The holy grail of SEO is to get your website on page one of search results for searches with generic one keyword. When you search for Microsoft, Google, Apple or Amazon those company’s websites appear at the top, However, don’t use Google to search for Google or you will break the internet. This happens because so many people use these search terms and for each person that clicks on links for that company that the website gains credibility and so gains search ranking importance.
For the majority of businesses, especially small businesses, this isn’t a reality so most people are happy to be listed on page one for search results when a search is performed using two generic keywords. But as with those people wanting to be listed when searches are performed with one generic keyword, those wanting to be listed when searches are performed with two generic keywords will only get real success when their website already has some credibility and so existing search engine ranking.
Say for example you decide to take up running; do you immediately put on your runners and try to win a marathon? No, of course not, you have to build up to running that far by doing shorter distances and it takes time to beat the people who’ve been running marathons for much longer. Let’s say you decide to take up cycling; do you start by attempting a stage of the Tour de France? If you are sensible you start out with a ride around a local lake or park. The same idea should be applied to gaining search rankings; start out with small victories to gain some credibility and progress from there – don’t be naïve and think you can mix it with the big boys from the start. You can relate the credibility you gain by building up with small victories to the improvement your website will see in search results over time.
So people with new websites or websites that don’t rank highly need their website to gain more credibility by appearing in search results more often but their website won’t appear in search results more frequently until the site gains credibility by receiving more clicks. So we are stuck with a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario; to gain credibility we need higher search rankings, but to get higher search rankings we need more credibility. Where do we start?
To start with don’t think you will get results for two generic keyword searches quickly as owners of websites with more credibility are already going after these generic keyword combinations. There’s no way this will happen until your website has gained credibility, so we need to build credibility. We can do this by using a number of techniques;
· Target more obscure two keyword searches, target generic three/four keyword searches, or target geo-located searches. Geo-located searches are ones where people search in a specific location for a result, such as ‘car Sales Liverpool’ or ‘flower sales Chicago.’
· Increase the amount of unique and quality content on your website. It could be worthwhile investing in buying quality articles for your website if you don’t have time to create your own quality content.
· Increase the fresh content on your website. Adding a blog to your website is an invaluable way for adding fresh content.
· Increase the number of backlinks you have to your website. Backlinks are links to your website from other websites; bear in mind that backlinks from poor quality websites are worth less than backlinks from good quality websites.
· Add images to your website with titles other than IMG00234. Search engines index your image descriptions and return them in search results.
These techniques help your site build credibility and so improve your search engine ranking, and your site will start to be listed more frequently and more importantly closer to page one.
Another problem with targeting two generic keywords is that page one of search results only has ten slots. We’re talking here about organic search results, not paid search results like Google Adwords or Bing Ads. So if an SEO expert is giving the same advice to many people in the same business area only ten of those companies are going to be successful in getting on page one, so the advice has very limited value.
So, beware of so called SEO experts who tell you to concentrate on getting results using two generic keywords. Yes, this is where you want to be, but if you have a new website or a website that doesn’t rank well, don’t expect any results quickly if this is your only SEO approach. Instead concentrate on targeting searches using three generic keyword or geo-located searches and building your website’s credibility so that eventually, when your website starts to appear in search results, you can start to target searches using two generic keywords.
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