Most people who enter the world of SEO and attempt to have high ranking websites fail to do so because they really don’t understand just how much work is needed to reach the point where their page is respected and recognized by Google.
This lack of understanding leads them to become frustrated and eventually, in most cases, makes them quit. I would like to help those of you who are struggling with rankings to understand WHY this is happening and what you can do to fix it.
There are MANY people who come to me with this question and I always provide the same answer. However, to help those of you who are currently struggling with SEO and/or eventually will be, this article should help you a ton…
I also have a website for SEO topics called HelpingHandSEO.com. You can also get good advice on rankings there too.
Let’s start with the main point on how rankings work…
Google’s job is to identify the content on a page and put it on their search engine in a way that is most relevant to browsers. Simply put, if I write an article on my website on something like…
How to raise children, how to grow plants, how to become a successful marketer, ect…
I will rank on Google for anyone who types up searches that relate to that. This is pretty simple stuff so far, but:
There’s another piece we need to include: Competition & quality.
Imagine for a second that we take one of those topics I just wrote about, let’s say the topic of how become a successful marketer. Then let’s imagine (and this is probably fact anyway) that there’s millions of articles on the internet written by people out there which talk about this information.
Finally, let’s imagine a crowd of millions of people trying to get through a small door that only let’s 10 people in. Those 10 people represent the first 10 search results you’ll get on Google when you type in a search term.
If you can be one of the lucky 10 that enters, you’re going to get a ton of traffic and see success. But with all the people trying to cram and pour into that 1 little doorway, how can Google (the doorman) determine who deserves to fill in those top 10 spots?
“Simple”. They need to identify which page/s deserves it most:
There is a “filtration process” every website goes through with Google where based on certain parameters, called ranking factors, the page will be placed on the search results in a certain position.
Now there’s a number of these factors I talk about in the article I just linked to, but to summarize them:
A website needs to have in my experience 5 very important things:
1) A lot of articles (typically niche focused content) that are high quality.
2) A lot of comments.
3) Have a certain age to it (new pages do not generally get high rankings, you need to give it several months).
4) Be targeting low competition keywords.
Note: If you don’t understand all of these things I just mentioned, please read that article above, as it’ll really help you gauge the reason as to why your page may not be doing so well on this search engine.
Those above parameters, when used properly, will absolutely help your page’s position improve.
Now if we take those parameters, and put it into the example above of the millions of articles trying to rank for how to be a successful marketer, it suddenly becomes MUCH easier to see which pages deserve a higher position, and which ones don’t…
For example: A website which has only 1 article on becoming a successful marketer will NOT do well vs a website which has, say 100 articles on this subject.
Let’s take those millions of articles again which talk about that same topic and consider that example and the fact that most likely 99% of them do NOT have those factors I talked about. I can assure you, that 99% statistic is probably true given the number of pages I’ve seen people make…
But now suddenly that remaining 1% becomes easier to see and that’s what Google does. It takes all those pages, sees which ones have the highest amount of those parameters, and then gives them higher positioning.
This is probably the biggest reason I personally occupy SO many first page positions, which I also wrote an article about here about ranking on Google’s first page.
In the end, the goal is always to reach page 1 and like I said before, only 10 websites are allowed to be on the first page. So let’s take those 10 that made it, the lucky pages if you will…
They will also be graded by Google with the same filtration process and again, those same factors I talked about will play a pivotal role.
A website which has 100 articles and thousands of comments will generally outrank the one which has 100 articles too, but less comments.
A page which has been around longer in business and has that same amount of content (100) will probably outrank the page which is younger, but also has a 100 articles (domain age counts here).
As you can see, as we take each of those parameters and plug them into an equation, it becomes much easier to see which sites get that higher position. So if you are currently struggling with this problem, here’s…
How to improve your website ranking in Google:
The important thing to consider here is that you need to make a content RICH site that has those ranking factors I talked about earlier.
You need to write as many articles as you can on whatever topic the site is based on. In fact, you should never stop writing. When I started with my first page, I was aiming to get a few dozen articles up, then when I did, the goal became to write 100’s of articles, now the goal is 1,000’s. The work shouldn’t stop because as the page grows, your traffic grows and the profits do too, which should stimulate you to write more anyway…
You also need to look for low competition keywords and use them. You can even look at keywords in terms of that doorway analogy I used. The lower the competition for your keyword, the easier it is to get through that door Google made to only let 10 people in.
You need to encourage and get comments on your page/s. Here’s a tutorial that helps with this.
These 3 things alone really help your page grow as a whole and Google does recognize this. Their “filtration” process is very advanced and constantly evolving so they know how to differentiate a page which has 100 articles vs one which has less for example.
Overall this is the BEST method I recommend you use. Think about this:
Each new article you write catches Google’s eyes. And every website which has ever ranked high on this search engine has done so because it carries with it a ton of articles and content.
So naturally if you start a page, write 10 articles, even if you target low competition keywords, it will get noticed by Google, but it will not occupy any high positions.
Side note: Ever wondered how to get your website on search engines?
This is EASY. If you make your page on a platform like WordPress, know the process is handled on it’s own. You don’t really need to “inform” Google about your page, they WILL find it. The only thing/s you can do is improve the speed by doing things like “telling them” to find you and “fetch” your page faster through the following methods.
As for other search engines, the process is ALSO the same. In short, don’t worry. Even if you write on your site, publish it and do nothing else, it will ALWAYS get picked up by search engines so again, don’t worry about this at all 🙂
Back to the point:
Improving your page’s position through proportionally publishing more content:
If you reach the point where 10 articles turns into a 100 and then 500, then a 1,000 and each of them has high quality content, targets the right, low competition keywords, that’s that much exponentially more attention you will be getting from this search engine and that will lead to MANY more rankings, I absolutely promise you this.
No matter how many different strategies of SEO and online marketing I have tried, this has been the ONLY one that always works. Though it is not easy and is time consuming, the beauty is that this work, will work for you meaning the positions your page occupies will rise, stay high and keep giving you more and more traffic.
Furthermore, the authority your page carries (which is another important way of saying Google recognizes your page as a major player) proportionally grows with the content base you set up…
This means a site with 10 articles has little to no authority vs one with a 100, has 10 times that. Think about that.
And again, when you reach that point, you will see your page more and more often ranked on Google and this will be shown in the form of more and more traffic. This is why it pays to be patient, to keep on writing, to keep on finding and targeting low competition keywords.
My page gets well over 600 visitors daily on autopilot at this point. Yours can reach that level too (and further).
What happens if I do all of this and my position is still low?
The answer is simple:
Keep doing “those” things and by those, I mean…keep the page growing, keep the comments growing.
A VERY important thing to consider is that those 10 sites which occupy the first page of Google very often do NOT stay in those positions. Just because you make it through that doorway doesn’t mean you’ll stay there forever. This search engine continually readjusts the pages it ranks high and low, lets other pages occupy/reoccupy those spots and that often involves “kicking” other pages out ALL the time.
There is specifically an algorithm in place by this search engine to do this, and this algorithm is not only genius, but it also keeps evolving all the time. There’s literally a thing called the Google dance which takes place across this search engine which re-adjusts all the pages the search terms they are trying to rank for every single day.
Now one can take this info and think that it’s difficult to reach high positions and that you can fall of anytime, but…
To ensure that doesn’t happen and that…
- You reach those first 10 spots and…
- That if you have one of those 10 spots, that you don’t lose that position…
You need to again keep focusing on those growth tips I mentioned. I’ll use one of my personal examples…
When I first started this website in 2013, I started with no articles, no comments, and nothing but an empty template. I built it up through the same tips I am giving you now and occupy A LOT of high positions on Google and get a lot of traffic.
When I started, there were a plethora of pages which occupied high rankings that I was aiming to get into and only through working on my page and growing it as a whole did I manage to eventually reach those positions and bypass the pages which originally were higher.
The important rule to note on SEO:
I personally believe that ANY person who creates a page and grows it the same ways I recommended will also see great results. But it is a lot of hard work to write and grow the page and most people simply do not have the patience to do this and I think one of the reasons (besides not wanting to work hard) is because they don’t understand the process by which SEO is filtered and by that I mean, what determines if your page/articles will do well or not.
I hope that if you’re personally struggling with the issue of rankings, that after reading this article, you understand how this system works and that you can absolutely break into it and be successful.
So if you’re the type of person who recently made a website, that has only 10 articles, I hope that after reading this post, you understand why currently your page isn’t ranked high and what you need to do about it.
I started with my website this week and wrote about 3 articles. Reading your article gives me motivation to write the next 97 as fast as I can :). You told that you rank on different keywords.
Do you already generate a good revenue? What is your opinion on making a living with marketing (blogs, affiliate sites, etc…)?
I’m doing good with my site/s Simon, here is an accounting of my marketing efforts in 2016 on my website/s and how much I generated. Since you asked for my opinion, it’s that this business is absolutely legit and possible to take as far as you like, but it also comes with the need to constantly focus on the business, write and grow the site/blog so basically, it’s a lot of hard work.
Hello Vitaliy,
Your article is captivating! You are right, many people get discouraged. I learned a lot reading this article, I definitely have a better overview of the subject. I will put into practice your advice! I am hungry for online business knowledge and I love ending on articles like your one.
Is it true that Google better ranks your articles if they’re 1500+ words? Is your method applicable to other search engines, like YouTube?
Thanks for sharing this valuable content.
Generally longer posts get more favor from Google so I would advise writing more (here’s reasons why), but it’s part of a bigger ranking algorithm so things like authority, age, SSL, comments all add to this.
Now as for the YouTube question, the answer is no. While YouTube is owned by Google, their system is a bit different. Generally the more views, likes and shares your video gets, the more higher ranking it gets, but this spills over into the actual Google rankings.
Overall, while the specifics are a little bit different, I can tell you that ANY website/video on YouTube that is higher in quality will get more attention from people and more shares, and that ultimately impacts your website/video rankings on both Google and YouTube.
I couldn’t agree more. For years my website was getting almost zero traffic until I learned how to use keywords. I get more visitors in a day than I did all year before I learned how to get ranked higher in Google search. What type of keyword search tools do you recommend?
Jaaxy is #1 (here it is), but using it to it’s full potential requires you to use your imagination in thinking up keyword ideas.
Ranking on Google does take a lot of time but it’s all worth it. Lots of people don’t realize that you have to stay consistent and keep writing every day. It’s easy to give up and throw it all away because you’re not getting ranked. I’d say you have to have a success mindset and beat all your obstacles to reach your goals.
I’d say it’s the success mindset mixed with patience that gets people far. I’ve seen many people start with a success mindset over the years, including me who had lost the will to continue when they didn’t get the rankings they wanted in a few months time. It is a tough period to go through, but consistent blogging and targeting keywords at the same time is what will get the desired results, eventually.
I love the way you have outlined what exactly one needs to do to get ranked by Google, I have 3 websites and 1 is doing well in terms of article writing, but I have yet to see results,
How long do pages that rank in the top 10 stay in that position on Google?
I have done most of the things you have mentioned and am hoping for success. Thanks.
That’s a good question but there are multiple answers here. Your website’s position can reach the first page of Google, but whether it stays there isn’t something that is dependent on time, it’s dependent on how many other pages are seeking to rank for that same keyword and how much content/comments they have.
You can reach first page positions and slowly see it fall to other competing pages and contrarily, if the competition for the article that’s ranked high, isn’t high, then it’ll generally remain ranked high for a longer time, if not forever.
One of the best ways to ensure a page that reaches the first page stays there is to add content to that page and get comments there, that will keep “fueling” it’s quality and prop it up to stay high.
Hello Vitaliy, thanks for sharing. This is very encouraging, but at the same time properly sobering to understand that rankings are more of a marathon than a sprint. Do you have any kind of examples or case studies on how long it took and how many of these key posts it took you to reach 500 visitors a month? And then the 1,000, 1,500, 2,500, etc? 18,000 visitors a month is amazing to do in 4 years, but I would guess the growth was exponential rather than steady? I see the traffic metrics requested quite a bit with marketing programs, and would love to get an idea of how many posts & months this took on one of your sites.
Hi Mary, the answer depends on the niche topic, your posting/content frequency and a bunch of other factors, so I can only offer my personal examples, but it is anecdotal. Here is one case study which may help you. If you give me an example of which niche topic you are covering on your site, I may be able to give a better answer.
Very wise knowledge put in this post! I think everyone starting a website could gain insight about ranking in Google from this here. I have a quick question as well, aside from getting comments and publishing content, do you have any other handy tactics to get your website to boost up in rankings? Like back-end stuff?
Thanks again!
Stephen
Hi Stephen, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the term “back end”, I can only assume this means some “secret” tactics. The answer is no, I do not do any of that stuff, no backlinks, no black hat stuff, just the basics I talked about in this article.
I appreciate all the instructional information and links you put into your post. In one of my websites about a book I am featuring, I put an excerpt of the book on a page that encompasses the entire first chapter. The author wants me to market his book, so I had permission. I wanted to show the viewers how captivating the book is right from the beginning. So that’s a lot of content right there and I expect to get a better ranking from Google.
Hi Debra, copied content, whether from a physical or digital eBook is NOT good for SEO, I would immediately erase that excerpt you copied and instead put that text into an image, then upload the image, so Google doesn’t pick it up as content and then flag it for being duplicated, which may happen if that same book is mentioned on other blogs as well as it’s excerpts.
Thanks for the post.
I never knew that how old the site was made any difference. This article has given me a much better idea of the time frame I need to have in mind if I want to start seeing high page rankings. Also I know what I need to focus on with articles and comments.
Two questions:
1. How much of a impact can social media platforms have on your rankings?
2. How do you keep finding new keywords for so long?
Hi Jacob, before I answer your questions, I just want to point out that your site’s age only really plays a role when it has a lot of content. An empty or small site that’s several months or even years old will not rank well on Google while one that does have a lot of content and age to it, will. Now as for your questions:
1. My experience here has shown different results. I’ve had massively shared articles on social media, a lot of likes for it, but it never ranked very high. I’ve also had some which did rank high thanks to social media likes and the specific networks I’m talking about are mainly FB and Google+.
I will say that ANY sort of likes/sharing/comments that come from social media absolutely play a positive role on the site and Google does look at this, but if your primary focus is SEO, the main focus should be content production and the only area where social media would be important is just to share this content there.
You can also have a fan page for this and if it becomes popular, then I would absolutely put more weight on social media, but most of the time, SEO will hold a much greater impact on Google rankings than social media sharing/likes.
2. It is natural to run into issues finding new keywords after writing so many articles. The good news is that in any big niche topic, new problems arise all the time and new products also come out all the time, and whenever this happens, it offers fresh new keyword ideas to add to your website. This post explains what I mean very well.
Hi Vitaly, great post. I’m in the process of trying to rank my site higher at the moment and this is very reassuring stuff – like a lot of people new to website construction, my main concern is that there is some secret that no one is telling me!
I get that this is the fastest and best way to rank, but I am wondering what you think of site structure and backlinks? Some of the SEO sites I’ve been reading seem to think that internal links on a website and backlinks from trusted sources are as important as good, keyword rich, content. I’m guessing you disagree, as you mention neither here – but how important would you say these additional strategies are overall? And do you have a good backlinking strategy to use?
Hi Teddy, I wrote an updated article on backlinking recently here and I think it’ll help answer this. I do endorse interlinking and RARELY externally linking to other pages, but in all honesty, traditional backlinking is something I no longer do or endorse.
Hey Vitaliy,
Wow, there is so much good information here. Thank you so much for sharing! You answered a lot of the questions I had. I have a new site and really want to improve my rankings quickly. It’s a bit disappointing to find out that I have to write hundreds of articles to get better rankings but I am not going to quit. You have motivated me to work harder, so thank you.
You don’t really “have” to write that much, but ideally you should never stop writing, that’s the main point. I never set a goal to write hundreds of articles, my goal is to write one new article at a time and keeping at this pace, I was able to reach the amount I have today.
You can absolutely get higher rankings with under a 100 articles, but the website which will, in the long term pay more and do better on Google is the one who will keep on producing content.
Hello Vitaliy,
Excellent and very accurate post where you explain why some sites do not have a good ranking in Google. Many times we do not choose keywords that have low competition, thank you for teaching us how to do it. You also talk about the authority that our site has, because if your blog is new then we have no history. Google will also consider this feature if we want to achieve a good positioning. Thank you for your teaching.
You mention one of the ranking factors actually, which is indeed the authority of the page, but that comes down to it’s age and the amount of content your page has. The more of each factor you have, the better the authority.
Wow what an awesome article and thanks for informing people about those 4 important things. So basically what you are saying is you have to acquire content and low keywords and over time you will get the traffic? It can be a lot of work but when you love what you are doing it is not work at all .Thanks for some awesome information about Google.
Hi Alesia, you are correct, but to be more precise, it’s keywords mixed together with good content that attracts Google. Also the process in which Google finds you page is actually very simple. Just read this and you’ll see 🙂
Thank you for offering these parameters of how to increase traffic to my website. Obviously it is something very important to me. the 4 main parameters are simple yet it takes quite a bit of work especially finding the right key words.
I get different views about the recommended amount of words in an article, what is your honest recommendation?
Thanks again. Cheers,
Orion
Hi Orion, I write about blog post & article length here. If you can write more than I recommend there, absolutely do it, it will only help your SEO rankings grow.
What an awesome article, thank you for the great info! It’s really nice to have the broad topic of SEO broken down into smaller pieces. I was wondering what tools you use for keyword research? I have used Jaxxy but is there something better out there? Your take is really helpful and I will use your site for great articles in the future. The key is to keep writing and the rest will follow (I think).
Hi Aaron, you are right on your last point. But as for the question on keyword research, I mix 2 things together:
1) I brainstorm a niche topic and/or any topics I’m interested in and I follow that up with…
2) Writing up the most obvious terms (keywords) in Jaaxy and seeing if they have traffic.
So it’s a mix of using imagination with statistical tools like Jaaxy. I’ve found this combination to be best when it comes to keyword research. I haven’t found a tool better than Jaaxy yet.
This has been an interesting article, you really made me understand the role of SEO, and the four steps I need to take in order to get ranking but I would love to understand more, so here is my question:
What does growing a Page mean? I hope to learn more but these tips have really helped me, and I look forward to using low competition keywords and see what happens.
Hi, what I meant when I said “growing a page” is that you build up the content so that you get more traffic. So if your website receives 100 visitors a month, then grows to 1,000 visitors a month, it’s grown 10 times more.
You give great advice in this article! I think that as long as you continue working towards what you desire, there is no such thing as failure!
Although this is coming from someone who has only been in this for 3 months and have not made that first sale or got first page, I have no plans of stopping.
Ever since I heard the idea of being my own boss writing content from home, there has been nothing that I have wanted more than that!
I continue to work towards this goal every day and one of the biggest reasons for that is because of posts like these which I find very inspiring. Thank you!
I’m glad the post helped you Arie, but if you want, let me know more specifics on your site/blog and I’ll see where I can offer more specific advice that will aid you.
Wow I found your article at the right time. My website is new and I only have 7 pages, so far. I am ranking in Google, but of course it’s nowhere near the top ten. Your analogy of getting through that small door is very eye-opening. I had not thought of getting ranked in the top ten this way, but it makes perfect sense now.
You mention that one of the keys, is to get a lot of comments on my posts. How can I do this if my site is not ranking high yet and I have little traffic?
-Frank
Hi Frank, the key is to keep writing and targeting those keywords. Your content build up alone is enough to hit the first page. When you get there, you will get more exposure and traffic, then when that traffic sees you (because of your high ranking), you will get the comments.
Yeah, It does take a lot to get on the first page of a google search. It’s definitely a good practice to post at least 3 times per week, if you do it enough I’m sure it becomes a habit and gets easier with time.
One thing is for sure… If you want the 1st page on Google you kind of have to turn into a writing machine!
Thanks for the motivation!
Agreed Kyle, 3 times a week is not a bad number of posts to write weekly. It’s not easy, but I used to have a period where I could do 1-2 a day. It was very draining, but if people write once ever two days, I believe it’ll be a good way to build the site in a quick manner.
Wow, awesome post! Love the example of the door! If it were easy anybody would be showing up high in Google. But that place is only for those who are willing to put the hard work in! Thank you very much! This post has come at a very good time for me! It is easier to work hard and go in a specific direction when you understand the process than to be struggling without any orientation or direction.
No problem Henry, I love your point on how hard work is actually the easy way to go!
Interesting article. I have a question. How many is a lot of comments? I try to have at least 24 or more per post. Is that enough for each one? Everything else I think I am pretty much good with. My posts take some research so I cannot whip out a post everyday. But I do try to have several posts done in a week. Is there some parameters for these two things? Thanks!
There’s no limit to how many comments you want to get, that 24 number is not one I’d abide by moving forward. The more comments an article gets, the better it’ll perform on Google.
Hi Vitaliy,
Some great insight on your post about how to get rankings, I agree that it takes a lot of content to get those rankings and gain trust from the search engines.
I notice that you don’t have a lot of imagery on this post, do you find it matters with rankings to add images or not?
Dave.
Well I rushed with this post so I didn’t have time to set up all the images I wanted. I typically only put enough to make my points. My whole thing is that if my message is understood by the reader, the content has already done its work.
Hi Vitaliy, wow, thank you for an extremely detailed an informative article on Google ranking.
I have recently created a new site and desperately need to up my google ranking so your tips are very good and timeous indeed. It seems that I have a bit of work ahead of me.
Do pages and posts count as “new content” or does google see posts as content? Due to the nature of my site, I have a relatively large number of pages but at the moment, few posts. Should I be focusing on posts?
Thanks again
Gaz
Hi Gaz, they are the exact same thing so it really doesn’t matter whether or not you create posts or pages, it’s still content and is seen as such by Google. I prefer writing posts because my homepage is a blog roll and that in my experience gets noticed by Google a little bit faster, although ultimately everything new you add to your site, that being on your pages and posts will still rank either way, the key is making it rank for actual keywords people search for.
Hi Vitaliy, thanks for the awesome tips. I knew there was a time span before things kicked in but knowing about it and being able to improve how it happens is very helpful.
Any opportunity of increasing the odds is invaluable information. Looks like I have more work to do. Thanks for sharing.
Andy
Yes there is ALWAYS an opportunity to add more content to your site Andy, just know the more you add, the more you will get praise by Google, that is ultimately one of the key points of success with SEO.
Hi there,
It’s Andras. I am trying to build my own website as well and kind of a bit worried about Google rankings. I have found a lot of valuable information here regarding SEO. I don’t find it that hard to write articles but to know how to create content around keywords. that’s a different matter all together.
The problem I have at the moment while trying to find a low competition keyword is that they tend to have low traffic as well in terms of people searching for that certain term. So how do you balance it out?
For example if I find a low competition term that has ten searches a month, is it still a good term to build content around that or ideally do you want to have more searches than that? In other words, where do you draw the line, what’s the minimum number of searches that is still considered to be a good low competition key phrase?
Hi Andras, you are right in that most of the time, the lowest competing keywords typically have low traffic. I have a few solutions to this:
1) Even if the keyword gets low traffic, save it and write about it if you ever run out of blogging ideas. Sometimes even low traffic keywords can climb (especially product related keywords) but if not, it still drips some traffic to your site, plus it’s easy to get high rankings for those terms.
2) You need to know that there’s another very important factor that’s in play: LSI. This will help your low competition keyword rank for multiple, similar searches.
3) You will always find high traffic keywords in your niche topic, especially if it’s a big topic, but you just need to sometimes re-arrange the phrase you’re looking up stats on to see if it has potential. Just because you typed a keyword in and see that it gets little traffic doesn’t mean that if you re-arrange the phrase that the stats will stay the same. I’ve often changed a few words in my searches for a keyword and saw dramatic differences in the traffic numbers I was given.
4) If you’re using a good keyword tool (Jaaxy is a great example), ANY keyword you type in to look at stats on will also show you related terms. Look at those too and see if they offer big numbers.