If you have spent the effort creating a website, you obviously would like it to be seen by as many people as possible. This is particularly true if your website promotes your business. One way of generating lots of views is managing to get your website on the 1st page of Google. Research from “Internet Marketing Ninjas” shows that websites on page 1 of Google enjoy nearly 60% of all clicks that are generated from a search.

Your page ranking can make all of the difference to your bottom line so it makes sense to invest some time in learning and applying the methods that can get you on Google’s first page.

So how do you “Get to Google’s 1st page”?

The answer may surprise you…

No one knows!

That is, no one knows exactly… Apart from Google.

The reason for this is simple. If Google published their exact algorithm, everyone would attempt to hone their site and all external entities (social media, links) in such a way that it would be harder for Google to assess the best value site for the search you have entered. In the long term this would be damaging to Google.

Google’s success is based on the perception that they have the best search engine. Their original success was achieved by simply being the best at finding what you have searched for. They spent their time and energy developing PageRank, a way of measuring key attributes of a site and giving them different weightings to bring the most relevant sites back to the search you made. The accuracy of their algorithm resulted in repeat searches by users. Recommendations on the ability of this new search engine to suggest relevant websites spread quickly in a market that was still dominated at the time by established companies such as Yahoo and AOL. Google’s uncanny ability to find more suitable results than their competitors resulted in them growing from a garage based outfit to becoming the colossal giant that they are today.

Intellectual Property = Profits

Why would Google share with their competitors how they’ve achieved market dominance and consolidated their success by becoming Apple’s default search engine in Safari? Google generated $79.4 Billion in 2016 from ads. It is obvious that they aren’t going to spell out how every criteria that they measure is weighted… or even publish every measure that exists in the first place. They offer help and tools via Console Search however this is limited. The software behind their search engine is Google’s intellectual property and they, like all creatives, are right to protect this.

There are many articles going into great detail about Search Engine optimisation (SEO), the method of getting your page noticed by popular search engines including Bing, Yahoo and Google.

In reality, getting your website to page 1 of any search engine is difficult and has a far better chance if your have a mixture of the following factors :

• Having an understanding of SEO Fundamentals
• Developing a cohesive Social Media Strategy
• Already being well known
• Luck

Be Realistic

Yes, if you aren’t already well known then your chances of getting on the first page on Google are reduced. Be realistic: If you have a Scarves company, “Brad Pitt’s Scarves company” is probably going to get more hits.

Unless of course you are the owner of “Mariah Carey’s Scarves company”, in which case you’ll have a good chance of equal rating for most of the year based on you both being famous.

At Christmas though she may leapfrog the Ocean’s 11 star thanks to the increased searches resulting from people looking for Christmas gifts (like “Scarves”) and her evergreen Seasonal hit:

If you don’t understand why this would occur then SEO is an area for you to study to learn how to get to Google’s No 1 spot.

So if any company promises you they will get you to page one of Google, be wary. It isn’t as easy, it takes work.

Lots of it.

As a company that has managed to get clients to page one of Google, Jeppstones understand the intricacies involved and the work required to achieve this. If you need help with this please contact us.

In my follow up, “How to get to page 1 on Google – Part 2” I will explore these factors further.

Peter Horgan is the founder of Jeppstones.

You call follow Peter on Twitter: @PeterJeppstones