How to push your website onto Google’s front page: SEO, Penguin and authority

The penguin lifecycle – it takes time to push websites to the top of the search engines. Beware of the Penguin penalty, too

The “how do I get my website onto Google’s front page?” question is one I’ve been asked many times. In this blog post I answer it, briefly.

Back in June this year I was engaged by a client to advise on search engine optimisation, because his company’s website could not be found on Google.

It’s taken a few months, but his web pages are now ranking on the front page of the Google search engine.

So, how to push websites to the top of Google?

In brief, the answer is to consider:

a) Content
b) Technology
c) Time
d) Google knowledge

(the longer answer is that there are about 200 factors that need to be considered to align your websites with the  search engines – contact me for more information.)

In this client’s case, my improvements included:

a) Content. The quality of their content needed work. I also identified keywords that would attract serious clients, rather than traffic for its own sake.
b) Technology. The website’s construction was poor. They needed to remove duplicate pages, improve page-load speed, “meta” details and more.
c) Time. Raising the client’s awareness that “quick fixes” are a mistake – Google’s looking for “authoritative” websites. Authority doesn’t happen overnight.
d) Google knowledge. Their “link profile” was tainted. I identified that their website had been hit by both Panda and Penguin algorithmic adjustments. Cleaning up their “low quality” links was needed.

Results

These initial improvements led to organic search traffic rising by 300%.

Then on Friday, thanks to  Google updating their Penguin filter algorithms, the hard work really paid off, and my client’s website pages finally found their way to page one of the search engine results; which will mean a further massive increase in visitors, and improved reputation management.

Top tips

Beware of shortcuts.
Please don’t buy links!
Build an authoritative website, and your patience will be rewarded.

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