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First Page Google Ranking Tips That Work 60% Of The Time, Every Time!

May 16, 2011 59 Comments

Disclaimer: I am not an SEO guy, nor do I play one on TV.

Over the past few years, I must have figured something out as one of the more successful aspects of my blog have been around search results. I wish I could take credit for being some sort of search mastermind, but the reality is it’s been quite a bit of trial and error.

Dino emailed me earlier this week telling me I absolutely had to write about how I got to the first page listing for my Triberr article I wrote last week or he’d close my account, so here I am.

What Happened?

I hadn’t even realized that this was the case, but lo and behold, there I was coming in at #7 despite being a few months behind plenty of people that had written similar reviews.

While I typically do put a decent amount of effort into ensuring my blog posts are search friendly, I didn’t really in this case as I was more focused on simply writing an accurate recap of my Triberr experiences.

So what happened?

Who knows. Really. There’s no guarantees with organic search results, but there are specific steps I have and continue to take that I believe are contributing to my search results success.

For many of you they may not be eye openers, but the fact is, these tactics work. If a nobody like me can make it work, anyone can replicate the same results.

Titles!

I’ve written about this on numerous occasions, but it bears repeating, I believe your blog title is probably the single most important aspect in strong search results. And it’s not just about picking the hottest keyword you can, but picking something that’s relevant to your article, searched for frequently and not overly competitive.

Your title is your selling point for users to click through. Make sure you utilize tools like the Google Keyword Tool to determine which keyword phrases are searched for frequently for your given topic.

With a little digging, you’ll find a great keyword phrase that has high search frequency, low to mild # of results to compete with, and relevant for your blog article. For more info, see How to Optimize Your Blog for Google.

Also be sure to keep your title under 71 characters if you can as Google will truncate your title in their search results.

Be Timely

It’s no surprise that often times those that find themselves on the front page of Google results are a direct result of being the first to provide content on a given subject.

Stay ahead of the crowd by ensuring you are tapped into news sources through RSS readers or alerts as they happen, and turn around great content quickly.

Find a Niche Inside Your Niche

This has worked really well for me. Find unique angles within your topic that are often overlooked.

For example:

  • Find great books that haven’t yet reached critical mass and write a review.
  • Write about helpful tools or resources you stumble across that solved a problem for you.

One of the most trafficked articles on my site to this day was an article I wrote a little over a year ago about how to sync your Gmail contacts on your iPhone without using Exchange.

It was just one of those things that I was trying to figure out to do and had to dig deep to find a solution. So I wrote a blog article about how to do it, and it drives a large % of my traffic to this day.

Share how you solve your problems. There’s a high probability you aren’t the only one trying to figure it out too.

Share Everywhere

This goes without saying, but make sure you take the time to share your article EVERYWHERE.

Of course the obvious places like Facebook and Twitter, but don’t forget LinkedIn Groups (major source of traffic for me) and sites like Digg and Reddit. Check out some fairly newcomers like Blog Interact and Blokube which have attracted some new readers for me as well. Oh and have you heard of Triberr???

They all add up to potential back links which will help your search visibility.

Th-th-th-that’s all folks!

That’s what I do and it seems to work. Of course having a strong history of this sort of activity certainly contributes to my search success so be patient.

  • For those of you finding similar success, what has worked for you?
Search Engine Optimization
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  • http://allaboutfocus.com Patrick Allmond

     The constant challenge I find with the RSS route is that it works a lot like twitter. You can’t keep up with too much or you soon get overwhelmed. RIght now my RSS queue is backed up 700 articles. That is easy to do if you follow 20-30 sites. Any particular RSS strategy that you use to keep that back log down?

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Good point.  Well, I use Google Reader, and I have created a folder structure for all my content.  That helps pair it down a bit.  I also star anything that stands out to me to go back later in the day when I have more time.  It’s definitely not anything ground breaking, but the fact is, consuming tons of information is going to be a challenge no matter what tools you use.

  • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

    Thanks for the advice Jason, this is an area which I know is important but it seems to be so hard to pin down the way to get it right. It does seem to be a bit hit and miss sometimes, for instance in my very early days on the blog I put up a top 10 ‘Mashup’ post which was put together by my daughters in a few minutes and to which I applied no SEO skills at all (as I didn’t have any at that time!) That has been my most popular post by a long, long way and over a year later still gets multiple hits per day.

    However my more recent beautifully crafted and skilfully promoted posts (Ha Ha) seem to struggle to get as high in the search results so your tips are very welcome and will be applied assiduously.

    Having said that I am aware that most of the visitors to the Mashup post spend little time on the blog with an average of 21 seconds on the page and almost half leave without looking at anything else. From that I conclude that that it’s no good having something that gets you lots of ‘poor quality’ visitors and maybe better to concentrate on content which will bring you readers who will engage with you and spread the word to like minded people.

    Still, it’s good for the stats!

    Cheers

    Tony

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Very true Tony.  This is why I like to write about lessor known topics or tools as I find the traffic I drive is usually pretty relevant, and my bounce rates aren’t nearly as low.  My end goal isn’t really to drive as many people to my blog as it’s not a money maker for me.  It’s more about helping others, and building credibility and influence with what I do and know.

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      First of all, thnx for making me look up a word assiduously –adjective 1. constant; unremitting: assiduous reading. 2.constant in application or effort; working diligently at a task; persevering; industrious; attentive: an assiduous student.

       :-)

      Second, are you on triberr yet?

      • http://www.thetop10blog.com/ Tony Hastings

        1) Delighted to have expended your vocabulary!

        2) Not yet so will pop over to have a look :-)

  • http://taylor-and-associates.com Allen Taylor

    This matches my own experience as well. Titles are the absolute most important thing – not just for search, but also to let your readers know what your blog post is about. I’ve often said it isn’t so much about how often you use your keywords as it is that you put it in the right places.

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Definitely the trick is to have it keyword rich, but relevant.  Sometimes I just can’t make both work and I always defer to the latter.  It’s more important that the title clearly defines the content of the article.

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      yup..for sure, thats true. Save the stuffing for Thanksgiving :-)

  • http://twitter.com/mikegracen Mike Gracen

     So you made it to the bottom of page 1 against miniscule competition for a term no-one searches for. Nice!

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      LMAO…a wise guy, ey? 

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Well this post just got a whole less sexy. Perhaps you missed the part where I didn’t claim to be an SEO expert.  I find that the most efficient approach is to find less competitive terms and search results so that it doesn’t take much more then the above to get on the first page.  Sure, they aren’t hugely searched terms, but I get steady stream of search traffic across a variety of these terms, and if Triberr continues to grow, then I’ve got a good shot maintaining that front page exposure.  Thanks for for the stick poke.  American Express rules!

  • http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com John Paul

    Good stuff Jason.  Today Titles and that first sentence in description is where the power is.

    The rest you shared is solid tips.. I like the be timely tip best..

    I have notice that if I do a product review I hit first page first position no problem when it’s timed right..  but if I am a few weeks late.. I can hit first page,, but not first position.

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Yea, the timely thing is definitely at the top of the list.  I have a stack of books I’ve been wanting to read that just came out with no reviews that I could capitalize on, but it’s impossible to juggle work, writing and reading.  It can be tough to find the time. 

      • http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com John Paul

         Yea, that’s my issue lol  Hitting a launch of a book or product at a time I have the free time.  But when I do.,. it is pretty nice :)

      • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

        One thing I’ve been trying to do (and have been somewhat successful at it)  is to wisely choose partners, mentors and apprentices. But in order to do that, you have to be plugged-in in a major way. Always reaching out to people, communicating, fostering new relationships, watering old ones, etc.

        Its great work if you can get it actually, and its the only way Im able to run 5 blogs, personal biz, Triberr, and actually have time to sleep :-)

  • Anonymous

     Great and sensible advice. I know I am guilty some times of not ensuring my blog titles aren’t keyword friendly.  I guess it’s the writer in me. I get distracted by amusing alliterations or goofy imagery. Need to ensure I get the keywords in too! imagery. Need to ensure I get the keywords in too!

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      One technique that I haven’t experimented with but Im extremely cognizant of  is using a human-friendly headline for the first 1-2 weeks and then changing it to a search engine friendly headline.

      Something to think about.

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      One technique that I haven’t experimented with but Im extremely cognizant of  is using a human-friendly headline for the first 1-2 weeks and then changing it to a search engine friendly headline.

      Something to think about.

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      One technique that I haven’t experimented with but Im extremely cognizant of  is using a human-friendly headline for the first 1-2 weeks and then changing it to a search engine friendly headline.

      Something to think about.

  • http://www.realityburst.com Eugene Farber

    Titles are definitely the most important piece when you’re talking about search results. That’s how I get traffic to my blog for anything ranging from “how far can hippos shoot poop” to “mental masturbation”.

    When I started receiving traffic from those search results I realized just how big of a part titles play lol. 

  • http://www.thejackb.com/ The JackB

     I think that I am going to have to read this twice- so much information.

  • http://getbusylivingblog.com Benny Hsu

     I’m learning some SEO as I go and have learned titles and the first sentence are important. 

    What would have been great was if your post ranked higher than Triberr.com :)

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      That would be a tall order. SEO experts and google usually dont talk about this, but if the domain name  matches the search term, its almost impossible to beat it.

      Which is why so many niche products name their domains with 3-4 word search phrase.

      Besides, if he did, I’d have to haunt his dreams lol

  • http://smartboydesigns.com Christian Hollingsworth

    Lately it’s come down to how well my “homepage” ranks and is respected by Google, and then the individual blog post will rank better for its title dependent on the quality and ranking of the website on a whole. I still believe it’s important to get those links straight to your homepage – as it helps to bring up the ranking of each individual page in the process. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

  • http://smartboydesigns.com Christian Hollingsworth

    Lately it’s come down to how well my “homepage” ranks and is respected by Google, and then the individual blog post will rank better for its title dependent on the quality and ranking of the website on a whole. I still believe it’s important to get those links straight to your homepage – as it helps to bring up the ranking of each individual page in the process. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

  • http://www.hollandz.com Brad Holland

    I’m all for SEO, but I like to write post titles that are little out there and less obvious. I like to make the reader think a little bit. They still are related to the topic, but maybe I’m a little off center to begin with and don’t like to follow the leader. You guys have any thoughts on that?

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      I have a thought on that. Yes, you are definitely off center :-)

      I tease cuz I love…how is that post coming along? Loved the latest one on http://www.hollandz.com/the-suicide-of-fear/ ;-)

      • http://www.hollandz.com Brad Holland

         Hahahaha,. It’s true, but like they say, birds of a feather flock together..or some stupid ass idiom that means your just as warped as me..

        As for the post, It’s coming along slowly. My son decided he wanted to cause as much havoc as he could this weekend, so I have aged ungracefully and drank more than I should have. Good times indeed.

  • http://kikolani.com/ Kristi Hines

     A simple plan with awesome results!  I have this debate with people who would rather have fun, quirky titles than something that search engines would actually link together with topics that people are looking for.  If you don’t care about search traffic, then awesome – write whatever fun title you can think of. If you do care, take a bit of time to research and link the title to something people will be researching.  Makes a BIG difference!

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      Fair point, Kristi. Allow me to repeat myself (I made the same comment below in reply to Kazia), but there may be a middle ground of sorts.

      One technique that I haven’t experimented with but Im extremely
      cognizant of  is using a human-friendly headline for the first 1-2 weeks
      and then changing it to a search engine friendly headline.

      What do you think about that?

      • http://kikolani.com/ Kristi Hines

         I’ve thought about that approach.  The only thing off about it is usually when your post is “hot” within the first two weeks, you might be generating links to your post during that time more so than after the fact.  Thinking about the whole anchor text value of the links you’ll be getting, you’d want people to be linking to that somewhat keyword friendly title instead of the fun one.  

        I like fun titles and all, don’t get me wrong. But, from my photography blog experience between me and my somewhat boring but functional titles and my hubby’s fun and quirky titles, I get a much higher volume of search traffic and still plenty of immediate traffic from my Twitter titles.

        I guess the other thing that makes me lean toward less spunky but plain titles is that’s what I’m attracted to in tweet headlines, RSS feed titles, etc.  Sometimes I’m scanning across a lot of new tweets / posts, and the ones that catch my eye are the ones that I know (most of the time at least) what I’m going to get when I go to the full version.

        There’s no right or wrong approach though – just preference and what you’re targeting.  :)

      • http://twitter.com/RyanCritchett Ryan Critchett

        Butting in here. Perhaps that’s something I’m good at. 

        So.. you would do this Dino to see if it effects the serps in any way? What’s happening in your head ;) ? I’m curious.  

        • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

          Hey Ryan,

          Im too lazy to implement it. Once the post is up I only come back to respond to comments….in other words, I dont really care that much to “game” the human vs. bot side.

          Having said that, I’ve received reports from people who have done it and reported favorable results. Take it for what it is…

  • http://www.successhowto.com Hezi

    Excellent post! Sometimes Just writing from the heart is the best policySalute!

  • http://bizhax.com Keith Bloemendaal

     Do you think it has anything to do with having a PR6 homepage and over 4k links to your site? I have long debated both sides of whether PR really has any affect on SERP’s, and I don’t know the PR of the other sites that were reviewing Triberr (which I am a member of as well)… anyway, not knocking your article at all, especially the Titles part, I am a big believer in taking advantage of titles as well as url’s…

    • http://www.jasonyormark.com Jason Yormark

      Good point.  Like I said, I’m not an SEO expert by any means, and I’m sure their are other factors involved.  The PR6 probably has a lot to do with it.  I doubt the 4k links does as my site is TERRIBLE when it comes to back links.  Either, way, I’ve used the tactics above in the past few years and I think it definitely contributes.

  • http://twitter.com/RyanCritchett Ryan Critchett

     Hey Jason, cool post. I especially align with a niche within a niche and being extremely different. The blogosphere, and the various webospheres seem to not have time for anything other than stellar uniqueness and new angles. 

    Great job getting up there with that post!

  • http://www.thesaleslion.com/ Marcus Sheridan,The Sales Lion

    Ahhhh, the great mystery that is SEO continues. From my point of view, what Jason did so well here, other than time (and as it has already been mentioned) is that he nailed the title– pleasing both the search engines and the readers. This is a skill in and of itself, but that is what I think brought this article its biggest success. I would be very curious though to see where it stands in 60 days.

    Well done Jason and continued success to Triberr Dino.

    Marcus

  • http://hustlersnotebook.com Jk Allen

     Jason – excellent advice on SEO. I’m such a rookie and rarely get it right. It’s articles like this that compound my knowledge and strengthen blogging admin skills. 

    Thanks for sharing man.

    What’s up Dino – thanks for hosting Jason’s work here. Awesome advice man – especially for me.

    PEACE

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      What I love about this post is that it came together so quick after the “first page” success and the proof is in the pudding.

  • http://twitter.com/dancristo Dan Cristo

    Hey guys,
    Congrats to Jason for the first page ranking. While the stuff mentioned here is all on point with classic SEO best practices, I don’t think that the points mentions are what’s actually causing the high ranking here. That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ll try to write up my thoughts in a response post. Perhaps Dino will play host to an alternative viewpoint here.

    Much respect to Jason for the article.
    Best,
    Dan

  • http://twitter.com/FashionistaChik TheFashionistaChic

     Love this!! Thank you

  • http://stanfaryna.wordpress.com Stan Faryna

    Congrats Jason!

    Keep on thriving.

    Stan

    Recently on my blog:
    What’s next – official Yahoo! sponsored Farmville cheats? http://wp.me/pbg0R-ea

  • http://www.slymarketing.com Jens P. Berget

     Hi Jason, 

    I have been focusing on titles, but I never spend time to search for the right keywords. What I have been doing, is to try to write as compelling titles as possible, in order to get people to want to click and read. But, adding a little extra time to add good quality keywords is an even better advice :)

    I usually just write an article I really want to write, no matter what the topic is (as long as it can be related to marketing). Then, when I’m finished writing it, I just want to publish it. I don’t want to make it search engine friendly. I’m just too impatient. What I probably should do, is to start out plotting the post (especially when it comes to keywords). 

    Great advice.

    Jens

  • http://www.thenerdynurse.com The Nerdy Nurse

     I show up in search results like it ain’t nobodies business, but my google pagerank has always been 0 and and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Any suggestions?

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      Sounds like a question for an SEO expert. @dancristo:twitter What say you? How does one go about improving one’s pagerank?

      in the meantime, I would say make sure you have an SEO plugin installed (like All-In-One-SEO) and after that, make sure your content is so freakin cool everyone wants to link to it :-) #DefGoodStart

      • Anonymous

        Alrighty, so let’s talk about PageRank for a moment.

        Most people don’t realize this, but there are actually two types of page rank. Toolbar PageRnk (TBPR) and true PageRank (PR). TBPR is that little green bar that you see in your Google Toolbar. True PR is what Google uses as a ranking signal.

        True PR is soley derived from links. It’s the measure of how popular your site is based on how many site link to you and how authoritative those sites are. Google created PR by seeding a few popular websites with a high PR. Then as those sites linked out to other, it passed a portion of that PR to the other sites. Brand spank’in new pages start out with a very tiny, tiny intrinsic PR value. Apart from true PR being a major ranking signal, it also plays a heavy role in determining how frequently and deeply Google will crawl your site.

        TBPR is a visual simplification of true PR. It’s a 1-10 scale of your actual PR. It usually gets updated every few months, but lately Google hasn’t been updating it even that often. In fact, Google is trying to phase it out completely, because webmaster have put so much stock into it, where it was really only meant as a very simplistic view of your site’s overall popularity.

        So don’t let a 0 TBPR get you down. It’s like a snapshot of a pregnant women from 4 months ago. If your rankings are solid, then that’s what matters.

  • http://vizsource.info/ Kim Davies

     Hi, Jason. 

    Your article rocks! First, because it gives great pointers to a newbie like me and second, because it is posted in Triberr man’s lair. I am still so far from getting that article that places number one in Google’s SERPs, but I know I will get there. Over ambitious, am I? I know, right? :D  

    But, honestly, right now, I am just trying to build up my own community in the best way I can, so that when I do get that number one, the victory will be much sweeter and there will be more people I can share it with. :) On that note, I’d like to thank Kristi of Kikolani who is instrumental in my finding this post, as it was featured in her Fetching Friday. Thanks, Kristi! You are one cool gal. :)

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  • http://twitter.com/janesheeba Jane Sheeba

     Wonderful tips. Most of the times it happens to me that I rank at first page on posts where I did nothing about seo. I share a lot and concentrate on titles :)

    Cheers,
    Jane.

    • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

      haha…what a drag…isnt that always the case in life?

  • Anonymous

    great post i am already use adwerd keyword tool best result 

  • Anonymous

    and i am use google web master tools               http://my-best-entertainment.blogspot.com/

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  • Anonymous

    any one can tell me about  cheaper price automatic back link genrater

    live satellite

  • http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/ Ana | Traffic Generation

    Great points, Jason!

    Of course, much of SEO depends on the overall domain authority. I haven’t checked yours, but that’s always a great reason for higher rankings.

    Also, Google likes to add fresh entries to the first page, I hope you’ll be able to maintain the rankings in the long run.

  • http://twitter.com/myenglishteache MyEnglishTeacher

    I have an English teacher search website. My guest bloggers are private English teachers, they provide learning and teaching tips. Since I’m not an English teacher I was looking for ideas to write about. And these two of you are really good. Thank you very much!

    Find great books that haven’t yet reached critical mass and write a review.Write about helpful tools or resources you stumble across that solved a problem for you

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Laddy-Pie/100003824989013 Laddy Pie

    thanks for sharing..big help for my website