How to become a high ranking

website on Google
Alexander Yolevski - yolevski.com

Thanks again everyone for your interest in SEO and getting your site to
the top of Google.

I will say that after 8 years, while it feels like I have a very dynamic
“formula” for getting my clients (existing and new) websites to rank on
the first page, or even 1st position on Google for various keywords, it is
still very dynamic and requires altering depending on the keyword,
industry, or month of the year.

That being said, I have learned to not be overly concerned or caught up in

the technical details of SEO. While its important to be aware of them, or
to have a surface level understanding of the Google algorithms and
technical aspects regarding SEO, it is very very easy to become frustrated
and overwhelmed when you look at ranking your site in this manner.

Simply put, SEO can be boring, frustrating, overwhelming, and a massive

pain the arse. Google can change algorithms at any time (and they do,
sometimes you don’t haven know; minor updates). Platforms change the
way they process certain info like meta tags (which dont really matter
anymore) and keywords (don’t keep using your keyword over and over
again), so it can he hard to keep up (and you don’t need to).
Fortunately, the technical aspects don’t matter as much as you might
think so therefore I’m going to take a nontechnical approach to answering
your SEO inquiries. This is the same approach I take with my own clients
and have gotten some great success with it, so lets jump in.

AGE

Yes, this matters, but not as much as you might think AND depending on
your keyword.

3 real life scenarios can explain:

A) Client starts new business, focusing on key phrase or an industry where

most of the sites suck (for lack of a better word). new domain, new site,
great user experience, speed, server, content pumped into the site nicely,
images, etc. Its a nice well rounded site with content and images and
proper optimization.

Within less than a week (sometimes a day) it is ranking first page for a
bunch of their desired keywords, phrases etc. Even top half of first page.
New site. New domain.

B) Client starts new business, does all above, but the industry is
competitive online with some big online players and great sites ranking.

We check the competitor sites already ranking 1st on google and they are
UUUUGGGLLLYYY, but lots of content and domains have been around
for a long time.
We can still get this site to first page but it will take MUCH longer and
more effort, and way more things need to be put into place for this to
happen.

Google knows how old a domain is based on the registration date.

The 5 year old ugly website with an aged domain will rank higher than the
new domain most of the time, at least in the beginning. The process to
rank 1st takes longer and becomes more intricate.

C) Client has had a website, or even just a domain for 6 years, doesnt
really rank for anything related to their industry/company. The site is bad
if there is any. But the industry is competitive online as well.

Crowded first page on Google.

Weird landing pages and new businesses nobody has heard of are ranking
first. Or maybe some other ones around 3 years old ranking first.

We do a bunch of changes/redesign to the site and boom, the site is

ranking first pretty quickly in a relatively competitive industry simply
because of the COMBINATION of age and a bunch of other factors that I
will dive into next..

CONTENT

Believe it when people say content is king, and believe Google when they
say they just want to present information and websites that are useful and
relevant to what people are searching.
The only way your site can have useful and relevant info is with content.

More than ANYTHING, absolutely ANYTHING, Google wants content. If

you dont have it then:

a) you won’t rank

b) if you do rank it won’t be for long

Content “feeds the beast” as I like to say with my clients. This is a concept
that is super important to understand I will explain this later on. But right
now, just know, that content is key.

However the format of your content is just as important

long form
bullets
headers
images
video if you can
links in your content

This is all key to making your content jump out even more to Google and
your visitors.

Content, content, content… seriously. You dont have a high ranking site
without it unless you are apple.com or EVERYBODY is literally searching
your company name and clicking on your site with nothing on it anyway.

SPEED
The speed on your site matters, but not just for the reason of speed itself.

Metrics like page loading speed, image loading speed, server speed (don’t
get a cheap server/host, you will regret it) etc all matters a lot. But not just
because Google likes fast websites - they do, but thats not the only reason
why.

A slow website most likely means that people are not visiting multiple
pages on your site, or even worse, are exiting your site quickly in
frustration when trying to load your site (this is called bouncing and
bounce rate matters with Google).

INTERNAL LINKS & STRUCTURE

The internal web of your site and how it is structure matters because it
affects how easily and quickly Google can look through it (we call this
crawling) and find what it is looking for.

The easiest way to do this is by doing 2 things:

create a sitemap of your website, which most SEO platforms can do

automatically for you nowadays. This basically shows the hierarchy
are your site and how each site is connected to another

add internal links to your pages and posts. If you are talking about
something else on your website in one of your blog posts or product
pages then link to it. Internal links do two things:
encourage people to visit other pages on your website (great
for SEO)
 and gives the little Google robot that crawls your site an easy way to
find all the great content on your site and rank it.

THE GOOGLE DANCE

This is something that is very interested and invert important. I have

clients that have amazing content, great designs, optimized site, internal
links, aged domain, and they even rank first page.

BUT… they dont just want to be on the first page, they want to be in the
upper half, #1, #2, or #3 on the first page.

Well they are in competitive industries when it comes to SEO and

sometimes they will show up #2 then go down to #7 bottom of first page,
and bouncing around (or we like to say dance around), and stick around
#6.

Why?

This is something I would call the Google Dance, and it is real.

With a lot of websites (not all) that are recently submitted to Google, or
new, or have gone through big enough changes that Google notices they
will like to give you shot at first page, or even #1.

I can’t tel you how many times we get a page to #1 for certain keywords in
less than 10 minutes sometimes, then it dances around the first page and
after a few days we are stuck at #5.
Google is looking at how you perform if being ranked highly on their site
and they put your site through a type of “behavioural analysis” which I
will talk about next.

If you don’t perform well, you get dropped, and depending how poorly
your site performs, you could be dropped from the first page all together.

So here’s what you need to look at to make sure you stay on first page, or
in the upper half of the first page even.

BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS

What Google is looking at when they give you at shot at a high ranking are
all related to what someone does when they see your search result in
Google.

did you see it? (impression)

did you click on it (clicks/traffic)
how long did you stay on the site (bounce rate)
did you click anywhere else on the site (pages per visit)

End of the day, do you have enough on your website to keep them there
for a while.

Is it engaging?

It really and truly all comes down to this. ENGAGEMENT.

This is why content is so important and also why its good to thinking
about SEO from a non technical point of view.
It’s less frustrating and gives you control with what you can do to rank
high on Google.

This is why speed, design, structure, ease of use, content, and all things
that will make it enjoyable for your visitors is all important.

Your website is your store, what is the experience like?

What we have noticed is usually those that end up in the top 3 stay there
pretty consistently unless you truly have something better and special and
Google notices. Why? Well because its a snowball effect.

The longer you have been in the top 3, you are receiving more traffic than
everyone else (which Google likes) and more clicks, and more metrics …
but, if you’re site isn’t decent enough, you won’t be in the 3 for long.

So if a serious competitor with a great site and great content is sitting in

the top 3, they could very well be there for a long time.

MOBILE FRIENDLY

Yes, Google has switched its algorithm to SERIOUSLY look at the mobile
formatting of websites.

If you do not have a site that is optimized for mobile devices, or you don’t
have a mobile version of your site at all, this is very very bad considering
the high percentage of traffic that comes from Google to your website.

Google knows this, so if they are going to give your website a high ranking
you will need to have a great mobile experience for your visitors.
This includes:

speed
buttons and other elements not too close together that its hard to
tap with a finger without tapping something else by accident
text isn’t too small
too much scrolling?
oversized size images

EXTERNAL LINKS

Google is looking for an authority in an industry. They want to know that

if someone is reaching for “x” the websites they spit out on their first page
actually have the info and experience people need.

But even more importantly, are you legit?

Are you considering the dominant resource, the “go to”, the authority in
your space?

How can Google find this out? They will ask around.

How? External links.

By crawling the internet and seeing who links back to your website Google
is able to paint a picture (or a web) of how many other website are linking
to your website.

Even better if those other websites are also high ranking websites. This is
why it can be great when Forbes.com, entrepreneur.com, inc.com, etc., big
names, link back to your website.

I will say that for a while we use to think this was the biggest game
changer and if the playing field was even, this was the only thing left to
truly tip the scale in your favour when it comes to ranking about your
competition.

NO. This is wrong.

External links help. They will accelerate and elevate your SEO, but its not
only thing that will get you to rank high. It’s not even a primary reason.

So dont go buying backlinks. Its a waste of money because:

a. spending money on server speed, design, or CONTENT is a way better

way to spend money

b. Google will kill you and remove you from the face of the place if it finds
out you pay for backlinks. and they WILL find out (especially if they are
crappy sketchy sites linking back to your site).

If anything it is better to have 2 high quality sites linking to your site, than
1000 crappy sites linking to your site. You can control this and actually
“revoke” any bad backlinks to your site. It helps.

So external links can actually do more bad than good if not done
ORGANICALLY and NATURALLY.

FEED THE BEAST

This is a concept I always talk about with clients and it works. Google is
looking for relevancy and recency.

Your site is optimized and ranking first page. Congrats!

But you noticed you are slipping after a month.

Are you adding content? Updating your site?

Are you still relevant? Are you active ?

The only way Google knows this is if you FEED IT.

Feed the beast!

I have seen clients go on vacation, take a break, a pause, from content,

and rankings begin to slip.

Why? Well, the theory is, if you don’t feed the beast, it doesn’t know you
exist anymore.

This isn’t to be taken literal. There are 10 year old posts that continue to
rank high, but the website as a whole has been updated or new content
has been added to remind Google that they are still running and relevant.

A new blog post. A new product page. A new about page. A revision or an
addition of an image. Anything. It helps.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS/PHRASES

All of this doesnt matter if you are not monitoring and testing your site
using the right keywords.
If you want to rank for “butterflies and caterpillars” but your site doesnt
mention those words at all, then it doesnt matter how good your site is,
there is no reason for Google to think you have any info to offer on the
subject.

This doesnt mean plug in the keyword a million times in your site and
pages. In fact DONT do this, because you will be penalized.

But the overall theme of your site needs to be consisted and aligned with
the kind of keywords and phrases you want to rank for.

Your site title.

Your domain name (doesnt actually matter that much anymore).

Your page name.

The headings in your blog post or on your homepage.

Keep the language consistent and thats the language you will rank for.

And when measuring yourself on SEO, measure only by the keywords that
make sense. Better to rank very well for 5 phrases then Page #3 for 50
phrases/words.

You don’t really exist after page #1 on Google. and for a lot of
phrases/keywords you barely exist after position #5 on the first page of
Google.

So be specific. Niche. Focused. But something people are actually

searching.
Ranking first for a bunch keywords that nobody is searching just means
you have a bunch of trees that are falling and nobody knows about. in that
case, did they actually fall? Do you actually exist at #1 if nobody is finding
you anyway.

Phrases with high search value.

Phrases related to your site.

PLATFORMS and TOOLS

Here’s a list of tools and blogs I use when it comes to SEO:

SERanking. I use this on a daily basis. This is very similar to ahrefs

but I find it easier to use, just as powerful, and much much cheaper.
>> https://seranking.com/?ga=517388

monitor and track daily how you are ranking for whatever
keywords /phrases you plug in there. Give you a daily report
and you can see the history so you can track if you ranking
better or worse, and which page from your site is showing up.
you can check any words/phrases you want and see if there is any
search volume. If there is, then you know it may be worth writing
about it or have some content about it on your site.

check what your competitors are ranking for and how they rank.
Where are they getting lot of their organic traffic from?
 YOAST it is a wordpress plugin that basically helps make sure that
your website is set up to be seen by Google and that each posts is
optimized properly for the key phrase you would want it to rank for.

its like an easy setup wizard for SEO and reminds you if you are
slipping in terms of keeping your site optimized.

another plugin is called SmartCrawl which i switched to recently.

They are both good and you should have one of them if you have a
Wordpress website.

searchengineland.com - stay up to date with changes in the Google

search algorithm or any other announcements from Google
pertaining its search business.

https://neilpatel.com - big player in SEO and online traffic

follow @marie_haynes - she is SEO obsessed and gives great

insights on upcoming algorithm changes and what Google is
prioritizing when they rank websites. Patterns and forecasting. a
must follow for sure.

To be honest, I hit SEO fatigue a long way back because I tried looking
at it from a technical side. I tried to ‘play the game’, or get ahead of the
system, and it just burned me out. I don’t read up on or follow as many
resources any more, because there is A LOT out there.

One thing i will say it SEO can be a lot of TRIAL AND ERROR.

X is ranking first page, but Y isn’t. Why not?

 X is ranking first page, but nobody is searching that keyword, so no
traffic. WHAT are they searching then?
X and Y are BOTH ranking first page. Wow this is great. how do we
replicate this for other keywords?

Some things work and sometimes things dont.

BUT…… everything i mentioned above is from MY OWN EXPERIENCE<

and what has worked for me when getting my clients ranking on the first
page.

It has worked with new businesses I helped launch from scratch and it has
worked for old businesses that never ranked for anything before.

So while there are always dynamic elements and floating changes to SEO,
for the past 3 years at least, the main points I’ve emphasized above have
been working.

So please feel free to ask my any other questions and feel free to just use
everything I mentioned above and not worry about the nitty gritty,
because most of them time, I’m not, and its working.