Imagine you want to buy a new printer. What is your first port of call when looking for vendors? Is it Google?
Chances are, you answered yes to the previous question. And so do most consumers when looking for new products or services.
And what’s even more likely is that you will click on one of the first few results on Google’s first page. The same is true for most internet users as well.
So, what does this tell you about consumer behavior? It shows just how important it is to have your site as number one on Google’s results page.
This is known as search engine dominance. And it is easily one of the best ways to boost your business’s revenue.
But how can you ensure that your site ranks highly and consistently on Google’s first page? This guide will give you actionable steps to enhance your position on the search engine results page.
What is Search Engine Dominance?
Search engine dominance refers to occupying a top position on SERPs. The goal of search engine dominance is for businesses to acquire new customers through increased visibility.
While crafting your search engine dominance strategy, you must aim to occupy at least 3 out of the possible 22 positions on the first SERP. This means you should rank for ads, organic traffic, images, videos, maps, or news, among others.
Studies show that should you occupy at least three of these top positions, you could potentially increase the likelihood of getting a site visit by up to 200%. Sounds like an effective marketing plan, doesn’t it?
The primary reason search engine dominance is an effective marketing technique is that it promotes brand visibility. In fact, research shows that 93% of all internet traffic comes from search engines. Can you imagine how potent it is to top search engine results pages?
The more the people that learn about your business, the higher the likelihood of converting them into customers. As research shows, about 75% of all local mobile searches end in a store visit within 24 hours. This is a formidable conversion rate that you should tap into.
Search engine dominance can be obtained through paid ads and organic SEO. Here is all you need to know about these two methods of dominating search engines.
Dominating Search Engines Through Google Ads
There is no question that Google is the dominant search engine. If you combine all the search engines that Google owns, which include YouTube and Google Maps, you will find that the giant tech company dominates over 94% of the search engine market.
To put things into perspective, there are about 40,000 Google searches every second, and billions of Google users daily. If you pause to reflect on this, you will undoubtedly conclude that advertising on the world’s largest search engine makes perfect commercial sense.
With Google Ads, you are guaranteed a top position on SERPs, provided the user searches your pre-selected keywords. For instance, if I were looking to study a Master’s degree in Law online, these would be the top results for my search.
As you can see, I wouldn’t need to go very far to find a worthwhile course to study. This gives the top three universities that placed a Google Ad a considerable advantage over their competition.
So, how do Google Ads work? Well, you choose a few target keywords and bid on them. You can bid as much as you wish, depending on how much you are willing to spend on your ads. That way, your ads appear above the organic results.
And the best part about using Google Ads to dominate search engines is that you only pay when a user clicks on the ad. Additionally, you get to decide the maximum amount of money you will spend on the ads. This ensures you don’t exceed your advertising budget while seeking traffic for your site.
You may be thinking, but doesn’t that place businesses with a shoestring ad budget at a disadvantage compared to businesses with deep pockets?
While this is theoretically true, there is a way to outcompete big businesses. As with organic ranking, Google ranks ads based on their relevance and usefulness to users. So, if you want your ad to appear at the very top, you must ensure that it is a quality and valuable ad.
Google ads also produce near-instant results. You could start seeing traffic trickling to your site within days, if not hours, of placing a Google Ad.
You can also use the array of analytics tools that Google provides to gauge just how impactful the ads are to your business. If you find them helpful to your business, you can increase the ads you purchase and target a broader keyword base.
Dominating Search Engines Through Search Engine Optimization
Another way to be on top of search engine results is to optimize your website. Here are a few steps you can take to ensure that your site organically ranks highly on SERPs.
- Adhere to the EAT Framework
Google has repeatedly emphasized the importance of establishing your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in any piece of published content. This is commonly referred to as the EAT framework.
How do you establish expertise in your articles and blog posts? One way to do this is to list your credentials or the credentials of any guest authors who contribute to your site. Secondly, ensure that your content demonstrates your expertise in the topic of discussion.
To show the authoritativeness of your content, include quotes from respected industry leaders. Additionally, back up your assertions with statistics and data that prove their integrity. Adding external links from authoritative sites also boosts the authoritativeness of your content.
For trustworthiness, you want to show your readers that you have the right intentions when publishing content. If you have proven your expertise and authoritativeness, it will be easy to earn your visitors’ trust. This can significantly promote brand loyalty and improve search engine results.
- Have Top-Tier Content
It has often been said that content is king in online marketing. This is absolutely true.
But what exactly is top-tier content? For one, it is content that meets user intent. This means that it serves the purpose that users want when they key in their questions on Google.
One of the best ways to ensure that your content meets user intent is to create a user persona. This forces you to see things from their perspective rather than yours. That way, you will be better able to solve their problems.
Additionally, you must have an intriguing introduction to draw your audience in. When crafting the introduction, ensure that it establishes an immediate connection with your audience, as this will generate interest and trust. Also, promise a solution to your readers’ problem to sustain their interest in your post.
One practice that will undoubtedly set you apart from the competition and give you unrivaled SERP performance is committing to thought leadership in your niche. This means taking the time to identify content gaps and fill them.
Thought leadership requires you to find areas of interest in the future and to discuss them deeply on your site. Start creating content your competition is yet to, and you will have the upper hand.
Additionally, consider creating long-form content instead of many articles on the same topic. The problem with different content pieces for the same subject is that you risk creating repetitive content, which often leads to poor SERP performance.
Also known as pillar content, long-form content allows you to deal with every aspect of an article in one go. You can be as in-depth as you choose to be. Typical pillar content can be anywhere from 1500 to 7000 words.
Besides the actual content of your articles, you also want to ensure that the appearance of your content is visually appealing. Do this by having short sentences and short paragraphs.
As a rule of thumb, ensure that your sentences are less than 25 words each and that your paragraphs have a maximum of three sentences.
Your content should also have H1, H2, and H3 tags. This makes it easier for search engine bots to navigate your articles, which provides more context and better SERP results.
Finally, have a table of contents for each post, especially the pillar content. That way, should readers be interested in only one portion of the article, they can quickly locate it and get the pertinent information.
- Take Care of the Technical Aspects of Your Site
If you have yet to develop your website, ensure a proper site structure as you create it. A good structure makes your site easily navigable by search engine bots and people.
You want to have a mind map before creating different site sections. You should also ensure that your main menu is easy to use.
Also, categorize your content into different groups to make it more accessible. Finally, reduce pop-ups on your site, as these can be distracting. Having proper organization can go a long way in boosting your SEO.
Secondly, ensure that search engines can index your site. You must audit your site using Google Analytics to remove non-index tags. Also, use breadcrumbs to aid in navigation.
Additionally, you should consider having the HTTPS security feature for your site. HTTPS-secured sites enjoy better ranking on Google’s SERPs. HTTPS is a confirmed lightweight ranking factor as per Google’s algorithm.
The best thing about getting HTTPS is that you don’t have to spend a dime to get it. Even a free certification from Let’s Encrypt will work just as well for your site.
Also, you want to optimize your site for mobile phones. Data shows that users who prefer to search for information on Google through their mobile phones are increasing exponentially daily.
If mobile users can’t easily read your site’s information, place orders, or otherwise interact with your site, you are losing out on quite a substantial market base.
After your site is designed, make sure you visit it yourself on your mobile device. Raise any concerns with your technical designer. Emphasize that your site must perform optimally on mobile devices. That way, you will not neglect mobile internet users who are a huge part of your target market.
- Make Good Use of Keywords
Keyword research is a critical aspect of SEO. You want to ensure that your content contains enough keywords for search engines to notice it but not too many as to appear stuffed.
If you are writing in a highly competitive niche, consider using long-tail keywords instead of short keywords. Longer keywords tend to have lower search volume, which means less competition. This increases your chances of getting a high ranking status significantly.
- Have Quick Load Times
Another factor that search engines use to rank websites is their responsiveness. As such, you must reduce your site’s load speeds as much as possible.
One way to do this is to compress your images, videos, and audio clips. You can use compressor.io for this.
Additionally, minify JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to hasten load speed. Consider also using CDN, or Content Delivery Networks, which mirror your content and spread it across multiple servers simultaneously.
You can use Google’s Page Speed Insights to assess your site’s load speed and the areas that require improvement.
- Prioritize Link Juice
Another SEO technique that significantly boosts SERP performance is having useful internal and external links. Including internal links to your site increases your visitors’ dwell time, improving your rank on search engines.
Additionally, internal links can help lead your visitors further down the conversion funnel. This can directly increase your revenue.
External links, on the other hand, are essential for showing the authoritativeness of your site. However, make sure you link to sites that will provide helpful information to your visitors, or you risk lowering your search engine rank.
The Final Word on How to Dominate Search Engines
If you want to dominate search engines, you should consider taking a two-pronged approach: using paid ads and organically optimizing your content for SEO. Paid ads ensure that your site appears on top of organic results for your selected keywords. On the other hand, organic SEO ensures that you occupy a favorable position on SERPs.
Be sure to implement the strategies discussed in this post, and you will undoubtedly be happy with the results.