The coveted 1st page listing in Google requires some basic steps to achieve.

Everyone with a website wants to improve their SEO. That means a desire to see their website appear at, or as close as possible, to the top of the first page of results in a Google search. In a lot of cases that can be achieved by ensuring a few basic construction principles are followed by your website.

1. Ensure your content is relevant and concise. Let’s face it most business’ survive because they have a good product or service so promoting that correctly through a website shouldn’t be too hard, right? Apparently not. Some websites fail to clearly tell the visitor what they are selling in plain and simple terms. So if it confuses the human visitors it is bound to confuse a search engine. Make sure that your content is plain, easy to understand and jargon free.
2. Understand your customers. You should know what your customers think is important and valuable in your market so that you can highlight the ‘looked for’ features in your offering. This is not only important for building relevant content but also so that you can understand the search process your customers use.
3. Embrace the need to adapt to the different devices your visitors are likely to use. It is increasingly important to provide mobile friendly content. Websites need to display and read well on a range of different device types and screen sizes. Search engines like Google are placing more importance on having a ‘mobile friendly’ website.
4. Include your website and its content as part of an overall marketing strategy that encompasses not only traditional marketing channels but also digital channels such as web and social media. All too often business owners think that online marketing replaces their conventional marketing. Online marketing does not trump conventional marketing methods, it enhances them.
5. Don’t try and manage your online marketing internally unless you have the staff with the time and knowledge to handle it in a consistent and structured way. Many businesses, especially small businesses think that they can save money through do-it-yourself search engine optimisation and marketing. Sadly, a lot of the time spent doing that can be wasted in performing tasks that are not going to get the desired results. Pay a professional and spend your time working on your business, the results will cover the cost.

Unfortunately there is no magic potion for instant search engine ranking success, despite what some operators will tell you. However, adhering to the basics and doing a few things well will go a long way to putting your website front and centre.