound links is what you’re aiming for.
The Best Way To Get Lots Of Inbound Links
There are in fact many, many different methods to achieve inbound links to your webpage.
Here are some of my preferred methods:
1. Submitting articles to article directories. This has a 2 fold advantage. – Immediate traffic and an inbound link from the article directory, plus an inbound link from any other webmaster that uses the article on their site.
2. Writing good content that gets linked to from other website owners.
3. Writing articles for website owners to publish on their site.
4. Commenting on blogs that have the ‘no-follow’ attribute removed.
5. Commenting in forums.
6. Setting up a 3 way link exchange with other website owners.
7. Submitting site to website directories.
This list isn’t exhaustive by any means and I would love to hear what works well for you.
These methods do work and they don’t cost a penny.
How I Achieved My Top 3 Ranking
My keyword: ‘Internet Marketing Reviews’ has achieved a top 3 ranking on Google without doing any of the above.
I deliberately chose a keyword phrase that had 3 words in it that had medium competition. Had I chosen a particularly competitive phrase like ‘Internet marketing’ I would have needed at least 15000 inbound links just to make it onto the first page!
So the secret is to choose a keyword that has more competition than the longtail keywords but less than the real highly competitive phrases.
For a few months now I’ve been using Jon Leger’s 3 Way Links service to get nearly all my websites home pages ranked for medium to high competitive keywords.
I still go after the longtail phrases and suggest that you do to. But having my homepage ranked highly for a good keyword, really boost my traffic. Plus it only takes 20 minutes to set up the system and the links start to build up on autopilot.
This frees up my time to concentrate on building other niche websites and writing more articles.
By combining the two methods I have more than doubled the traffic I was previously receiving and my profits have substantially increased in the process.
Using 3 Way Links is ideal if you build niche websites because it allows you to have 50 sites in the system.
I have been helping a friend of mine who has a niche website. It is a personalized poetry site and is only a few weeks old. I have been using the 3 Way Links system to rank the site for 2 main keywords and they are already ranked on page 1 and 2 of Google respectively. I expect to see a top 2 or 3 listing on the first pages very soon.
That’s how easy it is to get a good niche website ranked well with very little work involved.
But I also wrote an article to get some quick traffic in time for Valentines Day.
After submiting the article to some article directories, it was ranked number 4 in Google within 2 days!
The actual website is now listed just a couple of places below the article. After several months the ezinearticles site may eventually tail off and slip down the rankings, but my friends home page will always remain there as long as it has more inbound links than the other web pages.
I really do recommend 3 Way Links but only after you’ve started to build some websites and are submitting articles.
I intend to write a review of the 3 Way Links service very soon to give you a better understanding of how it works.
Conclusion
That’s the end of my findings on how you can achieve a first page listing on Google using Long Tail keywords and more competitive keywords.
The benefits to having your web pages ranked really well in Google i.e. through ‘natural search’ are considerable. The money I saved from costly Pay Per Click campaigns has been far more effectively spent on other areas like the 3 Way Links service and employing article writers.
Hopefully you realize by now the benefits to ranking well on Google and how easy it can be achieved.
I have only just skated over this process and in future posts I intend to expand on the finer points that may be of interest to you. Especially article writing, as that’s a science in itself!
~ Peter Tremayne
Please let me know what you think about this article and comment below..
Filed under Blog, Internet Marketing by Peter Tremayne
.jpg)
.jpg)
Comments on How to Achieve a First Page Listing on Google – Part 2 »
Great article - simple, to the point and focused. Thanks for the help.
Steve.
Looking forward to your 3 Way Links review.
Leger can't keep you from telling anyone anything on your own private blog. Besides, not sure what he thinks he is hiding. All Google needs is access to one site, and they can pretty much unravel a significant portion of the network. That access can be gotten by buying a membership. They're a billion dollar corporation. I think they can afford the $47, lol.
His ideas on seo are pretty flawed too. What's most funny to me is his "10 SEO Myths". Instead of clearing up myths, it actually replaces some myths with myths of his own.
Great tips mate… here's a question…
I build a niche site last week, submitted 6 articles to EA (each article links to a page in the site) and the articles all got indexed last week. But my site took 3 days to get indexed, and it's still getting indexed… and de-indexed, and indexed again like a merry go round…
what's happening? do pages with links also disappear in to the sandbox?
I mean two articles link to one page.. tats all! and the page is gone!
can u explain the scenario so i can face it for the next page i add?
I use wordpress btw..
Hi Abi,
First of all well done for using wordpress. It really is the best platform to use.
Do you mean all your 6 articles got indexed by Ezine Articles or the 6 articles on your site? I presume you mean the articles on your site.
I use the same sort of method as you for my niche websites.
It does take a few days for your pages to get indexed.
Quite often you'll find Google does indeed, de-index and index your pages, but this problem always settles down after a while. It's just Google doing its dance!
Here's what I do for my niche websites that works for me:
I publish my articles to my website and wait until they are all indexed by Google. Usually takes a few days.
Then I submit the same number of similar articles to Article Directories with text links and Bio links to my indexed pages.
This more often than not, eliminates most of the dancing! 1 or 2 pages might be effected but most of them survive!
Your pages will eventually come back again and stabalize once Google does its thing.
The main thing is to keep cranking out those articles and finding the Long Tail keywords!
Hope this helps,
~ Peter Tremayne
thanks for the quick response peter…
i mean all my articles at EA got indexed.. but the links they lead to are still, well, dancing in the index…
quick question thou;
how many directories do u submit your articles to? do u use any kind of service? or manual?
can u recommend some pointers?
and does jon leger's 3 way linkin system still work?
I submit to about 20 directories that have been researched and proven to be among the best 20 in the industry. It takes me about 1 hour per article to submit to all of them.
I definitely need to outsource this work!
I use article submitter software but it's not expensive and well worth it. You still have to manually visit each site, but the basic details are already completed in for you.
If you can wait a few days I'm actually going to write an article on submitting to article directories and the methods I use. Yes I will be recommending a great source!
I'm also going to be reviewing Jon Leger's 3 Way Links and the impact it's having on my own niche sites. There's no point in me just saying, "yes the system still works" without some supporting material. (Although it's definitely working for me!)
So again if you can wait until next week I'll be covering these topics.
Cheers,
~ Peter Tremayne
great..! can't wait to read your next post… watchin ur rss like a hawk from now on