Getting a client to the top of Google

One of my marketing and copywriting clients, Benjamin Ball Associates, helps CEOs and Senior Executives to write and deliver stand-out speeches and presentations. To help people find out about these services, I create content that they might be looking for at their time of need.

For this piece, I targeted people who were researching how to begin a speech or presentation. As you can see from the screenshot below, over time our page moved to the number two spot on Google:

How to get to the top of Google

Google doesn’t share the details of what it’s algorithm is looking for, and doesn’t provide warnings when it’s about to change, but there are a few things we know for sure:

• Inbound links: how many have you got and how authoritative are the sites that are linking to yours?
• Engagement: how long do visitors stay on your page rather than ‘bounce back’ to the search results?
• Keywords: are the search phrases people are looking for used in your headings, subheadings, URL, image titles and body text?
• Quality of content: is your writing easy to understand, with subheadings at least every 300 words?
• Quantity of content: is there sufficient content to answer the query effectively?
• User-friendliness: how quickly does your webpage load? Are there relevant images, embedded video and external links containing the relevant keywords?

As you’ll see from the screenshot below, my piece for Benjamin Ball Associates included lots of headings containing the search term we were targeting. The text uses simple language in short sentences and features embedded video from external sites (which has a similar impact to including external links). Behind the scenes, I also set up a lot of internal links to this page, which signalled to the search engines that this is an important piece of content on our website.

Shortcuts to get you to the top of Google: a warning

Anything you do to appeal to the algorithms of search engines needs to put your reader first, as it’s no good trying to fool Google. Unscrupulous marketers use ‘Black Hat SEO’ techniques to try to shortcut their websites to the top of the listings. They do this by focusing on manipulating search engine results rather than providing value and utility to browsers. Sooner or later, the algorithms are adjusted to avoid this manipulation, and the websites that use those techniques plummet down the results pages.

Google wants to keep people using its search engine, and the best way to retain them is by helping them find what they’re looking for quickly, from credible sources. So, if your site produces valuable content that meets a genuine need, you can work your way up Google’s search results, too.

Do you want to see your business featured at the top of Google’s listings?

I can help. If you are interested in freelance support with copywriting or content marketing for your business, please get in touch using the form below:

Sarah Plater is a freelance writer and content marketing based in Bicester, Oxfordshire.