How long does it take to get top rankings on Google?

Many people who start a website think that it is possible to get high rankings on Google within a few days. Unfortunately, this is not possible. Competition on the Internet is fierce and there are several factors that influence how long it takes until Google lists your website.

1. How old is your website?

If you have a brand new website then you have to wait. You can submit your website to Google but Google will only index your website if other websites link to your site.

In addition, you have to prove that your website is not spammy. Google has several filters for new websites and you have to earn Google’s trust before your website can get lasting high rankings. A new website can get good rankings for less competitive keywords but it usually takes about 6 months to gain the minimum level of trust that is necessary to get high rankings.

2. How optimized was your website before?

If you have an old and established website that was blocking search engine robots due to a broken robots.txt file or a bad website navigation then it can be relatively easy to show up in search engines.

If you remove the factors that keep search engine robots from your web pages then search engines will list your website relatively quickly. Of course, this doesn’t work if you have a new site.

3. How many inbound links does your website have?

If you have an old website that has very few links then it will take longer to get high rankings on Google. If your website has many inbound links, then Google will pick up the optimized pages on your website much quicker. The more quality links your website has, the quicker your optimized web pages will show up in Google’s results.

4. Which keywords do you target?

This is a very important factor! The more competitive your keyword is, the longer you will have to wait to get high rankings and the more links and optimized pages you need. Start with multiple word keywords that are related to your business and then proceed to the more competitive keywords when your website has good content and inbound links.

5. Who are your competitors?

If the website that are ranked in the top 10 results for your keyword all have thousands of inbound links and more than thousand pages then it’s not likely that your website will be able to get in the top 10 results if it has 10 inbound links and 20 pages. You can either wait for along time until you get top 10 rankings for that keywords (i.e. when you have a similar amount of pages and inbound links) or you can start with other keywords.

How many days, weeks or months does it take exactly?

Provided that your website has good inbound links and optimized web pages, you can get high rankings on Google within a few months if you have a brand new site and choose a very specific keyword that consists of several words. Old and established sites usually need some weeks for such a keyword.

If you target industry keywords, which usually consist of two or more words, brand new sites usually need six months to a year to get high rankings. An established site might get the same result within 3 months.

Highly competitive one word keywords usually require thousands of good inbound links. A brand new website can need several years to get high rankings for such a competitive keyword and even established sites can sometimes need more than a year.

Official Google statement: how to get high rankings

This month, the Google Webmaster blog published an article in which Google’s Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google’s search result pages.

The blog article confirms that the methods that are used by Complete SEO to get high rankings are correct. But read it for yourself:

Inbound links are important but content is even more important

Google’s Maile Ohye writes the following about inbound links in his article:

“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.”

Nothing new here. If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help you rankings on Google a lot.

However, links are not the most important ranking factor. Maile Ohye gives a concrete example:

“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “

The website’s content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense. The content of your website tells Google what your website is about.

If you want to get a high ranking for the keyword “used cars in dallas” but your web pages are about microwave ovens then you won’t get high rankings for that keyword.

For that reason, it is very important that you optimize your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings before you try to get links from other sites.

Google analyzes over 200 ranking factors

According to the article in Google’s blog, Google analyzes more than 200 signals (we call them ‘ranking factors’) to specify the position of a web page in the search results:

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

It’s a simple two-step process

Getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process:

1. You must optimize your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about. Optimize your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.
2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That’s what inbound links are for.

It’s as simple as that. If your website passes Google’s analysis of all ranking factors, it will get a top 10 ranking.

 

How to convince webmasters that they should link to your site

Suppose that you have a great website with great content. Your web pages are perfectly optimized for visitors and search engines and you have found many related websites that could link to your site.

How do you convince these websites that they should link to your website? Here are five tips that will help you to convince other webmasters.

1. Offer something in return

The easiest thing that you could offer is a link in return. However, not all webmasters want to exchange links.

There are many things that you could offer in exchange for a link. This could be a discount for your products, an ad on your website or even a simple hint.

If you find a broken link on a website, inform the webmaster about the link. Tell him that your own website might be a good replacement for the broken link (if it is).

2. Ask your current link partners

If another website already links to you then they might add another link to a different page on your website.

Getting a second link from existing link partners is much easier than getting new links because you don’t have to explain yourself anymore. The other webmaster already knows you and your site.

3. Make friends with people from your industry

Networking can help you to get links to your website. This works best with blogs that are related to your website.

Contact the blog owners and compliment on their sites. Do not ask for a link in your first contact. When you’ve a good relationship with the blog owner, you might inform him about a new product or a new article that you’ve written.

Chances are that you’ll get a link from the blog then. These links from related blogs have a great impact on the position of your website in Google’s search results.

4. Show that other webmasters already linked to your website

It’s easier for people to do something if they see that other people have done the same thing before. If many other websites link to your website, you could mention this in your link request.

If a well known website mentioned your site, that’s even better: “As you might have seen on NYTimes.com, we’ve published a new product. This might be interesting to the visitors of your website.”

5. Offer something that other people don’t have

This is the easiest way to get links. If you have a report with ground-breaking new information or something other that’s very interesting and only available on your website then it will be very easy to get links to the page that contains that information.