75% of internet users will never look past the first page of a Google search, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine and there are over a trillion Google searches each month. So what significance do these statistics hold? Essentially, ranking anywhere other than page no. 1 on Google is bad for business.
Having a strong Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) presence has the power to drive strong traffic to your website which could grow your business for years to come.
Unfortunately, achieving this is no straightforward task. Let’s say you’re starting a fashion blog, there already exists a multitude of high-profile websites taking advantage of the top SEO keywords in the industry (For example: Best Fashion Blogs), together with countless other bloggers trying to rank higher on Google searches for that keyword as well. The fact of the matter is that the odds are stacked against you, but they aren’t insurmountable.
Firstly, accept that industry leaders will dominate the top pages for short and popular industry keywords, and instead Focus your Efforts on Long-tail Keywords. Long-tail keywords make up over 70% of searches on Google compared to popular keywords, and are also easier to climb the ranks of. This strategy ensures that you’re not going head on against industry leaders on search engine result pages and avoid fighting a losing battle.
If you’re still not convinced by long-tail strategies, just know that Amazon makes 57% of their sales from long-tail keywords.
Next, you need to Write More & Longer Blog Posts than your Competition.
An effective, but often overlooked blog promotion method is writing more articles. Research has shown that the more you write, the more your pages get indexed, which means more traffic to your site. Businesses that publish 16+ posts per month get more than thrice the traffic of those publishing only 0-3 posts, which gives you a gauge of how many posts you need to have each month.
However, not only must you publish more posts, your posts need to be significantly long. The top 10 results on Google’s first page are at least 2000 words long, meaning you need to deliver in-depth content to your audience. Furthermore, longer posts are also more likely to get shares on social media.
Of course, what I’ve just described to you requires a significant amount of effort and time: 2000+ word posts every 2 days, which is why you might consider to hiring someone.
In conclusion, it’s unrealistic to expect your website to show up on the first page of Google, especially if you’re new. Fortunately, there are workarounds and unconventional methods you can adopt to compete with industry leaders and get to the top.
Do you think it’s possible to displace the competition and end up on Google’s front page? What other strategies do you know of that will help?
Digital Marketing with Glenn 
Hiya Glenn, I like the reference to climbing Google as a mountain I think its humorous as well as breaking down the understanding of SEO, I think its helpful for anyone doing SEO to understand the use of Long-Tail keywords and the difference with short and popular industry keywords. It is imperative in helping us understand the concept in how to create great landing pages! I know of another strategy which deals with the algorithm behind meta tagging and I think its another big thing that can be used in developing a great SEO!
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Thanks for noticing my reference Jon! Since SEO can be quite perplexing, especially for those who’re hearing about it for the first time, I thought using an example might make it easier to understand. Thanks for sharing about using meta tags in SEO, after reading about the different types of meta tags to use, I’ll definitely keep them in mind in future!
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Hi Glenn! Thanks for sharing this wonderful insight on SEO. Yes, SEO strategy is a wonderful way to boost your website in the Google search engine. However, SEO strategy is divided into White Hat & Black Hat. As the strategy mentioned for SEO is leading towards the White Hat SEO strategy which the more the right way of doing it without getting penalised. However, some of these strategies like writing more articles do help in boosting your website but it will take some time to reach there. In my personal opinion, even though it will get you penalised, but Black Hat SEO strategy could get a faster result with a risk (I mean everything in life is a risk right!). Maybe you can check this out: https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/12169/44-black-hat-seo-techniques/ Cheers!
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Hey Jabriel, thanks for the article about black hat SEO techniques. While it is proven to get quick results, I’m still skeptical about the risks that these techniques pose, as they could potentially come back to bite you in the future.
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Greetings Glenn,
Very informative insights on SEO. From my basic understanding of it prior to reading your article, I wouldn’t have imagined so many aspects played a huge part into having a website appear on the first few results of a search.
Initially I assumed it had to do with popularity and traffic of a particular website, but there’s so much more to it. For example, the user-friendliness aspect plays a huge part in it, apparently. This kind of makes sense as most of the first few website results of any Google search always has very appealing designs and interfaces. This is definitely a huge aid into digital marketing. Aesthetic is always important!
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