How do I rank #1 on Google?

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that question, I would be a very wealthy man!

The honest answer is that it is not always possible, but it is possible, and it all begins with content. The fact that you have content on your website does not mean that there is a demand for what you have to offer. The internet is no different from our traditional commerce markets because supply and demand are the determining factors.

You can write a beautiful piece of copy, but if it is not targeted to your market, a market that would be interested, it will fail. To rank #1 we need:

Awesome, relevant, content
People loving your awesome content
Google to know all about your awesome content

We target our content by making it relevant to our target market’s search terms/phrases.

Keyword/Phrase Discovery

A great place to start is the Google Keyword Planning tool, which Google provides free-of-charge as a research tool for those planning an online advertising campaign with Google.

For this fictitious content, we will be researching the topic of ‘LED Heatsinks.’ Like the vast majority of the content on the web, the subject matter exists in a niche.

In the example below, I set my target market to the USA using English in the prior 12 months, searching for keywords ideals for ‘Heatsinks.’

Google returns all of the keywords used in the last 12 months that are related to the target search term. The first term is an exact match which averages 100 to 1,000 searches per month. This keyword has good traffic; however, the competition for this word is ‘high.’ It is not going to be as easy as writing content when the keyword is highly competitive.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword Difficulty is the process of evaluating how difficult it is to rank in a search engines organic search results for a specific term, or keyword. The keyword’s difficulty calculations is based on a several factors, including domain authority, page authority, and content quality. Several commercially available ‘keyword difficulty’ tools can help us understand the difficulty of one keyword compared to another keyword. This rating provides an early indication that we have SEO work to do and that we may not rank as high as we would desire straight out of the shoot!

In addition to keyword research, we will also examine phrases and questions related to the keyword, which are particularly important when it comes to voice search using your mobile device or virtual home-based assistant. Learn more about SEO voice search optimization.

Voice SEO Optimization

The web service ‘Answer the Public’ provides a schematic of questions, prepositions, and more related to your target keyword. This data is valuable for voice SEO and FAQS construction (more about that in a later article). From the output below, sample suggestions questions are:

‘why are heat sinks made of aluminum?’

‘how heat sinks work?’

‘what are heat sinks used for?’

‘why are heat sinks black’

Food for thought as we write our content.

If we want our content to be accessible, it needs to relevant to the content that users are seeking.

TF*IDF analysis

TF*IDF analysis can be useful in a couple of ways.

highest average TF*IDF values finds terms most websites consistently use to describe the topic and should be included in your content
you can use the findings to determine the highest absolute TF*IDF values, the unique features of specific sites and their most important keywords.

The keyword discovery process may reposition your content strategy.

Syntax/Company jargon

When drafting content for SEO, it is imperative to use your customers’ language, not the language of your business; let the research guide your decision making.

In the past ten years, I had two situations where clients used product names which had not internet visibility

Example One: Face Plates

This customer had been in business for 40 years, and they designed, manufactured, and sold faceplates. When I got involved, it became apparent that the industry called these products ‘front panels.’ The problem became amplified when I informed the customer that the reason they had no traction on an internet search is that the keyword ‘faceplates’ was used in the cell phone market. These faceplates were temporary covers used to change the color and aesthetics of a cell phone.

So, if we searched for ‘faceplates,’ we could not find our clients’ products. The telecom giants dominated this space.

The outcome of my search was to recommend that they rebrand their 40-year old product from ‘faceplate’ to ‘front panel.’ This recommendation was accepted, the website and marketing collateral was redesigned.

Example 2: LED Coolers

Very similar to example one, this client manufactured heatsinks to cool LED lights. The research found that the search term ‘LED Coolers’ was popular on the internet for LED lights for coolers/refrigerators. Amazon dominated search for this term, and it was clear that we needed a different marketing strategy.

We rebranded the products as LED Heatsinks, but we left enough of a digital footprint to connect with those who knew the brand as a provider of LED Coolers.

The bottom line is that internet search is driven by language and the language used in your content must connect with the user. As previously stated, it must be relevant.

So, Will I Rank on Google in the #1 Slot?

As stated at the beginning are no guarantees because there are so many external factors but with our research in hand, we can now draft out our rich content to give us a fighting chance. Without this work you will have a very low chance of ranking high.

Remember, the work does not end with the production of the copy because the webpage must be built-out with good SEO practices otherwise, it will be all for naught.

The final step, what do you want the reader to do next?

We have been successful in getting the reader to read our content, but what next?