We have all come across this phrase somewhere or the other. I have often consoled my heart broken friends with this adage. While this phrase might be apt for love , life and this big bad world, but the story is completely different in the digital world or the world wide web.
If you want to promote your website/page and want to be amongst the top three pages displayed in google search, then there is no short cut method to achieve this. There are tips and tricks available of course but to be on the top and to remain there, the key is the CONTENT. There are three major aspects , which cannot be ignored, for better performance of our pages across search engines. They are :-
1)On-Page Optimization :- Ask anyone who has little knowledge about search engine optimization and he will tell you that the first step is to put the house in order i.e. the website should be search friendly. Make sure the page has less or no crawl error, the design is responsive, not-to-be indexed pages are present in robots.txt, HTML validation, usage of CSS and DIV from structure point of view. The other important factor is to be very clear in your own thought process and make it even clear for search engines to understand the page. This means, that right from the selection of URL to Title-Meta tags-Descriptions (TMD) , you should be very clear what a particular page stands for, what key words best describe the content and try to build unique identity of each page so that to avoid cannibalization amongst the pages. The more clear this is , the better the chances of improving the position in search. In this case, Clarity begins at home!!
2) Off-Page Optimization :- While On-Page Optimization is a one time task, Off Page optimization. is rather on-going. Simply speaking, Off-Page optimization, means that getting the traffic from other sources such as websites on to our page/website. There are number of options available like blogs, discussion forums, article submission sites, PR sites, Directory, news sites, social networking sites etc. Each of the mentioned methods will help in getting traffic, but not everyone will suit your page/website. It’s the best permutation and combination of the above that will help our page. Check for the Page Ranking before getting links to and also providing links through your page. Neither getting a link from a poorly ranked page will help you, nor providing a link to a poorly ranked page.
3) Content :- The one major aspect connecting the above two is the CONTENT. No amount of On Page and Off Page optimization will help you if the content is not good and original. At the same time, also remember that it should suit your target group. Making it too search friendly but less suitable for the TG doesn’t make any sense. Ultimately, the task is not to only get people to visit our page, but also to have conversions or positive impact on the brand.
In the end, to reach the top in search engines is easy but its tough to retain that position. Proper implementation of the above three tasks will definitely help in retaining the top position. Our page should be a marathon runner, rather than a sprinter. And in the digital world, it’s the Good Guys that finish First !!
