Want a Top 10 Search Engine Ranking? Then Get in Line!

So, you want a top 10 SEO ranking for your website? then get in line. All cute clichés aside, there are no short cuts to the top, at least ones that stand the test of time.

Chronology for reaching a viable tipping point for your web pages takes time, effort and energy. Sure you can rent traffic with PPC, but it always better to sell traffic than have to buy it. The most important thing to remember about SEO is, with the proper method and with the right tactics executed over time, you can virtually rank for any term. It’s not about how many pages you have, but rather how many relevant page you can create to support a common goal.

You Have to Get Past the Gatekeepers

Search results are based on numerous algorithms which all have their respective duties. Some algorithms monitor the rate in which you acquire links, others monitor how relevant the links are to your topic, while yet other fragments of the search algorithm can determine just how much authority is passed from page to page or from other websites to yours.

Understand The Tipping Point

Every keyword has a tipping point, the more competitive it is, the higher the threshold. For example here is how Wikipedia ranks for the word “Internet” organically with over 2.6 billion competing pages (in addition to millions of other keywords) from their site. Wikipedia simply apply a metric of concentrating link clusters to one pristine landing page using a trifecta of relevance (in addition to 30,000 links from other sites and 40,000 links from their own internal pages with the word “Internet”)

What is the Trifecta of Relevance Required for Competitive Search Engine Rankings?

The trifecta is (1) appropriate titles and tags (2) relevancy within the site from internal links using the exact match keyword and (3) reinforced relevance and reputation from off page factors (inbound links from other sites). The SEO tactic (a) master co-occurrence (b) attract sufficient links to reference your page and (c) pull up other pages as you gain authority for every page in your site.

• As an example, the ranking methodology is quite simple. Every time a word appears, link it to a specific landing page (all about that keyword).
• Make sure the synonyms and keywords are arranged to illustrate prominence for the keyword. In other words, use relevant meta data (tags), H1 and internal links from other pages to fortify the keywords importance within your site.
• Use it first in the title to make it clear to search engines that this keyword is important (while keeping additional words to a minimum in the title) to eliminate noise and diffusion.
• Allow the term to gain momentum through external links, in their case user generated content (UGC) is the solution to engaging your audience. As a result, everyone who edited the page, essentially linked to it (since they know it will reciprocate and deliver traffic in record numbers).

Does Your Site Have What it Takes?

The takeaway here is to look at each page in your site to determine (a) what is the focus for both the on page and off page factors? (b) how long will it take to build and gain authority for my site/page? (c) are the keywords competitive or reasonably attainable? and (d) can I weather the process until the SEO kicks in?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions then you are capable of scaling the necessary steps to acquire a competitive Top 10 ranking. Can you apply the same tactic to your own website as Wikipedia, sure, but will you have the patience, passion and persistence long enough to see it through to acquire a position with substance.

The Virtue of Patience, Passion and Persistence

In order to achieve results, you have to stay in the game and break the ice, keep sending signals that you want it and then fine tune the results each time you gain a new foothold for the term.

Most give up because they don’t see movement for a given keyword or overdue it an incur a penalty (which is counter productive). In fact, patience and persistence are key components for competitive organic rankings.

It may take 3 months, 6 months or a year for your competitive keywords to fall in place (every website and keyword are unique). The thing that remains constant is the tactic of scaling the results through creating and refining your approach to overcome complacency (which is equivalent to tapping out).

The steeper the barrier to entry, the longer it takes. It took 24 months to acquire the keyword “SEO” for SEO Design Solutions. Was it worth it, absolutely! Was it a competitive keyword, sure 270,000,000 other pages are attempting to do the same.

The premise is to chip away at the keywords your site can consume with marginal effort, so when the time comes to shift the focus from a three word key phrase to a two word key phrase and eventually to a one word keyword, that transition is like a natural evolution for your website.

After age and domain authority kick in, it’s easier to defend a position in the top 10 than to acquire a new one, so the moral is, to snatch up as many top 10 rankings as possible (despite the competing pages)to get more authority (keyword by keyword) while developing ambient traffic to see what converts.

Once Your SEO Kicks In, Listen to Your Traffic to Find Hidden Opportunities

When you find the keywords with the highest traffic, engagement time and consistency, then continue to develop additional semantic phrases along those lines since you already have relevance for multiple variations.

As mentioned above, a page ranking in the top 10 in the search engine result pages has the ability to bestow and transfer authority to all pages linked from that page. Just considering this from the standpoint of internal link mapping, you can funnel the appropriate signals to manage multiple keywords achieving buoyancy as a result of tactful linking.

Then when combined with link cycles (the rate in which off page links age and peak) you simply need to find the right ratio of on page and off page synergy to create the tipping point for your page for the respective keywords. This is fundamentally what an SEO company’s core competency is when providing SEO services.

Sending the Right Signals to Search Engines is a Full Time Responsibility

Each has their own method for exacting results from search engines and there is no easy way to circumvent the amount of time required to develop authority and nudge the competition aside. It truly is a matter of your site producing the appropriate signals, it may require content, links, revisions to site architecture to emphasize relevance.

In addition, each keyword responds in its own time, some faster than others. The real key to managing an organic SEO campaign is to successfully manage the process for as many relevant keywords possible or as many as your marketing budget allows.