I recently interviewed Brett Golding from OptinEnterprise.com to find out exactly what the five steps to dominate the first page of Google are.
So, you might be thinking, why should I listen to someone like him? Brett has a background in web development and search marketing and he’s spent the past fifteen years in the industry. He’s originally from the UK and works remotely from Thailand, whilst travelling around a bit. He’s had some pretty good successes in the past, including selling a six figure website he created, and he continues to get results for his clients all around the world.
When we chatted, I first asked him how he managed to create this website that he later sold for six figures. Here’s what he had to say…
“Back in the UK a couple of years ago I worked for a client. We didn’t really have a website at the start so we tried to establish an online presence in the UK and Europe. It took 18 months, and I worked on that solo and managed to get it to the front page of Google, and ranking position number two. Not number one, which is almost just as good, but that’s something we’ll talk about another time. So, we sold that business for around six figures after 18 months.”
Then, we got straight into the five steps that anyone can take to dominate the first page of Google.
These steps are for people who don’t have too much experience with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Some people may be new to SEO and just want to get started and see where to go with it. So, if you want to know how you can actually be successful, without having too much of a background in SEO you need to read these steps. You don’t have to be a web developer, to rank a website right – anybody can do it.
Step One – Establish & Set Your Business Goals
The most important thing, which a lot of people don’t take into consideration, is that you need to actually establish your goals first. You really need to know what you want to achieve and what your business objectives are.
We talk a lot about this in my YouTube videos and courses to help people establish these type of goals, so I think this step is really so important. You don’t want to take on the challenge, and not really know what challenge you are taking on in the first place.
He said, “This is something a lot of people do – they kind of shoot blind and don’t really know where they’re going.” So, that’s step number one. You need to establish your goals first, know your target audience, and really know what you want to achieve right from the start.
Step Two – Decide What Kind of Keywords To Use
Once you know what you want to change, and you’ve got it clear in your mind, along with your business objectives, then you want to do your keyword research.
Brett always says: “What gets measured gets accomplished.” If you don’t know what keywords you’re trying to rank your website for, you’re not going to know how you’re progressing and you’re not going to know how you’re ranking.
Another great thing about doing keyword research, is actually tracking your progress. Once you see results (and you will see results once you apply the appropriate steps) it gives you motivation to continue and to go on – and that’s really exciting.
For the first 2-3 months you might not see any progression in the search engines, but once you see yourself jump from page ten to page five that motivates you. It also makes you work harder and you achieve your goals much more quickly.
What kind of goals should you be setting and how do you decide on the keyword to go for? Well, it’s changed a little bit from back in the day. As more time goes on, more people get involved and a lot of ranking for Google is now all Long Tail Search. If you go back a few years you could rank for pretty big key terms.
To give you an example Brett had a client he was speaking to a couple of days ago and they wanted him to rank them for the keyword marketing. So, you need to not aim too high with keywords such as marketing or big, single words like that. Instead, rank in the middle; you want to go for keywords that are specific to you.
As an example, location search is really easy to do. You might rank for marketing, and then your local area. That would be much easier and you’d actually have a chance of ranking for that term.
I would set your goals around that level unless you have a huge budget – that’s a different ball-game altogether.
Step Three – Optimise Your Website To Include Your Keywords
This step is really basic, you don’t need to over optimise, and too many keywords in your pages can actually be detrimental. But, the keywords do have to be on your site for you to rank for those keywords.
A good tip for ranking for Long Tail keywords is what Brett does over on his blog. For every video you publish on YouTube or any video you publish online you can transcribe the video. It’s very easy to get transcription made of a video you’re making, or to write up whatever content you’re producing. Speachpad.com will transcribe your videos for just $1 per minute and their pretty accurate.
Have it in written form because then, without really trying you’re adding more and more keywords which you can rank for and you’re getting those keywords on your page.
Step Four – Find a Creative Angle To Build Traffic & Links
For this step, Brett wanted to talk about outreach and what really makes your site rank, and it’s basically backlinks. You need to get backlinks from other sites in your niche. You really need to sit back, long and hard and think about your angle. Then, you need to come up with creative methods and creative ways to get backlinks to your site.
Now, that will be specific to your business and what you’re doing. For example, Brett ranked a fitness website locally – in a town he used to live in. He did this by guest posting in the local magazines health and fitness sections of their sites. This got a lot of back links from local magazines.
He published in the health and fitness section of those magazines, so it’s relative to his niche and the magazines had good authority, because they were constantly putting out good content.
That’s a great example of a creative angle you can use to rank a health or fitness site or something related. He managed to rank that business right to number one on Google, with not that many backlinks at all, and it was just because the sites he used were so authoritative. They were coming from magazines, and there wasn’t really any trick to it, it was just a creative angle. So you need to find a creative angle to get traffic into your site and to get links.
Why are these back links so important? Google looks at backlinks coming into your site as a recommendation. If you’ve got a website linking to something it’s a much better ranking signal to Google then a reciprocal link. Link Exchanges aren’t very good, so you don’t want to get links coming into your site and then be linking back to other sites if you can help it.
Step Five – Get Backlinks For Your Website Outreach
This step is all about the outreach. What Brett finds a lot of people do when they try to outreach is, that they don’t have any system in place. He has a method he uses to track the people he’s outreaching to, and it almost becomes automatic – as it enables him to do outreach on mass. Which is what you really need, because you need hundreds of backlinks in some cases.
If you don’t have a good angle, you can still rank a site with more backlinks, if your angles not that great. But, you need a system to manage the amount of people you’re outreaching to. Especially now, back in the day Brett mentioned you could send an email, and say: “Can I guest post on your blog?” and the person would say, yeah sure. Back then, you’d have a link, and you’d close that one off and move on to the next one.
Nowadays, he suggests you need to jab, jab and hook (a line Brett quoted from Gary Vaynerchuk). You need a system that’s going to keep all of your connections together and one you can manage. You can use a CRM to do that, or you can use a spreadsheet or database. Just keep track of the people you’re out reaching to, and make sure that you follow up and get the link from them, make sure you build those relationships up.
As with most things, the suggestions Brett has given can actually work, but they will take time.
You can download my FREE Step-by-Step Guide on how to start your own business within the next 30 days. Use it and get amazing results! If you want to get in touch with Brett and get help getting your SEO going, you can contact him as follows:
Blog: OptinEnterprise.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/optinenterprise/