How To Improve Google Results Ranking For Position #1 Site Search

In reality, there are so many perks online to improve Google results ranking for your site to be in position #1. Perse, if you get the lion’s share of the clicks, you’ll also bolster your PPC efforts. And you’ll be the first in line to garner more links. Then there is the revenue stream that comes from monetizing the traffic from that #1 result.

It’s no wonder, then, that an entire industry has grown around the ability to acquire #1 results in Google — or at least as close as you can get. To be #1, however, you need to know what Google wants and you need to give it what it wants better than anybody else. That’s a tricky proposition, though, because Google has said repeatedly it examines 200+ factors.

More so, in order to consider sites using its ranking algorithm — it makes changes to that algorithm almost now and then. Mostly some of them are quite small to even notice, but some of them are quite large — so, it’s something worth considering.

How A Position #1 Results Ranking Looks Like In Google

To learn what goes into a #1 results position, we chose 100 different keywords. We also collected 24 different metrics to start getting an idea of what a #1 result looks like behind the curtain. In this post, we’re going to break down everything for you. Such as the similarities and differences among #1 Google results. For data gathering purposes, we used three main tools.

The real workhorse for this study was the Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool. Whereby, we took advantage of Screaming Frog’s API integration capabilities and connected it to the Ahrefs API to gather link-related information. Lastly, we used Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool for page speed scores. Once I gathered the data, we broke it down into six different category metrics.

These PageSpeed Insight Metrics Help Measure:

Display: The information is based on the way the #1 result looks on SERPs.
Visibility: The sites that come up as #1 the most frequently.
Backlinks: The number of backlinks and linking domains pointing at the #1 result.
Page Speed: How long it takes a page to render for the crawler, on desktop and mobile.
Content: Content-related, such as word counts, text-to-code ratios, and page title length.
Keyword: The information regarding the keywords I chose for this study.

Briefly, I chose these metrics above because I felt they encompassed factors from Keyword Difficulty to on-page and off-page information. As well as the way results are presented on search engine result pages (SERPs), etc.

They’ll guide you more on how to improve Google results and increase your site ranking to a possible position #1. And for each metric, I’ll deliver a more detailed definition of the metric, as well as a range of data from high, to average, to low.

1. Display Metrics

To improve Google results ranking for sites, we use display metrics to deal with the way a page is displayed in a search result. This will include metrics related to whether the #1 result was a featured snippet, featured sitelinks, and the like.

100% of #1 results were secure sites
98% of #1 results featured a meta description in the code
48% of #1 results featured an exact match keyword in the page title
41% of #1 results contained sitelinks
11% of #1 results were a featured snippet
11% of #1 results were homepages
5% of #1 results include rich snippets

2. Visibility Metrics

By the same token, to improve Google results ranking for sites, we use visibility metrics to measure the frequency with which some sites occupy the #1 result in Google. In our study, the following notable websites came up as the most frequent.

Amazon:– 16%
Home Depot:– 7%
Dicks Sporting Goods:– 2%
Etsy:– 2%
Macy’s:– 2%
PetSmart:– 2%
Citrus Sleep:– 2%

Collectively, these seven sites represented 33% of the #1 results I collected.

3. Backlink Metrics

For each #1 result, I examined its backlink profile to look for consistencies, and discrepancies, between different #1 results.

3.1. Domain Rank:

A site’s domain rank reflects the strength of a site’s backlink profile. In the study, domain rank for #1 results was like this:

Highest Domain Rank: – 96
Mean Domain Rank: – 70
Lowest Domain Rank: – 0

3.2. URL Rank:

A page’s URL rank reflects the strength of a page’s backlink profile. In the study, URL rank for #1 results broke down like this.

Highest URL Rank – 55
Mean URL Rank – 24
Lowest URL Rank – 8

3.3. Backlinks:

Backlinks are the number of total backlinks (dofollow and nofollow) that a #1 result has received.

Highest Number of Backlinks – 33,211
Mean Number of Backlinks – 918
Lowest Number of Backlinks – 0

3.4. Dofollow Backlinks:

Dofollow backlinks measure the number of backlinks that pass a value that is used when calculating keyword rank.

Highest Number of Dofollow Backlinks – 20,227
Mean number of Dofollow Backlinks – 546
Lowest Number of Dofollow Backlinks – 0

3.5. Nofollow Backlinks:

Nofollow backlinks measure the number of backlinks that do not pass the value used for calculating keyword rank.

Highest Number of Nofollow Backlinks – 12,984
Mean number of Nofollow Backlinks – 371
Lowest Number of Nofollow Backlinks – 0

3.6. Referring Domains:

Referring domains are the total number of referring domains that are linking to the URL of a #1 result page.

Highest Number of Referring Domains – 1,277
Mean Number of Referring Domains – 81
Lowest Number of Referring Domains – 0

3.7. Dofollow Referring Domains:

Dofollow domains measure the number of referring domains that are sending backlinks that pass the value used for calculating keyword rank.

Highest Number of Dofollow Referring Domains – 902
Mean Number of Dofollow Referring Domains – 44
Lowest Number of Referring Domains – 0

4. Page Speed Metrics

It’s been several years since Google announced that page speeds were being used as an organic ranking factor. For this set of metrics, we looked at page response time (in seconds) from the time the crawler hit the page until the page fully loads. As well as desktop and mobile page speed scores from Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to improve Google results ranking.

4.1. Response Time:

Response time measures how long it takes for a page to load.

Highest Response Time: – 8.638 seconds
Mean Response Time: – 0.879 seconds
Lowest Response Time: – 0.059 seconds

It’s worth noting that the eight pages with the lowest response times were all Amazon pages.

4.2. Desktop Speed Scores:

Talking about ways to improve Google results ranking for sites, desktop speed scores are the grades given by Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. A score of 50 to 100 is the best possible score here. While a 1 to 10 score is the worst possible.

Highest Desktop Speed Score: – 100
Mean Desktop Speed Score: – 68
Lowest Desktop Speed Score: – 21

4.3. Mobile Speed Scores:

Mobile speed scores are the grades given by Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Similarly, a score of 50 to 100 is the best possible score here. While a score of 1 to 10 is the worst possible score.

Highest Mobile Speed Score: – 100
Mean Mobile Speed Score: – 38
Lowest Mobile Speed Score: – 3

5. Content Metrics

One of the main idioms of SEO is that content is king. For that reason, we looked at several content metrics in order to improve Google results ranking for sites effectively and quickly. Whereby, some of these content metrics include the length of the page title (both characters and pixels). As well as the word count of the #1 result page, and the text-to-code ratio.

5.1. Page Title Length in Characters:

The recommended character length for page titles is 50-60 characters to ensure that page titles aren’t truncated on the SERP. It is not uncommon, though, to see page titles with as many as 80 characters.

Longest Page Title in Characters: – 90
Mean Page Title Character Length: – 45
Shortest Page Title Character Length: – 11

5.2. Page Title Length in Pixels:

Currently, Google allows page descriptions to be up to about 600 characters before it truncates them in the results.

Longest Page Title in Pixels: – 864
Mean Page Title Character Pixels: – 425
Shortest Page Title Character Pixels: – 114

5.3. Word Count:

Whenever it comes to ways to improve Google results ranking for sites, there’s always debate about how long a page should be in terms of word count. Many SEOs swear by long-form content to lure links and rank well. Google maintains that content that effectively answers a search query can be any length. The metric, then, measures the number of each page word.

Highest Word Count:– 9,718
Mean Word Count:– 1,967
Lowest Word Count:– 44

5.4. Text-to-Code Ratio:

At all costs, as we try to improve Google results ranking for sites, the Text-to-code ratio measures the number of non-HTML characters in the HTML body tag on a page (e.g., the text). And then, it’s divided by the total number of characters comprising the HTML page. After that, it’s displayed as a percentage as we have illustrated below.

Highest Text-to-Code Ratio: – 28%
Mean Text-to-Code Ratio: – 6%
Lowest Text-to-Code Ratio: – 0.19%

6. Keyword Metrics

Basically, in this case, we chose 100 keywords at random. And since I am looking at metrics of the resulting #1 pages, I thought it prudent to also share a little bit of aggregate information. In regards to the specialty of the keywords for this study.

6.1. Keyword Difficulty:

By all means, the keyword difficulty metric is calculated by combining the weighted average of the number of linking domains to the top-10 rankings pages. And then plotting them from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale.

Highest Keyword Difficulty – 69
Mean Keyword Difficulty – 20
Lowest Keyword Difficulty – 0

6.2. Cost Per Click:

The cost-per-click metric shows what the cost-per-click of a keyword would be as part of a Google Ads campaign.

Highest Cost-Per-Click – $9.00
Mean Cost-Per-Click – $1.71
Lowest Cost-Per-Click – $0.01

6.3. Clicks-Per-Search:

The clicks-per-search metric is the average number of clicks users perform after searching for a keyword. In some instances, featured snippets can answer a search query from the SERP, which means users may not need to click on a result. And as such, this metric is calculated by dividing post-query clicks by the monthly estimated keyword search volume.

Highest Clicks-Per-Search – 1.71
Mean Clicks-Per-Search – 0.93
Lowest Clicks-Per-Search – 0.24v

In a most recent post, we provided you with all the necessary expertise and information on how to Optimize your WordPress Website For Speed and Ranking. As well as ways to improve and speed up your existing WordPress or any website or make a new one. We even went through some quick techniques to speed up your website — whether it’s built using WordPress or not.

How To Improve Google Results Ranking To Position #1

To get a snapshot of an average way to increase Google results ranking to position #1, let’s recap our data here in one easy-to-read profile. Bearing in mind, an average #1 Google result will not be the homepage of a site.

It will, however, be a secure page/site. In most cases, it’ll also most likely not have sitelinks in the search results. But, don’t be too surprised if you see them. You should, however, be surprised if you see a rich snippet in a #1 result. And although featured snippets are out there, the #1 result usually will not be a featured snippet.

Eventually, the #1 result will have a meta description in the code of the page. And it’s, therefore, a virtual coin toss as to whether the page title will have an exact match to the keyword that was searched. In addition, there’re other metrics too.

Such metrics include:

Domain Rank: 70
URL Rank: 24
Total Backlinks: 918
Dofollow Backlinks: 546
Nofollow Backlinks: 371
Referring Domains: 81
Dofollow Referring Domains: 44
Response Time: 0.879 seconds
Desktop Speed Score: 68
Mobile Speed Score: 38
Page Title Character Length: 45
Page Title Pixel Length: 425
Word Count: 1,967
Text-to-Code Ratio: 6%

It’s important to realize, that each #1 Google result is so unique to the search volume of the keyword, number, and type of backlinks to a page, quality, and length of content, site speed, and other factors that can vary greatly from search to search.

In general, this means that; in order to improve Google results ranking for sites, that’s why it’s always important to look at the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) prior to optimization. For one thing, it will show you how hard you must work to improve Google results and unseat the #1 position.

That said, certain components can give you an average of expectations. More so, when trying to take over the #1 Google result. You can follow the following suggestions to Improve Google Results Ranking To Position #1 in your overall Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategic planning for further success. And then, watch your website rise to the top of the ranks.

1. Choose The Right CMS Software That’s SEO-Ready

There are many reasons why your website’s ranking is going down. Large modifications to a website are frequently the cause of ranking decreases. When you transfer a lot of pages, roll out a (responsive) redesign, or modify a lot of content, your rankings will change dramatically. This is normal, and you should only be concerned about your rankings.

That’s if they do not return to their prior state. But, don’t worry, you can restore your rankings back to normal in very few simple steps. And, the first thing here is to get professional help. Engage with trusted service providers from reputable marketplaces to help you. Actual users conduct a search using the provided keyword and click on the desired result.

For this reason, you should try and use the best CMS software like WordPress in order to build an SEO-ready site. WordPress is a free and open-source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Its key features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes.

Factor questions to help optimize your website:

Additionally, WordPress is only one of the best website builders that users can download, install & activate for free. If your site is new and hasn’t yet received any listings in various search engine results for indexing, you’ll need to start off with a website analysis. More so, to determine how well your site is structured — to make it more accessible to search engines.

Every WordPress hosting plan has its own resource system for maintaining and running our site without errors or slowdowns, which means they have allocated certain storage to their customer’s websites. Meaning, that you should only store valuable information on your website database. Otherwise, if you exhaust all the space, you’ll hit a limit with access/load errors.

2. Publish Relevant Web Blog Content

First of all, quality content is the number one driver of your search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. Learn how to fine-tune your web writing skills in detail.

Secondly, you can also try to identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each page on your website. It is very difficult for a webpage to achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases — unless those phrases are very similar. A single page may be able to rank both “biomedical engineering jobs” and “biomedical engineering careers”.

Learn More: AMP Stories | How To Start Visual Storytelling On The Open Web

Ranking “student affairs” and “dean of students” or “gender discrimination” and “violence reporting procedures” with a single page is unlikely. To improve Google results even further, let’s say you want to rank for multiple keyword phrases with your website. Definitely, you’ll need to make a separate webpage for each keyword phrase you are targeting.

Additionally, beyond page URLs, titles, and headings, content is most influential on search engine rankings. Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page — once or twice in the opening and closing paragraphs. And two to four more times throughout the remaining content.

3. Update Your Content Regularly

You’ve probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semesterly for example) and make updates as needed. Don’t forget to use bold, italics, heading tags (especially an H1), etc.

As well as other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases — but don’t overdo it. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for the user, not for the search engine. Likewise, you should also try and improve your website’s ranking and positioning on the first page.

Especially, in terms of SERPs like Google’s search results. Of course, there are a number of ways to increase organic search traffic. But, the best method for you depends on your particular situation. For example, let’s say you’ve already invested a great deal in SEO but aren’t getting good results. In this case, it might be that you’ve got duplicate content issues.

4. Consider Your Site Metadata

As you work hard to improve Google results, when designing your website, each page contains a space between the <head> tags to insert metadata. Or information about the contents of your page. If you have a CMS site originally produced by the UMC web team will have pre-populated this data for you.

However, it is important for you to review and update Metadata as your site changes over time. For instance, the title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.

Learn More: Site Taxonomy SEO | Categories, Tags & Archives Audit Tips

For those with a CMS website, the web team has developed an automated system for creating the meta title for each webpage based on your page title. This adds to the importance of using well-thought-out page titles rich with keyword phrases.

Description metadata is the textual description that a browser may use in your page search return. Think of it as your site’s window display — a concise and appealing description of what is contained within, with the goal of easy site access.

A good meta description will typically contain two full sentences. Search engines may not always use your meta description, but it is important to give them the option. Lastly, Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn’t hurt to add them to your keyword metadata.

5. Create A Link-worthy Site & Use alt tags

As an example, as you try to improve Google results for your site ranking, focus on creating relevant links within the text. Instead of having “click here” links, try writing out the name of the destination. “Click here” has no search engine value beyond the attached URL, whereas “the jmexclusives online consultancy agency” is rich with keywords.

And as such, it’ll improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to. Always use descriptive links by linking keywords — it not only improves search engine optimization but also adds value to your readers. Including those with disabilities or who are using screen readers.

On the other hand, always describe your visual and video media using alt tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page, which is very crucial. Especially, for those who use text-only browsers or screen readers.

6. Consider An AMP Responsive Website Design

Responsive web design has become the standard way of designing websites over the past couple of years. In fact, as a way of ensuring that a site is readable and usable on a range of viewing devices. From smartphones to large PC browsers. The vast majority of sites that we build for our customers are designed to be AMP Ready as well as Mobile Responsive.

The one simple reason for needing responsive web design is the massive growth in mobile internet usage. For instance, over the past 5 years, due to the huge take-up of smartphones and tablets amongst consumers. It’s becoming increasingly common for households to contain only smartphones and tablets, with no desktop PC at all.

Learn More: What AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) Is All About In A Full Detail

This trend meant that in 2022 and beyond the number of mobile searches exceeds the number of desktop searches. So, in other words, internet users are looking for what they want using mobile devices more than half the time. So it makes sense to ensure that they can find your site using their mobile device, and can easily read and interact with it when they do.

Responsive website design involves designing a site that automatically adjusts itself and the way it displays content — depending on the size of the viewing device. Chiefly, the site detects the dimensions of the viewing device and follows page viewing rules. Especially coded within the website itself. Typically, there are particular aspects that are self-adjustable.

Consider the following:

Images are automatically resized to fit within the screen
Text wraps dynamically as the screen width is reduced

Elements on the page rearrange themselves to fit e.g. elements arranged horizontally on a widescreen will switch to a vertical arrangement on a narrow screen. But, is it the same as Mobile Responsive Web Design? No. Mobile website design involves designing a site to work specifically on mobile phones with small viewing screens, but not on larger browsers.

This involves having two sites, usually on two separate domains. One of which is optimized for small mobile screens and one which is optimized for larger screens. While this was a good interim solution for some sites, for a while, it’s not a good long-term approach for a few reasons.

Such as the following cases:

You have two sites to operate and maintain, instead of one,
Which doubles the workload and creates version control issues (to keep the sites consistent with each other).
Having two separate domains means you have 2 sites competing for search engine traffic,
Instead of one, there is an overall increase in SEO effort needed.
For instance, all the backlinks that may be helping your desktop-friendly site will not provide any SEO benefit, etc.

And now, as a matter of fact, Responsive Web Design (RWD) and Page Builder Layouts are mandatory for AMP-ready websites. To enumerate, according to our team of Web Tech Experts, there’s more to AMP readiness. In the first place, AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. Not forgetting, responsiveness was first introduced by Google in October 2015.

Learn More: How To Optimize WordPress Website For Speed & Ranking

In fact, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source custom web development framework — created to speed up the loading time of web pages on mobile devices. Each day, the need for a responsive website design is becoming inevitable. But, the point was given extra urgency when Google changed its search algorithm back in April 2015.

Explicitly, while favoring sites with a mobile-friendly design, and beginning to penalize sites without. This saw a widespread move to responsive designs, especially among companies keen to retain their Google rankings. It’s becoming so commonplace, in fact, that in some places you will see the acronym “RWD” being used instead of “responsive web design”.

7. Optimize Your Overall Website For Speed

Keeping in mind, that pages that load quickly enhance user experience, boost pageviews and aid WordPress SEO and rank better on Google — the ultimate goal of every website owner. WordPress currently powers over 43 percent of the internet. There are thousands of paid and free WordPress themes, plugins, widgets, and technologies available.

You should know how to optimize your website as a website owner or developer. Optimizing and speeding up your website will result in a low bounce rate, your visitor will not get frustrated with the slow loading of your site, and also Google will rank your site but it is not as simple as it sounds. Fast-loading websites have more chances of a high conversion rate.

Make sure you know what’s dragging your site first. Once you’ve determined where your weaknesses are, you can begin working on increasing your organic search traffic by improving those areas. If you have not purchased hosting yet then allow us to tell you to carefully select the appropriate WordPress or any other Web Hosting Provider from the appropriate web host.

The primary causes of a slow website include:

Web Hosting:– When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed
WordPress Configuration:– If a site is not serving page cache, it will overload or even crash your server
Page Size:– Mainly images that aren’t optimized for the web.
Bad Plugins:– If you’re using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website
External scripts:– Such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance

A good hosting provider like Hostinger and Bluehost is essential for a well-optimized website. You should know “how to select a good web host” in the same way. Choose a plan based on the size of your website, the material it contains, and the number of targeted visitors it expects to get. Depending on your needs, you can choose a shared hosting, dedicated hosting, etc.

Or even VPS hosting, among other web hosting services. Perse, the Web Hosting Plan you’ll choose is sustainable only for your needs, and it totally depends on your requirement. On that note, to improve Google results ranking for your website, if you realize your current host is not sufficient enough, you can always turn to other best web host providers.

Takeaway Notes:

Realistically, the ultimate dream of every website owner is to have a fast site. Users’ demands have risen, but their tolerance has dwindled. So, do not take risks with your website optimization. To receive a lot of traffic to your site then be sure it won’t slow down when they arrive and optimize your site accordingly. Every website owner desires a huge number of visitors.

In addition to the above metrics, you should also try and create 10X product or service solutions. When your product or service is recognized as the best in its class, your job as SEO becomes much, much easier. You should also try and make sure that your customer service support is always in place and on the check. To avoid any customer/user journey errors.

No one who’s watched the United Airlines meltdown needs to be sold on the value of customer service as an effective asset for off-site SEO. The brand will be paying for that epic disaster for years as millions of folks continue to share the video and images of the event. Likewise, to optimize WordPress website speed, focus on searchers’ intent.

To Fine-Tune Site For Performance:

To Fine-Tune Site For Speed:

As a rule of the thumb, it turns out the old cliche that “you attract more flies with honey than vinegar” is very relevant to SEO. Typically, most people on the World Wide Web (WWW) are more willing to buy and use your products and services if they can first find them, and quickly. This process may be as simple as fixing broken links.

Or making sure that all of your page titles are properly formatted — or it could involve some heavy lifting like rewriting content or restructuring code. Either way, the important thing is that every change you make has been made with the end goal of improving your site’s ranking with Google and other search engines.

Get Free Updates

Notice: All content on this website including text, graphics, images, and other material is intended for general information only. Thus, this content does not apply to any specific context or condition. It is not a substitute for any licensed professional work. Be that as it may, please feel free to collaborate with us through blog posting or link placement partnership to showcase brand, business, or product.