How to Rank #1 in Google: Step-by-Step Case Study for 2018
Looking for effective ways to increase visibility in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) and boost the conversion rate of your website visitors?
This step by step guide on how to rank in Google first page has the full lowdown of what matters and what doesn’t in today’s world of SEO.
My name is Chris and I’m a Miami SEO expert that has helped many businesses increase their SEO ranking using certain tried and tested strategies. Getting your website to the top of Google is no easy feat, but it has been done time and time again.
Knowing what SEO methods work and which ones don’t is the key to success. Focusing your energies on the right strategies can help you rank a single content faster than other websites with more backlinks than yours.
Before I dive in, here’s a brief summary of what you’ll need to do enhance your Google search results ranking:
- Create valuable content
- Use relevant keywords
- Build backlinks
- Optimize the content
- Take design into consideration
- Get social
- Promote your content
In this guide, I’ll show you how to use strategies like the OBP formula, Click-to-tweet buttons, internal links and more to get higher rankings in Google.
A Miami SEO Expert Guide on How to rank in Google
A Miami SEO Expert Guide on How to rank in GoogleMany digital marketers want to know how to rank higher on google 2018 for free. I don’t blame them. The best keywords are insanely competitive and cost money. In some cases, the cost may not even balance out with the returns.
What experienced marketers want is to rank in the search listings and get free traffic plus conversions at $0!!
Is this possible? Yes, it is!
For years, I’ve run a Miami SEO agency that’s handled many unique cases. From simple blogs to more complex apps. All of these businesses have one thing in common – they wanted an SEO and Miami web design company that could show them how to rank on Google.
No matter what your business model is, there ranking can get you the below benefits:
- Rank high in the SERPs
- Increase visibility in Google local search
- Generate more business
- Increase engagement
- Convert prospects to paying customers
How to Rank in Google: Step by step
I use tons of data from industry-leading SEO tools such as Moz and SemRush to help unravel the great mystery that is Google’s algorithm. On top of that, to supercharge my efforts and rank pages easily, I now apply the below steps.
Step 1 – Create valuable content
Valuable content services can grow your audience and help you rank on Google. The quality and length of the content are important factors to take into considerations, but not the only ones.
- Make your content actionable – If users like your content, Google will increase your ranking. If not, they’ll drop you like dead weight. I’ve done several SEO experiments and discovered that most Google searchers want the same thing – actionable content.
So instead of narratives, try offering solutions. For example, this article isn’t focused on the benefits of ranking, but rather how to rank in Google.
- Create content that increases your Click Through Rate (CTR) – It takes only about 0.05 seconds for users to make up their mind about your website. So you want to ensure that you make good use of that time by creating a lasting impression. Consider Google’s RankBrain when structuring your content.
RankBrain measures how Google searchers interact with your website in the search listings. It is a machine learning algorithm that helps Google sort its result pages. 
Basically, if users search for a keyword on Google and click through to a website, RankBrain takes note of the clicks. The time the users spends on the website is also another factor that RankBrain measures.
So your content must be relevant to increase CTR and reduce bounce rate. If users leave the website after a few seconds, it tells RankBrain that the content isn’t relevant to the keyword. Brilliant isn’t it?
Using another strategy like the OBP formula will help you reduce your bounce rate. You can do this by structuring your content in a way that will encourage users to stay on longer.
- Start your intro off with the outcome- This way, the information needed will be at the top of your article. For example, you’re reading this article because you want to know how to rank in Google search result pages. So I started off by listing the steps and then two paragraphs later, the benefits.
- Show them the benefits early- Attention spans are shorter and the information is now readily available. Reduce our websites’ bounce rate by offering the benefits early.
- Finally, a preview and content- By now, the user is either interested or not. But you’ve succeeded in keeping them on your website far longer than would have been possible without this formula. So now you can tease them with a preview of the content or just dive in and dish out the goods.
Generously use visuals like images and videos in the content -Adding interactive visuals and other multimedia can help reduce bounce and increase engagement. Importance of visual content cannot be undermined. You know that saying that a picture speaks a thousand words? Well, it’s so true!
Let’s try a simple experiment on visuals. Assuming you have two pieces of content, add images to one and leave the other bare with no images or video. Make sure the content is essentially the same though. I’ll like to know your results. Which post does better after a few weeks? Please leave your comments below on how your experiment went.
I bet the post with images outperformed the other one. According to several industry studies, the content with visuals would have done better.
In fact, Stanford Credibility Research revealed that people will judge a website design layout first. After that, they size up the actual written content and if it is just a chunk of text, Google users will instantly bounce. However, if the content uses lots of images, charts, visualizations, videos, infographics, and quizzes, they will stick around and this can help your ranking in Google.
Don’t overdo this tip of visual content marketing. It’s easy to get carried away and add too many visuals. Keep it simple, relevant, engaging and tasteful. Even if you decide to use only one image, you will do better than if you used none at all.
Step 2 – Relevant keywords
The right SEO keywords will get you visibility that is why keyword research is the first task most digital marketers undertake before putting a single word down.
If you want to rank on Google, you first have to decide what keyword you want to rank for. Some key words are very competitive because of the potential search traffic they can throw your way, and others are so poor that they get only a few searches monthly.
Use Google’s keyword planner during your research as a free keyword tool and make sure that the content you plan to create will make the keyword topically relevant.
The days of keyword stuffing are over. So relevance is what Google looks at to rank a piece of content.
Another keyword strategy that has become really popular recently is LSI keywords. LSI keywords inSEOo
are words and phrases that are strongly linked to your topic. LSI keywords full form is Latent Semantic Indexing.
Fora LSI keywords example, let’s say that you write a post on The Ketogenic Diet. LSI keywords like high protein diet, fat bombs, keto breath, ketosis and more will be sprinkled throughout the article. These LSI keywords show Google that the content covers the topic well.
Step 3 – Build quality external and internal links
Incoming backlinks are one of the most difficult issues faced by SEOs. Many digital marketers dread this, but it is a MUST. Google’s algorithm views websites with high quality backlinks as authority sites and rewards these websites by ranking them higher.
There are different types of quality backlinks: internal, external and incoming links. Building incoming links is a different guide all on its own. Right now, let’s talk about internal and external links.
In 2017, an SEO agency in the UK ran an experiment to see if backlinks helped improve Google rankings. They discovered that pages with external backlinks outranked those that didn’t link out.
Now that you’ve added external links, it’s time to get internal links. These real backlinks will point to the page that you want to rank. In other words, create a link network from other pages on your site to your new post. These internal links will send link juice to your post, which can help your Google rankings.
Basically, I funnel link juice from other posts to this one and provide authority sites with backlinks from this post including websites like Moz and even Google.
These links cost you nothing and will help improve the quality of your content. In this article alone, I’ve linked out to 10 different websites and created internal links to some posts on this website. Do you see where I’m going with this?
The pages I’m linking to are on topic too. Just don’t link to unrelated content as this might end up hurting you rather than help. You can use a Google ranking tool like Ahrefs to monitor your backlinks and although it’s not free, Ahrefs is worth every dollar.
Step 4 – Optimize your title and content
Optimizing your content is one of the easiest steps to improve your Google search ranking. Follow semantic SEO rules by simply mentioning your main and related keywords several times in the content. For example, I mentioned my keyword a handful of times throughout this post. Now. I tried not to keyword-stuff the content and so I used variations instead.
These related words will help Google understand my content. You can get related keywords from the suggested keywords at the bottom of a Google search result page. You can also use Google Suggest to get some related terms.
Another important task is to CTR-optimize your page title. This is necessary because Google pays attention to how users interact with your title in the SERP.
If users click on your page title in the search results, it’s the first sign that people really want to see your content. Now whether they stay or not will depend on the content.
To get them through the door, first CTR-optimize your title. If you can successfully reduce the bounce rate on the page, then you will rank higher. This is known as organic click-through rate and is an SEO ranking factor that has become very important.
Here’s how to do it:
- Make the webpage title actionable. So instead of “A Guide on How to rank in Google”, I have “7 Quick Steps on How to rank in Google”. The title tag SEO of the content is an answer to a question.
- Using SEO page title with number, I did this with my page title. Several industry studies show that page titles with numbers have astronomical click-through-rates. Go on Twitter and Facebook, at a glance you will see what I mean.
- Odd numbers also have a 20% higher CTR says The Content Marketing Institute. Odd numbers in page title perform slightly better than even numbers, so I made sure to include the odd number 7 in this title just to see how well it does in the SERP.
According to The Content Marketing Institute
Step 5 – Social media
Get social and network with your customers on social media. Your users can become ambassadors of your brand, but they have to know you on a personal level. There is no better way to create this connection than building a social community.
Twitter is one of the best social media for SEO. You can also use tools like a Click-to-tweet button. This is a nice website plugin that will encourage social share. It’s especially useful for tweeting parts of your post and not the entire article. Click-to-tweet button and many other social tools will get you more social shares and traffic and social effect on SEO.
Social media and SEO are a perfect match. Social shares will bring your content more traffic, and the more traffic you get, the better your chances ton ranking on Google.
Step 6 – Boost comments and User Generated Content (UGC)
Generating lots of comments on your blog posts will show that your content is not only relevant but also engaging. Moreover, blog SEO comment can also help your content rank better on Google. Blog commenting for traffic is a good strategy for ranking competitive keywords.
The dilemma is how to actually get people to comment on your content. Here are two tips that work great every time.
First, reply to every single comment you receive. You will be surprised how many bloggers leave blog comments unapproved for weeks or even months. And some don’t even bother responding to questions asked by readers.
To show people that you respect their take on the topic, ensure that you reply to almost every SEO comment that is posted on your site. After a while, your website will start to look like a community with massive amounts of UGC – which is something Google will reward you for.
Secondly, Make sure your conclusion or call to action includes a question or direct solicitation for comments. Let’s face it, most people’s conclusions are boring summaries of their post, but what they should really aim for is a conclusion that will spark conversation.
Step 7 – Content promotion
To rank on Google today, you must be aware of what is content promotion. You must strategically promote every piece of content that you publish on your website. Since competition is fierce and if you want people to actually see the content that you publish, promotion is a MUST. So how do you promote your content? Here are some free methods:
- Content Roadshow – Send out emails to bloggers and influencers in your niche and simply let them know you love their work and would like their opinion on your article.
- Reciprocal promotion – This is an excellent content marketing strategy that works. Mention influencers in your social posts and get some love back with free promotion of your content.
- Post your content on LinkedIn – Thought leaders and people who are authorities in subject matters know that posting on LinkedIn is the easiest way to promote valuable content. Moreover, if your niche is a professional one, you can get many people to read and share your posts.
- Press releases – This is not totally free. But there are some free press release sites that you can leverage. An optimized press release will not only help promote your content but could be picked up by other press release agencies.
Conclusion
So that’s how to rank in Google!
Now I want to turn it over to you: Are there any steps in this guide that you think is irrelevant? Or do you have any strategies that work for you?
Let me know by leaving a quick comment below right now.
Also, if you’re stuck in unseen SERP pages and want help ranking your website, contact me and I can help you come out of the Google trenches.
Thank you so much for your pieces of information that you share. After the board core update, this strategy will help people to understand the techniques and do work accordingly.