How to rank first on Google. Do you like to be first?

Funny question right ? I mean who wouldn’t want to rank first on Google.

But the question is – Aren’t we focusing too much on the first rank and leaving everything else in the water ?

In fact aren’t we all fancying a first rank on Google for those “dream keywords” while not giving any attention whatsoever to other areas of benefit ?

A first page is good. A first rank, awesome. But is it all just about the first rank ? Honestly, I don’t think so, but that might be the webmaster in me. If you ask the marketer in me, I’d prefer a first rank.

Building a healthy site is important than a first rank

Being a webmaster I’m concerned about the overall development of my site, for a long term that is. I want to rank for a series of terms on Google, preferably first page. I don’t want to rank number one just for a few keywords and then expect life to become easier. No.

I’m not trying to say that first rank is bad or anything. First rank is awesome ! But I know that for a website, ranking number one for every keyword they want to is close to impossible. Even if I did, I don’t want to take the risk of losing out the long tail keywords (which is huge).

However, to rank first on Google, you need to put in everything you got. You have to be an authority and you have to have a real good website. Thanks to Google’s algorithm, with those guys, I’m almost sure all the time, that the first site for a search is always an authority site. They have built their algos that way that the first rank is always the best site. So there is no reason that I want a bad site and get away with the ranks.

I want to build a great site. A user friendly site. A cool site that people will remember for its design. But I also want to let people know that there is this awesome site of mine that is very relevant for their search. Once this gap is bridged, I guess one is safe.

Changing User Behaviors

Also, I don’t believe that information seekers on Google, click only the first result. Some die-hard Googlers might only visit the first result, but I think a major chunk of others are more human-like and knows that Google might be hiding a better site in its other pages/ranks. So I strongly believe that more than being on the first, its equally important to rank for a variety of related search terms on other ranks on the first page.

I wouldn’t be even surprised to see a rank 3 website amass more traffic than a number one website. Quite possible if you have an awesome site.

So the point is, there is life beyond the first rank on Google. There are awesome sites, of lesser known brands doing twice or more your business (on first rank). They are doing it good not because they are better but because they are clever and they aren’t foolish enough to concentrate only on the first rank.