I've tried targetting a couple serps terms which are not highly competitive, but there are established sites covering. I don't have much trouble getting to the first page. What I'm finding extremely difficult is getting to the #1 spot. I was wondering just how difficult people find it to get in the #1 spot vs first page or even top 5. The odd thing is I've occasionaly hit the #1 spot with popular search terms, but it is always for my standalone forum site, and a new forum post with no backlinks and usually hitting for terms unrelated to my site but in the thread title. So I get a lot of traffic that bounces. Any insight appreciated.
I got to the first page on Google for my sites by simply getting backlinks with relevant anchor text and on-page SEO.
On-site title, description and good keywords. What keywords are you aiming for? If you tell us we could possibly help you.
I hate to sound ignorant (well, actually I am here) but I don't understand what you mean by anchor text? What exactly is that, and how does it apply? Sorry, I'm new to the seo game
anchor text Thanks for the replies everyone. Gonna try changing my page titles to get my target phrases in them.
Good for you while the Title is the most important On-page factor when you talk about SEO, Good luck any way.
"What does it take to be number one, two is not a winner, three nobody remembers"-Nelly In this case, heck I'll settle for #4 - #10!
Do a competition analysis. Look at the top three results for your keywords. If they're taken by Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, or an About.com page, you're pretty much SOL unless you spend a butt-ton of money on SEO. If those aren't in the top three, then look at what the top three are doing, and try to emulate their activities. Beat them at their own game.
Anchor text is the text that appears in the hyperlink. Anyway, back to your question, it is much difficult to hit the #1 spot than to hit the 1st page of the SERPs without any doubts. Now that you have reached the first spot you have to see and closely monitor the site that is in the first position. What does he have that your site doesn't, the length of his title vs yours, the density of keywords in his title vs yours, keyword density in body on his site vs yours..all these on page optimization techniques will help you understand better why. But even if you get better on page optimization but you are still not in the first page, it means that the guy has more backlinks pointing to his site with that anchor text, now work on it gradually (and mix a little the anchor text in proportion 2/10)...after a month or two see the results.. What i would advice you is, whatever you do, do it gradually so you can measure better which parts have more effect on your page optimization, this way you can better understand those techniques and implement them in the near feature too (or on other sites).