How to Get on the First Page of Google Through Competitive Research

Competition is cutthroat in online marketing, especially if you want to be on top of Google search results. Getting your site on the first page of search engines will increase your website’s traffic and visibility.

There’s no magic formula to put your website on the first page of Google. However, when you conduct competitive research, you can use the insights to enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 

Initial Situation

Upon reviewing analytics, we discovered declining traffic to one of our client’s top pages. Further investigation revealed a 13% drop in organic traffic to this page over a period of three months.

Conducting competitive research is crucial when analyzing website performance issues and traffic declines related to search engine optimization. By examining the content, technical elements, and page designs of top-ranking sites in search results, we can better understand optimization best practices that work for competitors within the niche. 

What We Found

Competitive research is important for SEO for several reasons:

• It helps identify the keywords and topics your competitors are targeting so you can find gaps to target. This allows you to rank for keywords your competitors are not focusing on.

• Competitor research reveals their content strategies on topics they cover on their websites. This gives you ideas for content topics to tackle that can attract search traffic.

• It helps uncover your competitors' strengths and weaknesses in search engine optimization. Focus your SEO efforts on areas they are weak in, while also improving your own weaknesses.

What We Did

Our Approach 

To diagnose the issue, we performed a SERP (search engine results pages) analysis of top-ranking competitor sites for the top page’s target keyword. This analysis showed leading competitors that appear prominently in search results for the target keyword.

The Steps We Took

1. Identified the main target keyword related to content that was underperforming.
2. Used SEO research tools and search engine results to confirm the highest-ranking competitors for the target term.
3. Reviewed metadata, including titles and descriptions for top competitors.
4. Analyzed on-page elements of leading competitor pages, including the content structure and TOC, media usages like images and video, features like drills, related links, pronunciations, CTAs, and lead gen supporting content.
5. Documented key SEO strengths and engagement tactics competitors leveraged.
6. Noted optimization areas and engaging content our target page lacked.
7. Developed general optimization recommendations to improve page rankings based on findings.

Our findings include:

• Numerical value on the title: The featured snippet specifies how many words or phrases the reader will learn in the article
• Grouped ideas: basic phrases, greetings, everyday phrases, and survival phrases are grouped together for easier understanding.
• In-line CTAs: the page also employs in-line CTAs throughout the article.
• Keyword density is only around 13 for the top 3 competitors.

What Results We Achieved

After applying all the steps and monitoring for progress, the results are shown below:

After approximately seven days, the case study page has increased its overall organic traffic contribution to the site by 16.9%—higher than its discovered initial decline. 

This has also led the page to rank at the top position of SERPs page 1, position 1, contributing to the overall organic traffic increase as the page has become more accessible to target users.

The update has also helped the page improve its current rankings and rank for other relevant terms around the topic, amounting to 25 new and improved keywords for the last seven days.

How to Get First Page of Google

These are some of the best techniques to get that first-page ranking on this popular search engine.

1. Know Your Competitors

Look for your main competitors in your niche. You can start with two or a handful of websites you’re always up against. Make sure these web pages rank high every single time.

2. Select Keywords

Identify a few target keywords for which your competitors are ranking. These keywords are phrases you put on search queries and want to use to rank your website. 

To start your journey with keywords, you should:

• Do keyword research using SEMRush, Google’s Keyword Planner, or Ahrefs. This would help you find relevant keywords with low competition and high search volume. Include long-tail keywords, or those longer, more specific keywords with low search volume and a high conversion rate, in your content to appeal to a certain audience.
• Consider the search intent after identifying the target keyword. You can build your content around it when you understand how it’s used. 
• Analyze the SERPs of your target keyword to understand what kind of content ranks the best. Review every competitor's web page and identify gaps in their keyword strategy. These gaps are your opportunities to create similar content but with better value.

3. Create Quality Content

High-quality content helps rank your website. It should be valuable, original, and accurate to gain users’ trust. Look at the kind of content your competitors are making and create similar ones too. Depending on your plan, you can write a blog post, listicle, and in-depth guides. 

Incorporate the keywords you got from your particular keyword search naturally when writing your content. Don’t repeat the same keywords in about two to three paragraphs. Space them out to make reading the content seem flawless.

4. Optimize for SEO and Mobile Devices

After creating content, optimization for search engines comes next. You need to optimize for on-page SEO first to let search engines understand your content’s intent and relevance. To do that, insert your keywords in titles, meta tags, and URL slug. Do the same for your texts for Google ads and your business listing to make your business more visible on Google search.

Up next is optimizing for mobile phones. More people are browsing the internet on their mobile screens. It’s your chance to strike the opportunity to make your website functional on mobile. Here’s how:

• Select a responsive design that works both on mobile and desktop.
• Utilize mobile-friendly fonts, such as Montserrat, Roboto, and Helvetica. Readable content on mobile helps draw users to your site.
• Resize your images into smaller file sizes for mobile.
• Improve your website’s page seed to keep users interested in your content.
• Create easy-to-use and mobile-friendly buttons for users to complete necessary actions quickly.
• Put important content on the first page.

A website that works on various devices like mobile and desktop can help you rank first on Google’s search results.

5. Get High-Quality Links

Reputable links make your website more authentic and authoritative to users and rank higher on search engines. Get inbound links or links from other credible websites on your page to improve your ranking chances. You can also enhance your internal links, so users won’t need to look far and wide for other content.

Competitive research is the key to starting your journey into ranking first on Google. As you review many website pages, you begin to learn how to use these keywords to make your website stand out and be number one. After writing and optimizing your website, tracking its performance, and refining your strategies come next. You will keep developing new strategies until your page ranks first in the search results.

Are you interested? Then get on a call with us, and let’s work it out together!