There is a lot of discussion on getting #1 on Google and yet, for most newbies, they have no idea how to do it. I'm sure we have all been there. Having recently read a lot of posts on this and other forums, I wanted to make sure that newbies know the key to getting #1 on Google starts with these 2 very important steps: 1) Market/niche research to find a profitable niche 2) Keyword research to find what people are searching for in the profitable niche you've selected AND THEN to make sure IT IS REACHABLE by you with your time, money and skills. I see these threads where someone is posting that they have a site with some huge amount of backlinks and then they wonder why they aren't making any money. When you look at their site, it is either about something that no one is wanting to buy or it is a highly sought after thing but the competition to rank on page 1 of Google is too great for that keyword. Once you find a profitable niche, offering something that people are wanting to buy, then you need to check out your competition on page one and see how hard they will be to outrank. Yes, there will be those people who have the skills to outrank anyone (or so they say) but if you want to be a success sooner rather than later online, it is important to know, if your niche is profitable and ALSO reachable (meaning rankable) by you. There are many different ways people go about setting criteria for good keywords that are relatively easy to rank for a newbie. Here is just one: I would suggest you use Google Keyword Tool to find keywords that have over 2500 local monthly exact searches and then once you find 50 or so, put them in a spreadsheet and Google each of them, on each page, get the url of the top 5 sites, those are who you will have to beat to rank high on page 1 of Google. Use the Google Pagerank tool and check the page rank of each of those sites. If the top 4 sites are PR3 or below, it will be pretty easy for you to outrank them with good content and good backlinks. As a newbie, trying to outrank PR 4 or 5 sites can be difficult and I would not even work on anything with higher than PR5. Put the page rank number of each keyword on your spreadsheet and then go after the lower ones.
This is a good post mate and newbies should certainly take heed to this advice. I would like to add a few things to the above post.... 1. On site optimization has become much more important than it used to be so make sure you have that covered properly 2. Content is King these days, duplicate content or poor quality content is not going to cut it no matter how good your link building is. 3. Once you have your on site SEO done properly and you have GOOD content then don't mess it all up with ur link building campaign. It is essential that you implement a proper SEO strategy and focus on High quality, contextual, relevant links. You also need to make sure maintain a good link diversity.
Rep Given. You hit it on target. Golden Advice for Newbies. But your keyword research methodology is a bit faulty. Anyways, I'll update mine as soon as I get time.
Content is King now as it always has been. That is why I think using spun articles is just a waste of time. All the other SEO, thinks are still important, like on site and off site SEO, too, however, with the latest Google updates, don't get too carried away with on site SEO or your site could get de-indexed. Lately, even without major keyword stuffing, your site can get de-indexed. Thanks. There are different methodologies for keyword research. I always say, "they proof is in the results". Making over $5000 a month from niche sites using this mthodology isn't bad results. Thank you both for the comments and additional information. Yes, there is a lot to getting on page 1 of Google. My point is it seems that there is a lot of talk about backlinking and content but not this point. You can either work really hard to get nowhere because your niche and keyword selection was too competitive or even get traffic only to find out that your niche is "lookers" and not "buyers". That is why I wanted to post this especially for newbies. You can save yourself a lot of time, energy, possibly money and dispair by taking more time to find profitable and reachable niches with rankable keywords.
It's really good thanks - those sites with quality and ORIGINAL content survived the latest update and they always will
I always thought that PR didn't really matter as much as number of backlinks. But i could be wrong. Especially after the most recent Google update.
I think all of us wish we knew this when we started. That is why I want to put it out there for other newbies. Very true. All my sites have actually gone up in rank after each of the updates the last several months. Write for people and not search engines and offer value and quality in both content and backlinks and your sites should be fine. Google just doesn't want people "gaming" there system and then offering no value. Well, PR doesn't really seem to matter for your own rank except for you to know how easy or difficult it will be to rank your site on page one for any particular keyword. That is all I'm saying. I can very often rank a brand new site on page one of Google even over authority links like Amazon, etc. You're welcome. I hope it helps some people. From the research so far, it appears that the latest Penguin update had more to do with on site SEO that was, too much. Again, write for people and not search engines and you should be ok. I would suggest that you don't have your keyword in every article title and every category and repeated so often. Make it more natural. Consider it like this, if you were just writing for people, would you really start every article with the same keyword? No, you wouldn't. You'd mix it up with different variations of the word or phrase and have it in other parts of the title other than the beginning. Yes, you still need the site to be focused on your niche but make sure to target 20-50 keywords all related to the niche at one site and don't concentrate too highly on just one or a few. Of course, no one really knows for sure what any Google update is about, but this is just my opinion.
Glad it helped. And in addition to finding profitable keywords that you can reach and rank for, and write content for people not search engines, build backlinks by asking people and guest blogging or writing articles...again, so that they are for real people not just search engines. Not only will this help you in the short run get to page one of Google, it will keep you from getting Google slapped for the long run and real people will also see your links at those other sites too giving you even more quality, targeted traffic that converts. Since conversions and making money is what you are really wanting, this is a very sensible approach.