When it comes to success in Google and SEO, nothing is more important than your ranking. The higher it is, the more traffic you get and the more of it you get, the more successful your website will be.
It’s simple, logical stuff. 1 little position or page boost can be enough to grow your business by several times and that’s what we’ll discuss accomplishing in this article.
But there is a little spoiler I have for you. It’s that no matter what, in order to get those truly high rankings, that you need to work on the overall website as often as possible and focus on the tips I will provide you in this article. There are no other ways other than “cheating” to make this happen and by cheating I mean going the route of black hat marketing, and in the end, that is 100% guaranteed to fail.
So if you have good work ethic and understand the reality of what it takes to grow a website, you will be setting yourself up for success faster than you think.
Here is the macro and micro way of boosting rankings in Google:
I will start with the macro because in the end, this is the BIG picture of the whole “system”. General, SEO friendly things that you do on your page will have a remarkable and LARGE impact on your overall results.
Think of dropping a pebble/rock in a lake and the way the water spreads out as you do it. Now think of your page/s and the things you do on it as the rock being dropped in the water.
If you do the things I’ll mention right now, you’re going to see a bigger spread across the lake which is Google and the overall internet and that means that your page will get a far larger exposure and in the end more traffic.
So here it is:
Now this is the generalized “macro” picture and certainly, if you’re a beginner, this will lead to many questions on the specifics of each step.
Therefore, I have provided a fully detailed guide on the subject here. In that guide, you are going to get a specific example of how to “execute” those steps.
Now in addition to that, I would highly recommend you UNDERSTAND how rankings work in Google and that in addition to the steps above, that it is necessary to understand “factors” that come into play when Google looks at your site and determines how and where it should actually appear on the search engine.
Keeping these parameters in mind will really help steer your page building efforts in a direction in which you’ll know that all the effort you’re putting in is going to pay off. Here are those parameters.
Now I can assure you that if you correctly use the macro tips I just provided to you, that you are going to see a growth in your overall page’s exposure on Google and of course this means better rankings.
Now let’s talk about the micro steps (small changes, large results).
Allow me to provide a context for what I mean by micro. Let us suppose that:
You found a keyword which gets high traffic volume and little competition. Naturally the thought process should be that if you manage to rank on the first page of Google for it, that large traffic will flow into your page and this is honestly the end goal, not just for 1 keyword, but as many as you can find, but for the sake of this example, let us just focus on 1 keyword and use that as a reference for the others…
Anyway, you correctly followed the macro steps above that I outlined, wrote an article on your page targeting the said keyword with large volumes of traffic and then you wait. What are you waiting for? Well you’re waiting on Google to pick up the article and hopefully make it appear on the first page for the said keyword.
That takes time. It can be weeks, it can be months and it can even be years. The real answer is that it will be determined by the same factors I linked to you above. This means, if you work hard to complete the 1-5 steps and do it consistently, it will only speed things up, so this is where hard work will reflect your results.
But here is where we get into the “meat” of the scenario. Let us suppose that you managed to get your article to the first page, but it is not in the top 3 positions (which get the most clicks from traffic). No matter how much time passes, it seems like there are just “unbeatable” websites ranking above you and there’s nothing you can do.
THIS is where we come to the micro approach of breaking that “plateau” and making your article get to those top positions and for that, here are the tips to make it boost up and get there:
1) Write more content on the actual article chasing the keyword.
Keep it high quality. This has several benefits:
A) An increase in content will ALWAYS look good for Google, so that provides extra points.
B) An increase in content also makes readers actually READ and stay on the page more often, which leads to a higher stay time, a factor which is taken into account by Google, meaning that if people stay longer on your article, it is seen as a form of high quality content.
2) Encourage comments.
Being that your article is already getting high positions (but not high enough), it should be getting enough traffic already to get comments. What I would suggest is that throughout your article, to challenge and question people on their thoughts on whatever it is you’re writing.
A keyword with a lot of traffic volume naturally means there’s interest in the said keyword and if you can ask people what they think and to leave their thoughts on your page, it will only add value to the article. Furthermore:
A) Comments are a form of content, so them leaving it just means the actual article gets more content and you already know what that does for rankings.
B) Comments are, in addition to an increase content, also a great sign to Google that you have a good page.
C) People love to read comments, and that also leads to longer stay times and once again, you already know what that does for your ranking.
Here are specific tips to getting more comments I recommend to people that will help boost SEO rankings.
3) Interlink other pages on your site back to the page which is chasing the large volume keyword.
Any successful website that gets high rankings on Google will do so because it has MANY articles, not just one or a few and those articles, on their own are already getting traffic of their own.
Linking those articles back to the desired page which is chasing the large volume keyword will only help get more visitors to it and if the article is written well enough, more stay times and more comments on it. Here are tips on interlinking in general.
Now this is something you need to be smart about. Don’t just link every page you write back to the one you want to rank higher. Only do this on pages whose topics are relevant to the one you want to send traffic to.
Allow me to provide an example:
Suppose I have 100 articles on my website. One of them is chasing a large volume keyword and it deals with a particular product I’m promoting. I would choose (out of the 100 articles I have) which ones are best suited to flow into the product article and link them to it.
Specifically speaking…
Let us say I have a website on gaming PC’s and I am reviewing and promoting a popular gaming computer which has a lot of searches online. Getting a high ranking on Google for it would inevitably lead to more sales.
On the same site, I have articles talking about various topics dealing with gaming PC’s such as which ones are best to use for games which take up a lot of space, power and so on.
It would be beneficial for me to link ANY of those articles to the gaming PC I am promoting because it is relevant and thus sends traffic from the other pages to that promotional one that would be interested in buying it.
Stick to that idea. It’s not a “catastrophe” if you do this wrong, but it may lead otherwise uninterested traffic to a page where they won’t want to buy the computer and will leave quickly. That can impact rankings so if you send the interested traffic to the said page whose ranking you wish to boost, it will only help if you do the way I suggested.
My final thoughts:
There will be a time when a particular page you’re seeking to get ranked high will not get there, and it won’t change no matter what you do (The Google dance is usually to blame). If and when you encounter this situation, the best course of action is this:
Disregard it (meaning don’t spend too much time on it) and move forward with growing your overall website on a MACRO level. Do not dwell on 1 keyword you are desperate to get a high position for, because if you do, you will neglect the overall growth of the website and that happens across the whole thing, not just on 1 article or page you write.
Growing a website means writing content on it constantly and that in the end is the BEST course of action you can take to ACTUALLY boost the website rankings.
That being said, I would like to know YOUR thoughts on this matter and if you’ve used any of the tips (or personal ones not mentioned above) that helped you boost your page.
If your site targets a niche, and your posts target keywords within that niche…
Do you have a strategy for ranking your site within your niche in general, as well as ranking each page?
Or do you try to focus on the pages and let the site handle itself?
Is this something we should be worried about as marketers, or do you think each post doing its best will help pull the entire domain up in authority?
1) Focus on writing individual posts/pages targeting separate, but relevant keywords to the niche topic, that’s my best advice Anthony. Then each page/post will rank on it’s own on Google for it’s related keywords and that’s how you become an authority. You don’t just “rank” generally, you rank for the keywords you chase.
2) I write as much good content as I can per page/post and let it rank on Google. Sometimes I will re-add more content to existing pages/posts if they need it to boost the ranking or help improve it’s quality if it’s already getting good rankings, but needs to convert better.
3) For your last question, you pretty much answered it on your own. Each page/post on it’s own will add weight to the authority of your website in general and that is what you should focus on.
The best thing you can do is understand the general formula of ranking, then little by little build up site through individual content, meaning article after article. And slowly but surely, it will grow. I would consider trying out this free program to help you understand this general formula I’m talking about and how to execute it properly.
This post is exactly what I needed to read right now! Often information I read about boosting rankings in Google is so complex and difficult to sort through, that is not the case here. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you breaking down the “macro” and “micro” for me. I have read a number of times that Google likes you to have 1,000+ words in your post. I am curious, is that including comments in Google’s eyes? Again, can’t thank you enough for breaking this information down so simply!
Comments do indeed count as content Jennifer, but at the same time, you shouldn’t let that stop you from writing 1,000+ words, because is it that quantity of content (and quality) that attracts Google, the rankings and thus the comments, which basically snowball into bigger rankings.
I just started my website and I have been doing some research when it comes to SEO and rankings. I am still new to this but obviously, I want to be able to get results faster. Thank you so much for all the info. I have already started with writing content regularly. The only things that I am missing is to engage my readers at the end and to add links to related articles on my own website that my readers might want to read about. I never thought of that. Thanks again for this wonderful article.
Yeah you should start making those links Reyhana (interlinking). But keep in mind that you should do this strategically. If you are running an affiliate website, make the links that point to a product review or affiliate link bigger/stand out more, vs other regular links which point to other pages on your site. It’ll keep the audience’s attention focused on the right links but it will also make sure Google spiders crawl your other pages through your links (as well as the audience).
Wow…thanks for great information. I particularly liked your final thoughts. I do have a certain post I’ve been trying to get ranked on the first page and no matter what I do, it just doesn’t get there. I’m glad you brought this up and I’ll just move on and keep writing. For my new article, I’m going take what you mentioned: stronger calls to action can encourage comments. I’m also going to be more socially active…I know I’m weak in that area.
One other strategy you can use is interlinking other popular posts to the one you wish to get ranked higher Monica, but if doing this reduces your profits, then it’s not worth it, move forward like I recommended.
Hi Vitaliy, This is a great article! I will follow your steps to build my website, hopefully my blog will get ranked in Google as soon as possible. How many articles we have to write in one week in order to get ranked in google? your advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Regards,
Wilson
Hi Wilson, 1 article is enough to get indexed/ranked, but what I assume you’re asking is what it takes to get high rankings, that requires constant content creation. For a week, I’d say anywhere from 3-7 articles is GOOD. But this should also be a constant flow, meaning you do this week after week. Here’s more good info on how much you should usually blog.
Hi Vitaliy, thanks for the information that you have given in your post. Especially the five in the red box. I want to realize big growth on my website, these vital trips will surely prove beneficial when I utilize them, since Google will only rank a website that is conductive to Google’s requirements. Are you saying that the length of time a visitor stays on the page is a plus for the website from Google?
It absolutely is Dorcas, it indicates interest and interest indicates good quality content, a major factor in the whole ranking system. Of course, this is also 1 small ranking factor in a list of others, so make sure you have the others as well on your site.
Wow, great article! I’m new to all of this. Just started my first website a few days ago, but man what a wealth of information!
I jumped onto your comments link, and I find it interesting how you say that comments can help you get better rankings. What’s really awesome about that is other people who leave comments are essentially just creating more content for your website. That’s FREE content mind you! It’s kind of has the snowball affect if you know what I mean.
Thanks for sharing. This is some really good stuff.
Yes this is absolutely true Joe, so when people actively leave comments on the page, it not only adds content that already benefits your SEO rankings, but it’s also a form of “auto pilot” business that gets done for you.
This is a great article. I have been trying to get my site ranked higher on Google for a while now. I feel that what you taught us in the article will help with that. I have a question. Does Google really care about how long the article is? Or does Google care more about the quality of the post?
I would say the quality is above all else the most important, but there’s other factors involved such as stay times on the page. A longer article technically can keep people on the page longer, but that is also in part due to the quality of it, meaning a longer, high quality post is what will keep people staying longer, vs one that is long, and boring, which will bore people and if they leave quickly, Google will take note of that and this can/will affect rankings.
So the ideal scenario is longer, high quality content.
Thanks for the article, I was really wondering what was the best way to get my articles ranked and wasn’t too sure how to go about with that. At least this gives me a checklist I can use to see where I can adjust. Great help please keep on writing more articles like this.
No problem! You are right about the checklist being a “beacon” of sorts with people who are struggling with SEO and ranking. Many times, people quit when they write so much and don’t see that immediate or quick enough ranking on Google, when in fact, you just need to wait more and do the things I recommended.
I really appreciate this sentence in your article about dwelling on one keyword where you are not getting any traction. I can tell you that this is true of ranking an article as you say, but moreover it is so true of life in general. Any time that you take your eye off of the end goal because of a temporary set back, the longer time you spend there, the less time and energy you have to put into reach your goal.
This is a good analogy and one you can use towards life and right back into efforts such as ranking/SEO improvements 🙂
Working on the website part of your business is the easy part but as you pointed out the SEO part is the real battle. Working on your ranking can take months maybe a year to get significant results.The small changes you mention is quite strategic but at the same time make sure that it doesn’t cause damage.
The strategies I recommended will not hurt a website Andrew, so if people use them, they can expect a steady climb in rankings.
Vitaliy, I didn’t realize that it can sometimes take up to a year for Google to index an article. Links, comments and anything you can do to improve your article with Google is worth reading and learning about.I also understand why my longtime coach who’s also in W.A. continues to emphasize quality and consistency with your blog.
Indexing is different than ranking, indexing happens quickly, it’s ranking that takes time. The more competitive a keyword there is, the more time it’ll take for your page that’s targeting it to reach the top page, if ever and the chances of it happening improve greatly if you do the things I recommended in this article.
It is true that sometimes certain keyword terms have so much competition that waiting it out is a waste of time as it can take years to happen, but the good news is that if one of your targeted keywords and page that’s chasing it doesn’t rank high, you have a plethora of other pages targeting other keywords to rely on and I would focus on building that.
It’s taken me quite a long time to figure out how ranking in Google affects’s a blog success. Sometimes I kinda let go and just forget about my own blog, but I have noticed that the longer I am away the more I want to stay.
With that said, I find that growing a blog sometimes is just time. I write roughly 3-articles per week, but with my new mindfulness weight loss blog I’ve seen my indexing factors really stagnate the last few months.
With that said, I think it’s more just a matter of natural growth and maturation. Which unfortunately does take time.
Thanks for sharing.
Michael
Hi Michael, in your case, I think the indexing is happening at a normal pace, but it’s the ranking which is slow because the niche is very broad, I would recommend specifying a particular niche within the weight loss topic for better, faster ranking results, perhaps something related to cleansing, or belly fat reduction, 2 niche ideas that fit (no pun intended) perfectly to your existing blog.