How to get your website to the top of Google?

Google has its rules, limits, and preferences. Your website should be configured for that.

Initially, companies faced the simple need to have a website, but quickly the online world became populated with websites of all types, shapes, and primarily, saying the same thing as yours. Knowing this, we can say that the internet is a battlefield for visibility, so I ask: does your website appear in front of your competitor in search results?

The question asked in the introduction is actually much broader because, in addition to the obvious need to appear in front of your competitor, we have the relationship between the keyword used by the user to find your service and the position your website appears in the search results. Certainly, if your site is appearing below the first 15 results, you will hardly get the click from that potential customer.

To improve your site's position on Google, for example, a series of measures must be taken so that your project "communicates" and convinces the search engine about the relevance of your content. Among several criteria that search engines consider, we can mention some:
 

• Low bounce rate*;
• Links from other sites pointing to yours;
• Domain age;
• Frequency of content updates;
• Relevance.

Let's dissect a bit about this last criterion. Relevance, in my view, is the most important and will certainly help in the performance of everything else. Relevance is measured according to the user's satisfaction with your site's content. Thus, we have a conversion funnel that evaluates this paradigm. In addition to having relevant content, it is necessary to convey this to Google and, consequently, to your users.

So, let's analyze what needs to be done, why, and how.

Keywords (KW) are the words that are proportionally most repeated in the entire textual content of the page. Google creates a ranking of keywords for your site and recommends them when users search for them.

This first item, although it seems passive because Google's robot, or any other search engine, will automatically create this ranking, also allows you to take proactive action by composing texts with strategically thought-out expressions for your business. You also have the possibility of declaring other considerably relevant keywords that may not have been included in the content.

Friendly URL is the text that makes up the address of your landing page, page, or subpage to which the user is directed after clicking on an ad or search result.

In a battlefield, we can say that whoever has, in addition to a well-ranked keyword, an address that reinforces this relevance will have more visibility. For example, the address www.domain-any.com/world-cup-2015-table will have more visibility than the address www.any-domain.com/?3465 when a search using the KW "world cup table" is performed.

Page Title is the phrase that appears in the top bar of the browser and also in the title of your "card" in search results. Google uses this title to create its index, and the number of characters it "reads" is limited. So be careful not to repeat titles, obey the limits, and assume a call-to-action attitude, showing users that they have found what they were looking for.

Page Description is the brief text that appears just below the page title in search results. This text also has a recommended character limit and mainly aims to inform users in advance of what they will find when they click on your site.

Being too generic at this point is shooting yourself in the foot because for every click that the user gives up reading, or considers irrelevant, your Bounce Rate increases, and consequently, your position in the results decreases every day.

Content is the text that users will access when visiting your page. If this last item has a strong connection with all the previous ones, we can be sure that the user will be satisfied with having clicked on your site. Google will recognize this, and over time, your page will appear higher and higher in search results.

It is worth noting that in addition to the text, it is also possible to configure images to reinforce the relevance of the topic you want to address.

The topics discussed above refer to a basic and indispensable methodology for making several other search marketing strategies available.

In conclusion, it is essential to reinforce that the website is a living organism and needs constant attention and work to remain relevant. In a globalized world where information reaches everyone at an extremely fast pace, content needs to be aligned with trends to offer users innovation and information that truly adds value.

*A rejected visit is one in which the user accesses your site and abandons it, either by entering another address or by closing the browser window in less than a minute, which is considered by search engines to be typical behavior of someone who found completely different content from what they were looking for.