How to Create Content That Ranks on Page 1 of Google

Being on page 1 of Google can make or break your business, which is why every website owner wants to get their content seen and clicked on by as many people as possible. Unfortunately, creating content that ranks well isn’t always easy. This is where having a solid marketing strategy becomes invaluable. By basing your marketing strategy plan on timely research, you can ensure that your content is catered to what Google likes to put on page one.

Tips to Rank Higher

Everyone wants to rank on page 1 of Google and as the digital world gets more crowded, that feat gets harder and harder to accomplish. Back in the day, you could put hardly any effort and rank. Today, however, there is so much competition and constant changes to Google’s algorithm. If you want to increase your chances of succeeding, you need to keep these ideas in mind. Following these five tips will improve your chances of ranking higher on Google.

1. Keyword Research

First, start by researching keyword phrases that are highly searched and worth writing about. If you’re not an SEO specialist, use a tool like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest to figure out which keywords your competitors rank for, then plug those phrases into a spreadsheet. In addition to giving you ideas for your post topic, they’ll also help give you some insight into what types of articles have worked well in search results before (and where there may be opportunities). For example, if competitor’s sites appear multiple times in front page search results for how to start a business from home with no money, then it makes sense that your similar topic might also do well in SERPs.

Take advantage of long-tailed keywords and link articles with long-tailed keywords into a relevant blog page with a short keyword. This will map a logical association between the topics in Google’s algorithm.

2. Have an FAQ Page

Answer questions visitors commonly have on an FAQ page. This lets search engines know you care about helping your customers and may help increase your rankings with search engines. Of course, you’ll want to make sure you have answers to their questions and not make it look like a fake landing page just for search engines.

Start your FaQ page by putting together content that specifically targets common questions people have related to your business. Make sure these answers aren’t available elsewhere on your site. Search engines will catch red flags if there is duplicate content available about a topic.

Having an FAQ also helps your site rankings because you are more likely to get pulled for the frequently asked questions section on Google’s page. Have you ever searched for something and seen where they mention related questions that other visitors have asked? Having your site’s answer for one of these questions rank will give that page a boost.

3. Use Meta Tags & Title Tags

Search engines rely on metatags and title tags to describe a website. That’s why, if you want to rank on page 1 of Google, your content marketing strategy must include using keywords in title tags and meta tags. Make sure not to go overboard as the biggest search engines won’t rank you if you try using more than 100 characters in either area, so use terms and phrases that matter most. Also, be sure that your keywords appear somewhere in the article’s body.

You will want to avoid keyword stuffing, which is where your keyword ends in your article often enough that Google thinks it is spam. This will hurt your site drastically. Your keyword should be used for your title, meta description, featured image title, internal link, and one of your headings. You will also want to include it once in either the introduction or conclusion paragraph. Use this strategically every time that you create content.

4. Add Rich Snippets On Your Website

Rich snippets (or structured data) are descriptive tags that you can add to your website, giving search engines more information about what your business does and who it serves. This means you can rank for long-tail searches that will attract more traffic from people who already know what they’re looking for and therefore spend more time browsing and less time searching. Implementing rich snippets will often require some technical chops with Schema—but in most cases, a little research and creativity are all you need.

There are multiple types of rich snippets such as reviews or recipe ratings, music descriptions, product markups, top stories, and videos. For a journalist organization, you may want to aim for top stories, by creating timely relevant news content. For food blogs, you will want to incorporate ratings in your descriptions. For most sites, however, video is the greatest way to rank for a rich snippet. Do this by integrating a video from your YouTube channel into your blog content.

5. Keep Your Content Fresh

It may sound obvious, but a page that’s been untouched for years isn’t going to show up on page one. To keep your content from getting stale, update at least some portion of it each month. At first, it might feel like a lot of work, but you’ll find that as your content gets more exposure and traffic, updating becomes easier. The important thing is not just to churn out quick posts, but also to make sure they’re timely and address current issues.

If you have timely posts like “How to Create Great Tiktok Content in 2021” update the post with more relevant information and retitle it with the year 2022. No one will be searching for what was last year, so updating information will help get seen both by the audience and also on the first page of Google.

Conclusion

Ranking higher on Google comes with consistency and hard work. To be on page 1 of Google, conduct the best content marketing practices and continuously create content. To see great results takes time as there are a lot of factors Google takes into consideration when ranking sites. Nothing is guaranteed, but by writing with the best practices you will see a difference over time. Keep this guide in mind as you learn more about improving your website’s rank on Google.

About Author: Lizzie Howard is a Colorado native who after graduating from the University of Colorado spends her time as a freelance writer. When Lizzie isn’t writing, she enjoys going on hikes, baking for her friends and family, and spending time with her beloved yellow lab, Sparky.