Today I want to share some tips on how I can place an article first in Google's search results. I will not pass on any tutorial or SEO tip that all other sites explain, I want to tell you my real experience and how I work in a sloppy way (lol).
My site is one of the largest Japanese culture sites in Brazil, it is a category that I like to move and with high demand and endless subjects. I have 2 big competitors that tend to position themselves better than me in Google searches, but apparently they don't have as much knowledge of
My website's PA and DA circulates around 32 on the date I wrote this article (March 2019). My website is over 5 years old and receives over 500,000 monthly visits. My niche CPC and CPM is very low, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Most people say that Backlinks and PBN are the most important ranking factors, but I personally don't invest as much in that. I try to get backlinks naturally by focusing on my content, and I have already achieved several dofollow backlinks from sites with 80+ PA and DA.
I could probably be dominating the first position in all the keywords if I correctly applied all the SEO techniques that experts use. Not to mention that I have strong competitors like Wikipedia, WikiHow, Amino, and many others.
Redoing an article and putting it first
Leaving these questions aside, let's go to the tips in question! I'll take a recent example that I placed on the first page of google:
The keyword in question is “domo arigato” and along with this word, there are thousands of other variations present within the article in question. This word can receive over 50,000 monthly queries.
I already had an old article discussing ways to say thank you in Japanese, but it wasn't even ranked on the first page. I decided to revise the article and also changed its URL to include the keyword domo arigato. In less than 48 hours, my article took the top position, and I'm here to explain how and why.
Examining competitors
One of the most important things you should do when writing an article is to examine the competitors on the first page of Google. You need to understand how they wrote the article and try to do it much better than they did.
I had seen the article from nipponrama about 21 ways to say thank you in Japanese and thought, "Why not make over 50 ways to say thank you in Japanese?". It turned out that by the time I finished the article, there were over 72 ways.
I also examined the websites that appeared on the first page of Google by searching for the words in English or in the USA. I always search for the keyword written in English followed by meaning or quora.
Quora - This site is perfect for you to get information and even find suggestions for articles through the thousands of questions asked on the site. Unlike Yahoo Answers, users respond correctly and with text that serves as inspiration.
Taking down great competitors
It is not difficult to overtake the top positions of the big sites like wikipedia or wikihow, since they are from multiple niches and my site is focused on the niche of the keyword in question. So just write something bigger than them.
I always try to write articles with more than 1000 words, and even though some readers may find it tedious, I add anchor links through a table of contents to direct the reader to the topic of their real interest.
The anchor links also help position your article at the top of Google and strengthen other variant keywords of the article. I try to make the article attack from all sides, with many variant keywords.
Social shares helped a lot
After I wrote the article, he went viral on social media, getting over 200 shares in a single day. I believe that this factor was of great importance for him to position himself first in Google.
All articles you write should be published on as many social networks as possible. You can automate the service using tools like IFTTT.
These were some key points that helped this article of mine to rank first in Google, unfortunately it will not stay long, since Google is an unknown that is constantly changing algorithms. That's why you always need to study new forms of SEO and always generate new content for your website.
I hope that these little tips from this short article can help you read my personal blog where I try to write my daily life on the web. If you liked it, don't forget to share and follow our blog by subscribing by email at the beginning of each article.
I also made a long video lesson talking about how I write my articles. You can watch it below: