How can I get to the top of search pages? 9 ways to rank better in 2024

Whether you’re a business owner, a blogger, or an aspiring search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, optimizing your online presence for Google Search helps you capture valuable search traffic. With the search engine generating 80 billion monthly visits, understanding and adapting to Google’s algorithm is more crucial than ever.

Our comprehensive guide walks you through 9 strategic ways to enhance your website’s SEO efforts and climb to the top of search pages. We will cover everything from keyword optimization and website content strategy to leveraging the latest Core Web Vitals criteria.

How to get to the top of Google search results

Navigating the complexities of Google’s search algorithms is key to ranking on the first page of Google. The search engine uses a combination of algorithms and numerous ranking factors to determine the relevance and authority of web pages.

Keywords and search intent play a crucial role in this process. By understanding the specific terms users search for and the intent behind their searches, you can tailor your content to meet these needs, enhancing your chances of ranking higher.

Securing a top position on Google’s search results page is a strategic process. Let’s break down the steps:

1. Perform keyword research and optimization

Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search bars when looking for information or products. By strategically incorporating relevant keywords into website content, meta tags, and headers, website owners can increase their chances of appearing prominently in search results, attracting more visitors to their site.

Identify target keywords

Conduct thorough keyword research by using tools like Google Keyword Planner or similarweb. For example, if you run a bakery, search for terms like “freshly baked bread” or “gluten-free pastries.” These tools will help you discover the most popular and relevant keywords in your niche.

For example, in Google Keyword Planner, you can view the average number of monthly searches for a particular keyword (in our example above, “freshly baked bread” had an average of 100-1000 monthly searches in the US in 2022 and 2023). You can also see whether the term has been trending in recent months or years, how high the competition for the keyword is, and what other keywords are related to the term.

Assess keyword competition

Aim to choose keywords that have a high search volume but low competition. This balance increases your chances of ranking higher in the search results pages. For instance, instead of a highly competitive keyword like “bakery,” target more specific ones like “artisan bakery in Brooklyn” or “organic sourdough bread.”

Integrate keywords naturally

Incorporate your target keyword into the meta description, title, headings and main content of each page. For example, use “Best Organic Sourdough Bread in Brooklyn” as a blog post title. Remember, you should avoid keyword stuffing or overusing focus keywords too many times. Always write for your target audience and use natural language.

Focus on long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases that are less competitive and often more aligned with search intent. For a bakery, a long-tail keyword could be “handmade whole wheat bread in Brooklyn.” These types of keywords are excellent for targeting specific customer queries.

Fill content gaps

Look at what your competitors are doing and identify topics they haven’t fully covered. If competitors focus on pastries and cakes, you might create content about artisan bread-making techniques. This approach helps you provide more valuable and targeted information to your audience.

Regularly update your keyword strategy

Search trends change – what works today might not be effective tomorrow, especially after major Google algorithm updates. Periodically review and adjust your keywords to ensure your content remains relevant and visible in search engine results.

2. Focus on creating unique content

The primary factor in online search is content, which must be unique and genuinely useful.

Consider the user’s perspective: what would they expect upon entering a specific search phrase? The more relevant your web page is to searchers’ needs, and the more they click on your link, the better it will perform in search results in the long term.

The right SEO strategy plays a crucial role here. Covering the basics, such as employing appropriate keywords, trustworthy links, and getting backlinks from reputable sites, helps search engines recognize and favor your website.

Most importantly, you should focus on creating unique content. The better you can create fresh and new content, the easier it is to get backlinks, which translates into more traffic and potentially better search rankings.

Both quality and quantity matter in content. Utilizing AI tools like WordPress AI Assistant plugin ensures SEO-friendly content generation, including articles, blog posts, pages, or even product descriptions for online shops.

3. Use core web vitals to outrank your competitors

Many popular search keywords are fiercely competed for. When the content of 10 or 100 websites is similarly useful, search engines look at different criteria. One of these is described as the Core Web Vitals.

These are Google’s criteria for assessing the quality of a website. Core Web Vitals look at how fast a website loads, how quickly it responds to clicks, and whether everything on the page stays in the right place on mobile devices.

The main metrics of Core Web Vitals are the following:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how quickly the main content of a page loads, focusing on the big images or text blocks that users see first. Aim for a loading time of 2.5 seconds or less to enhance the user experience.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP) assesses delays in user interactions during the entire session after the page has loaded. Ideally, your INP score should be less than 200 ms.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) assesses visual stability by detecting unexpected layout movements or changes on a page. Aim for minimal or no shifting (a score of 0.1 or less).

One of the best free website optimization tools to measure Core Web Vitals is PageSpeed Insights. Simply enter a URL, click the Analyze button, and you’ll get a report on your website’s quality.

4. Ensure good site performance

To make an SEO-friendly website, you must ensure your website loads fast and is easy to use.

A key component in achieving this is selecting a great web hosting service. High-quality web hosting not only impacts the speed at which your website loads but also plays a crucial role in overall site performance, impacting user experience and search engine rankings.

Here are some of our tips on what to look out for when choosing a web hosting provider for your website:

• Reliable, fast servers. High website loading speed depends significantly on server technology. For example, opting for LiteSpeed Web Server technology is often advantageous. Its advanced architecture, incorporating features like HTTP/3, QUIC support, and efficient caching, ensures faster processing and superior user experiences compared to conventional servers.
• Multiple server locations. The physical distance between the server and your audience may slow down the loading of your website. Choose a web host that has data centers close to your audience.
• Content delivery network (CDN). If you serve global audiences, set up a CDN. For example, websites using Hostinger CDN load in milliseconds, ensuring a seamless browsing experience for users around the world.
• Caching system. To optimize website performance, utilize web caching that stores regularly accessed data on a server for future re-use. For WordPress sites, consider plugins like LiteSpeed Cache for improved efficiency.
• Scalability. To ensure optimal speed, monitor your resource consumption regularly and upgrade your web hosting plan if necessary. Boost your account if you expect a temporary increase in web traffic or want to try a higher plan without any commitment.

5. Optimize for local SEO strategies

Local SEO strategies focus on increasing a business’s visibility and ranking in search results for local searches, such as “best restaurants near me” or “plumbers in [city name].” This helps businesses attract more customers from their local area.

Keep business information consistent

It’s vital to ensure the name of your business, address, and phone number (often shortened to NAP) are consistent across the web. Verify that your NAP is uniform across your website, social media profiles, and online directories.

Use tools like Moz Local to check your listings for consistency. Even small discrepancies can confuse search engines and customers, so accuracy is key.

Engage with customer reviews

Interacting with customer reviews is essential for improving the credibility of your business online. Regularly check your Google Business Profile and other review sites for new reviews.

Respond to both positive and negative reviews professionally and promptly. Thank your customers for positive feedback and thoughtfully and constructively address any concerns raised in negative reviews.

Utilize local keywords

To appear in local search results, it’s important to incorporate local keywords into your website. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find relevant local keywords. Consider what potential customers in your area might search for and include these phrases in your website content.

Include local keywords in the title tag, meta description, and body content of your web pages. Remember to be natural; avoid stuffing keywords and focus on creating useful, informative content.

6. Build high-quality backlinks

Earning authoritative backlinks is a key component of SEO and achieving a top ranking in the search results. Techniques like guest posting on reputable sites and content collaboration with influencers or industry leaders can help.

Creating shareable content

Start by focusing on what you know best and create engaging and informative content around a focus keyword. This could be blog posts, simple how-to guides, or infographics related to your niche.

High-quality content naturally attracts backlinks, as other websites will want to reference your work for its value and relevance.

Guest posting on reputable sites

Identify blogs or websites within your industry that align with your expertise. Reach out to them with a well-thought-out pitch for a guest post. Your pitch should include topic ideas that you believe will resonate with the publishing site’s audience.

Guest posting not only earns you a backlink but also exposes your brand to a wider audience, helping your domain climb to the first page of Google.

Participating in online communities

Engage in forums and online communities related to your field. Share your knowledge, answer questions, and be an active participant. Over time, this will establish you as a credible source within your community. You can then naturally incorporate links to your content when it adds value to the conversation.

You might also consider joining SEO forums to stay on top of current backlinking and other SEO trends. Our list of the best SEO forums can help you get started.

7. Master technical SEO and internal linking

Optimizing the technical aspects of your website, combined with a strategic internal linking approach, is fundamental for enhancing your site’s SEO.

Technical SEO

This encompasses the optimization of your website’s infrastructure to ensure efficient crawling and indexing by search engines.

Key elements include enhancing site structure, improving load times, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and implementing secure protocols like HTTPS.

Technical SEO tasks can also involve the optimization of HTML tags – such as your title tags – and schema markup, helping search engines understand detailed page data netter. Regular technical audits are crucial to identify and resolve any issues, and help maintain optimal website health.

Internal linking and link-building

An effective internal linking strategy involves creating links between various pages within your website. This helps distribute page authority and ranking power throughout the site, boosting the SEO value of individual pages.

Internal links also aid in user navigation, encouraging longer site visits and reducing bounce rates. By clearly establishing the context and relationship between different content on your site, internal links enhance search engines’ understanding of your site structure, further supporting your overall SEO efforts.

7. Leverage social media and online engagement

Engaging effectively on social media not only increases your brand’s reach but also drives traffic to your website, creating opportunities for backlinks and improved search rankings. By building a strong social media presence, you can extend your content’s reach, engage with your audience, and establish your brand in the digital space.

Get the most out of social media for SEO by following these tips:

• Establish a regular posting schedule. Share informative and interesting content regularly, and remember to strike a balance with promotional content. Consistent posting keeps your audience engaged and attracts new followers.
• Actively engage with your audience. Make it a point to respond to comments and messages and participate in relevant conversations on your posts. This builds a sense of community and shows your audience that you value their engagement.
• Promote content from your website. Regularly share links to your blog posts, product pages, or other significant content on your website. This not only drives traffic to your site but also increases the chances of gaining backlinks.
• Incorporate multimedia in your posts. Use images, videos, or infographics to make your posts more engaging. Multimedia content often leads to higher engagement rates, helping to attract more attention to your posts.

8. Track and analyze performance

Utilizing tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush is crucial for comprehensively tracking your website’s performance in Google Search. This enables you to understand which SEO strategies and initiatives are effective and which need adjustment.

Focus on essential metrics such as website traffic sources, traffic volumes, user behavior metrics like bounce rate and session duration, and your site’s ranking for specific keywords. These metrics collectively provide a detailed overview of your SEO performance.

For instance, an increased bounce rate on a page could signal content mismatch with user expectations or long loading times. Conversely, high organic traffic growth for specific keywords suggests those topics strongly resonate with your audience. To learn how to use Google Analytics for tracking, read our tutorial on Google Analytics 4.

Regular analysis of this data is vital. It allows you to refine your SEO tactics accurately, enhancing user engagement and helping you rank on the first page of Google.

9. Analyze competitor strategies to stay ahead of the competition

By systematically analyzing your competitors’ SEO strategies, you can gain valuable insights that inform and enhance your own SEO approach. Keeping up with what works for others in your industry can help you stay up-to-date with market trends, maintain a competitive edge, and get more clients.

Identify your main competitors

Start by identifying who your direct competitors are. Look for businesses or websites that serve the same audience or offer similar products or services. You can often spot these competitors through simple Google searches or by noting who appears alongside you in search queries.

Compare keyword strategies

Leverage SEO tools like Ahrefs or Moz to explore the keywords your competitors rank for. As a beginner, focus on noticing any keywords they target that you might have overlooked. This can reveal new opportunities for your own content. For instance, if a competitor ranks well for a particular term, consider how you can create content around the same keywords to enhance your own SEO strategy.

Monitor their social media engagement

Pay close attention to your competitors’ social media profiles. Observe the types of posts that generate the most engagement, how often they post, and how they interact with their audience. This will give you insights into effective social media strategies within your niche, which you can adapt and apply to your own social media efforts.

Evaluate content quality

Examine the content your competitors are publishing. Look at the topics they cover, the depth of their articles, and their content format (like blog posts, videos, or infographics). This analysis can provide ideas for improving your own content strategy, ensuring it’s as engaging and informative as possible for your audience. The better the user experience optimization on your site is, the more likely you are to get to the top of Google search results.

Benefits of top rankings in Google

Ranking on the first page of Google helps to increase engagement on your site in the long run. Some of the key benefits of search engine optimization include:

Increase visibility and organic traffic

Ranking at the top of Google search results significantly boosts your website’s visibility. This leads to increased organic traffic, as users are more likely to click on top-listed results. Higher traffic often correlates with more engagement and a broader audience reach, directly benefiting your online presence, potential customer base, and revenue.

Enhance credibility and authority in your industry

Top rankings on Google are not just about visibility – they also elevate your brand’s credibility. Users tend to perceive the top search results as more reliable and authoritative in their respective fields. This helps build trust with your audience, positioning you as a leader and trusted source of information or services in your industry.

Get higher click-through rates (CTR) and potential conversions

Being at the forefront of Google search results typically results in higher click-through rates. Users are more inclined to click on top-ranked sites, which can lead to increased engagement with your content, products, or services. This can translate into higher conversion rates, whether your goals are sales, sign-ups, downloads, or other actions beneficial to your business.

Conclusion

Achieving high Google rankings is all about doing lots of small things right, from choosing a robust web host to creating user-friendly content, using the right keywords, creating compelling meta descriptions, and making your website easy to use.

Remember that getting on the first search page is a process and won’t happen overnight. Be resilient with your content promotion, competitor analysis, and on-page optimization, and your website rankings will improve in time.

How to get to the top of Google search results FAQ

Find answers to the most common questions about how to rank high in Google search engine results below.