SEO can take some time, but you shouldn't spend all your time outside the first page of search results, since studies have shown that only 0.63% of searchers move on to the second page of Google's search results.

So I've put together the best list of practices to help you rank your website on Google's first page, which will bring you more visits and more sales.

What Does Improving a Site's Ranking Mean?

Improving a site's ranking means bettering its position in search engine results such as Google. When someone searches for a specific topic, search engines display a list of relevant sites; sites that appear on the first pages generally get the largest share of visitors.

So, improving your site's ranking means making it appear on the first pages of search results, which increases the chances of attracting more visitors and potential customers.

Why Is Improving Your Site's Ranking Important?

Improving a site's ranking in search results is important for several reasons:

Steps to Rank Your Site on the First Page

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Reaching the first page of search results takes a lot of hard work and skill. While there's no magic solution, there are steps you can take to improve your ranking toward the top of the first page.

So if you want to increase your site's visits, sales, and conversion rate by ranking your site on Google's first page, here are the top 18 steps you should take.

  1. Choose the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is a crucial step in improving your site's Google ranking. You should start by understanding your target audience and identifying the phrases they might search for. Using tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you find keywords and gauge the level of competition for them.

It's important to analyze the competition for keywords and choose ones that are easier to compete for. Lower-competition keywords give you a better chance of appearing in the first search results, which increases traffic to your site.

  1. Identify Competitor Gaps

In any field, there are competitors, so you need to be aware of all the competitors in your field and carry out a competitor analysis.

Competitor analysis is the process of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your most prominent search engine competitors.

Competitor analysis is extremely important — it's one of the basics of getting started with SEO, since through it you'll learn about your competitors' gaps and try to take advantage of them yourself, such as technical gaps and content gaps.

It also helps you understand the gap between your site and your competitor's site, and what your site needs in order to outrank them in search engines.

So you should analyze the technical aspects of their site, analyze their content strategy, and find out which topics bring them the most visitors, in addition to analyzing the keywords they rank well for.

Note: We shouldn't copy every practice a competitor uses on their site, since sometimes a competitor is doing things the wrong way — so be careful when analyzing competitors.

  1. Focus on Search Intent

If your page doesn't match the visitor's search intent, don't publish it!

One of the most important ranking factors in search engines is focusing on search intent — search intent refers to the main goal behind a user's search for a keyword. Do they want to learn a piece of information? Or do they want to buy a product?

In the Hummingbird algorithm update, Google shifted its focus toward search intent, stating that ranking on the first page is no longer just about using the keyword on the page — the page's content must also match the main goal behind the user's query.

There are four different categories of search intent.

Informational Intent

This is the search intent where the visitor's goal is to find information — they're searching for the answer to a question they have, or a solution to a problem they're facing, such as "how do search engines work."

Navigational Intent

This is the search intent where the user wants to search for a specific organization or website instead of typing the URL directly into the address bar — they search for the organization or site's name directly in the search engine, like a user searching for "Facebook" instead of typing facebook.com into the search bar.

Transactional Intent

This is the search intent where the user wants to make a purchase decision, so they search for the services and products they want to buy, rather than content that provides information or answers a question — for example, the search query "iPhone 14," where the user is looking for a phone to buy, not information.

Commercial Intent

Some people confuse transactional intent with commercial intent, but there's a difference between them — with commercial intent, the user hasn't made a final purchase decision yet; instead, they want to compare different solutions and products, for example: "iPhone 14 review" or "iPhone 14 vs. Samsung Galaxy S23 comparison."

So before using a keyword, you should think carefully about the user's main goal behind their search, since this is one of the most important factors in ranking your site on Google's first page.

  1. Use High-Quality Images

Using images on your site has a positive effect on your Google ranking — the higher the image quality, the clearer it is for the user, and the higher your site's ranking.

But you need to make sure the image file size is small, since large images negatively affect site speed, resulting in a poor user experience — this is one of the mistakes that leads to your site disappearing from search engines, and losing a large number of visits.

So you need to balance good image quality with a small file size.

  1. Focus on Backlinks

Building backlinks is one of the most important factors in ranking your site on Google's first page — Google sees them as a kind of trust signal, or a vote from another site that your site is valuable. The more backlinks you earn, and the stronger those links are, the higher your ranking on Google.

But you should avoid buying backlinks from unknown sources — avoid any offer to sell a list of backlinks from unknown sources, as those links can do more harm than good.

  1. Improve Your CTR

CTR (Click Through Rate) refers to the ratio of clicks your site gets compared to how often it appears in search engines, and it measures how effectively you use your keyword in your page's title and description.

It's calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example: if your page appeared in search engines 100 times and got 5 clicks, then the page's CTR is 5 ÷ 100 = 5%

Google Search Console's Performance report shows CTR clearly.

The factors that affect CTR are how you use your Title, Description, and URL, so you should choose them carefully and include something that catches the searcher's eye, prompting them to click on your site.

  1. Improve Average Engagement Time

Average engagement time is the average amount of time users spend on your site. The more of it there is, the more it helps rank your site on Google's first page. There's no ideal number for every site — the time a visitor spends on news sites differs from the time they spend on job sites, which differs from the time they spend on recipe sites...

So you should pay attention to average engagement time given its positive effect on your site's ranking, and you can improve it by improving your content — the more useful your content is, the more users engage with it, and the longer they stay on the page.

  1. Use Keywords Correctly

Finding a good keyword and analyzing its competition isn't enough to rank your site for it on Google — using it correctly on your page is one of the most important practices. You should use it in an appealing page title, place it in the page's URL, in addition to the meta description, and add it in the headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.).

All of this helps rank your site on Google's first page.

  1. Focus on the Mobile User Experience

Did you know that the percentage of people searching Google using their phones can reach up to 72% in some fields? The percentage varies from one field to another, but most fields find that most searchers use mobile phones. If you don't pay attention to the mobile user experience on your site, visitors will leave the moment they arrive, which can make it harder to rank on the first page.

You can improve the mobile user experience by:

  1. Improve Page Speed

In a 2019 survey, 70% of respondents said page speed affects their decision to buy from a website, so if you don't pay attention to your site's speed, you're losing roughly that percentage of customers and visitors. A large percentage of respondents also said they'd be willing to give up images and videos on a page in exchange for faster loading times.

But that doesn't mean you should remove images and videos from the page — you just need to choose them carefully. As mentioned before, you should choose the best image quality with the smallest possible file size.

  1. Improve Your Site's Structure

Improving your site's structure enhances the user experience and helps improve its Google ranking. Make sure your site has a clear, easy-to-navigate organizational structure, using internal links that connect related pages. Make page titles and descriptions clear and direct, and focus on speeding up page load times and improving the design so it works well across all devices.

A good site structure makes it easier for search engines to understand your site's content, which helps improve its ranking in search results and attract more visitors.

  1. Add a Table of Contents

One of the most important factors for improving the user experience on your site is adding a table of contents — it gives the reader an overview of the page's content, in addition to letting the user jump easily to a specific section of the page.

It can also help you appear more often in search engines for elements and sections of the page alongside the main keyword.

There are WordPress plugins that help you create a table of contents, such as Easy Table of Contents, or you can do it using code.

Example: if you want the user to jump to a specific section of the page, you need to add an ID code to that section

And link to that section in the table of contents using #

  1. Create Comprehensive Content (Complete Information)

After addressing the user's search intent, you now need to focus on giving them comprehensive content. If the user's search intent is informational, you should give them complete information or answer their question fully (don't be stingy with your information), and if their intent is transactional, you should give them everything they need to know about the product or service. We want the user to be satisfied with your site alone and feel they don't need to visit another site.

But this doesn't mean putting a lot of content on the page — content should be useful more than it should be long.

  1. Number of Internal Links Pointing to the Page

Internal linking is one of the most important technical factors affecting your site's ranking on Google's first page — the more internal links pointing to a page, the better its ranking in search engines.

  1. Improve Browser Caching

Caching means temporarily storing some of your page's files in the user's browser. Its effect shows up when a user revisits your site — your site's files are called up from their browser, improving their page load time and, in turn, the user experience. It also helps in cases where your site's server has issues. One of the best companies offering this service is Cloudflare.

  1. Optimize Your Scripts

The more code your page has, the longer it takes to load. Code is often used excessively, which leads to loading a large number of script resources on the page. So you should pay attention to your scripts, remove any unnecessary code, and keep only what's truly necessary.

  1. Use Lists in Your Content

Numbered or bulleted lists are among the things Google favors most, in addition to being very useful for users, since they're easier to read and give the reader the impression that the writer is an expert in the field. You should pay attention to them given their positive impact on ranking your site on Google's first page.

  1. Add References

Adding references is one of the most important points many people overlook — it's important because it shows the reader you've done research to gather your information, in addition to showing your understanding of the topic and providing supporting evidence for what you've written. It also protects you from content-plagiarism issues from other sites.

  1. Structured Data

Structured Data is one of the technical factors that's used incorrectly on many sites — it's what gives search engines their first impression of the type of content on your page (article page, product page, news page, etc.). If used incorrectly, it will significantly harm your site's appearance in search engines, and it's one of the deciding factors in competition — if you implement it on your page better than your competitor, this increases the likelihood of outranking them.

So you should pay close attention to it, understand your page's content well, and choose the type of Structured Data that fits your page's content.

  1. Update Your Site Regularly

Updating your site regularly is an essential part of maintaining a good ranking in Google's search results. Regularly add new, useful content, such as articles, blog posts, and updates about your products or services. In addition, make sure to fix any broken links or technical errors that may appear, and review and improve old content to ensure it stays relevant and useful.

Regular updates help attract new visitors and keep current visitors engaged, and they also help search engines index your site more effectively.

  1. Use Analytics Tools

Using analytics tools is key to understanding how your site is performing and improving your strategies. Tools like Google Analytics provide detailed data on visitor behavior, traffic sources, and page performance. By analyzing this data, you can identify your site's strengths and weaknesses and understand how visitors engage with your content.

Use this information to adjust and improve your strategies, such as improving underperforming pages or targeting new keywords, which enhances the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and increases your site's success.

  1. Run an SEO Audit

This is one of the most important steps among the factors for ranking your site on Google's first page. Sometimes, even though you've done everything correctly, your site keeps lagging behind in search engines, and this is often due to a technical issue on your site that you might not be aware of. An SEO Audit helps you identify weak points on your website, improve its performance, improve the site's structure, and makes it easier for you to set future plans and strategies.

There are tools that can help you with this, but tools don't fully understand the nature of your site and its field of specialization, so it's best to work with an SEO specialist who can help you with this. Feel free to reach out to me to discuss what we can do to improve your site's performance in search engines.

Additional resources: Tools for checking your site's Google ranking

How Long Does It Take a Site to Improve Its Ranking?

SEO is known to be a long-term investment — ranking on the first page doesn't happen overnight, and this is especially true for improving the ranking of new sites. Building trust with search engines takes some time, and according to various studies, the average time is around three to six months — the duration varies from one field to another and from one site to another.

I hope I've given you enough useful information on how to rank your site on Google's first page.

Now I'd love to hear from you — which step will you take first? Will you start with improving speed, or internal linking?

Leave a comment with your next step, and I look forward to any questions or requests for help.

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