Search Engine Optimization Secrets: How to Dominate Google

Google processes more than 8.5 billion searches per day. Wow! That's a lot of searches, and if you're not aiming to get a piece of that pie, you're missing out.

There are two core digital marketing strategies to penetrate Google search: one is search engine optimization (SEO); and the other is paid advertising (Google Adwords). In this article, we'll be covering SEO, which is used to drive targeted organic traffic to your website.

We'll share 4 search engine optimization secrets, because here's the thing: SEO is widely mislabeled online. Everyone repeats the same SEO strategies: build backlinks, write content, make your website faster, add SEO metdata, use H2 tags, and the list goes on.

While these SEO tactics are real, did you know that many SEO ranking factors don't move the needle? In other words, they're practically useless because they do not affect your SEO rankings enough to make a difference. And that is the key: focusing on what moves the SEO needle and helps you improve your keyword rankings in Google.

(1) Writing First-Page Worthy Content

Your goal to rank on the first page of Google must be focused on creating amazing content. Not just any content: it must be first-page worthy. Your focus should be to create the best article online for that specific keyword. Nothing less will work.

Don't worry if you're not a writer, this won't be difficult. Here's what to do: go to Google and search for the keyword you want to rank for. Once you enter it, evaluate the top 10 ranking pages on the search queries.

What pages are ranking highest? It is blogs? Pages? Products? This will help you get an idea of the type of content Google prefers for that search query. If seven out of 10 are blogs, you should create a blog for that keyword.

Next, evaluate the top three ranking pages. Review all three pages. How do they differ? How are they alike? What keywords do they target within the content? If you need to review a larger sample size, go for it. You can analyze the top five or top 10, but don't go beyond that.

Your job is to create better content than all 10 search queries on the search results. Period. Go through the content, see how it's structured, and begin writing your awesome article.

(2) Google's E-E-A-T Algorithm Updates

Content has always been associated to SEO in one way or another. Most people know that. Your onsite SEO content is the second-most important SEO ranking factor, so it is a needle mover.

Google released a core algorithm in March 2023. This update, once again, focused on content. Google wants you to be an expert in your specific niche, and it's up to you to display that expertise through website content: blogs, pages, products, videos, images, podcast, or audio.

Since that release, a few other core updates have been released and E-E-A-T has become the industry standard. As we head into the new year, your SEO strategy will need to focus more on your internal content and providing the best possible content you can for users.

E-E-A-T is an acronym created by Google which stands for: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Originally, that acronym was just E-A-T. E-A-T first made an appearance in Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines in 2014. Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines are instructions that give you evaluators known as "Quality Raters." These evaluators use the guidelines to assess the quality of Google’s search results.

While you don't need to know everything about the algorithm changes, you do need to realize how important it is and what it represents. In the simplest definition we can give you, it means you need to create high quality content on your specific topic. Google considers trustworthiness to be the most important factor of them all. In fact, it uses experience, expertise, and authoritativeness to establish how trustworthy a site is. Trust is everything.

(3) Great Content That Can Attract Backlinks

Backlinks are the top Google SEO ranking factor. That hasn't changed. We'll talk about link building more in just a minute. While you can do outreach and build relationships to get backlinks, you can also help your case by creating content that others want to link to.

You should always aim to create the best possible content. You want it to be useful to search users, but it must be also informative to your target market. That's a win-win strategy.

If you're building great content, you can naturally attract backlinks, so you need content for this purpose. Here are a few ideas that could help:

• Top 5 or Top 10 List: Everyone loves sharing a good top 5 or top 10 list; they also like linking to them.

• Research and Studies: If you have data and analytics to share from research, these are great for link building, as others will cite you.

• Tool/Software: If you have a cool tool, software, or app, websites can mention them and review them, as well. This can build natural backlinks.

(4) Backlinks Are Still the Top SEO Ranking Factor

We can't do a SEO article without mentioning backlinks. Yes, it's not a secret, but a lot of people don't realize this. You can't ignore the fact that backlinks move the needle the most. Secret or not, if you want to rank high in Google, you need backlinks.

There are many layers to building backlinks. It's one of the toughest jobs in all of SEO. It takes hard work and dedication to build the best possible backlinks for your website. This is why you want to learn every possible strategy to getting backlinks.

Here's what you need to know about backlinks:

• Every backlink is unique, so understanding the true value of that backlink is essential to make sure you get the best possible backlinks.

• You want to get backlinks from websites that have real SEO value, which means they need to have real organic traffic, real organic rankings, and real referring domains.

• The anchor text you use in your backlinks is very important, so understand the appropriate anchor text ratios that are key to maximizing SEO value from backlinks.

• Natural backlinks are your best friend, so make sure you're creating awesome content.