Are you completely new to the world of search engine optimization (SEO)? Or, are you an old pro launching a new campaign? If so, you’re going to be excited about the prospects of ranking first in Google for a given keyword or phrase. It’s an important foundational achievement to set the stage for the rest of your strategic development. And, it has the potential to send significant organic traffic your way.
Unfortunately, getting to rank number one isn’t easy. And if you don’t have much experience, it’s going to be even more challenging. In this guide, I’ll help you understand the context of earning a rank number one position and the best way to get there.
Getting to rank number one for a particular keyword is an excellent early goal to set in your SEO strategy. Simply having your business listed in search engine results pages (SERPs) may be exciting, but it’s not going to earn you any traffic.
You probably know from your own experience that most people don’t look beyond page one for any query. In fact, most people don’t look beyond the first few results. Entries at the highest position tend to generate the most traffic, by a large margin. Though the exact numbers vary by industry and search query, you can expect almost 40 percent of all traffic to go to the first result. The second result only generates 18.4 percent. Clickthrough rates get even lower from there.
Because of this, it’s often better to have a single rank number one position then mediocre positions for a wide variety of terms.
So how do we get there?
Everything starts with choosing the best possible target keyword or phrase. Search queries have a dramatic impact on how difficult it is to achieve a ranking and how valuable that ranking is. When searching for potential targets, you’ll need to consider the following:
After you have your target, you can start practicing search engine optimization on your website itself.
Even with a great website and plenty of optimized content, you’ll need to make efforts to boost your authority with the help of external links.
These strategies should be enough to help you build some initial momentum. Depending on your industry and your keyword terms of choice, you may even be able to reach rank number one in a matter of weeks. More likely, though, you’ll need to monitor and measure your performance carefully. Observe ranking changes as they occur, and gradually tweak your strategy until you get the results you want.
Originally appeared in Entrepreneur