First page of Google and top positions in search results

Hello, I would like my site to be on the first page on Google.

This is the most common conversation introduction when a new customer calls me or tries to learn more about my service offering.

Naturally, I understand the shortcut, and quickly steer the conversation to a series of questions such as:

• What is your theme?
• What type of competition do you face?
• On the first page of Google OK, but on which queries, on which keywords?
• Will you write the texts yourself?

And to specify that we are talking about positions in organic resultsand not in Adwords, Google Image or local Google ads…

At this point in the conversation, it’s often a universe that opens up to the prospect, he or she begins to identify the real problem.

Several engines, several areas of work and strategies, “that’s what SEO is…”

I have repeated this explanation 100 times, 200 maybe, and even if you, my visitor, think you know everything about the first page and how to display yourself on it, go through the paragraphs according to your curiosity.

Notion of 1st Google page:

• The first Google page: why it’s relative
• Placing your site in the top 10 on the Google SERP
• Anatomy of the first page of results: the engines present
  • Adwords
  • Google Local
  • Google image
  • The others
• Improve the display of results returned on the first page
  • The Snippet
  • The rich snippet
  • The featured snippet (the Zero position)
  • Sitelinks
  • The Knowledge Graph
  • Feedback
• How long does it take to put a website on the first page?

Definition: Google First Page

Natural referencing or SEO aims to position website pages, articles, images and videos as well as possible on page 1 of Google, (also referred to as SERP1)

The first page is a goal for visibility of the portal via certain queries designated by the concept of “keyword”.

It is obtained by qualitative work of the site on the following five categories of parameters:

• The source code;
• The speed of the site;
• The architecture of the site;
• Optimized content writing;
• The reputation of the site through its overall presence on the Web.

Being on the front page of a single query is a decoy

You need to take into account that 15% of global queries entered into Google have never been typed before. Internet users all have their own way of expressing their needs and they each do it in their own way. Voice search isn’t going to help matters…

On the query “first page google”, the most common questions asked by Internet users are these (keyword study):

The first Google page is relative…

• 24/7
• in all places (city, districts, province, country)
• on all devices (desktops, tablets, smartphones)
• on all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, etc.)

Even on a clearly defined single request.

This is because Google’s algorithm recalculates the positions of competing sites with each search and takes into account parameters as fine and changing as those mentioned above, not to mention:

• The browsing history of the browser used
• The user’s personal profile if they are logged in to their Google account
• The IP address of his computer, the location of his search

The competition is fierce and the algorithm plays with your nerves by constantly yoyoting the results.

I am not mentioning the fact that many Internet users in Quebec use google.ca in English without knowing it on searches in French and vice versa for the French. The 2 engines of Canada return drastically different results.

The choice to switch to Google.ca in English is clearly offered

In this respect, the screenshots that illustrate this article are in no way “faked”, they correspond to the positions recorded on June 5, 2017, from a desktop computer located in Villeray in private browsing – this reduces search pollution and variations in results –

Place your site in the top 10 on the Google SERP .

Click-through rate according to Synodlance

Of course, it is gratifying to enter the final bend symbolized by the access at the bottom of the first page, but it cannot and should not be an ultimate goal.

Positions 5 to 10 do not pick up on average, no more than 10% each of the visits and the agencies that sell the 1st^{page of} Google on 4 or 5 queries as the holy grail (therefore the success of your business) practice more onanism than web marketing.

On queen queries, only the 3 ranked really convert, and that’s because often, the 1st natural result only ^{comes in7th} place from the top of the SERP!

From position 6 of the organic results, the click-through rate drops drastically and depending on the look of the page returned by Google (returns internal anchor) — which depends on the user’s query — only the top three will recover a few visits…

Engines on the first page of Google results

Google provides the public with as many search engines (and therefore as many relevant and specialized algorithms) as there are ways to search for the answer to a question.
If you want to know more about a news-type event?, you will use the “news”
engine, you prefer to look for a piece of furniture or a piece of clothing according to its look? It is the “image” engine that will display as many visuals that will tempt your sensitivity.
The default engine (Google Search) is just one of the ways to find the best site that answers a query.

Google Adwords for the top 4 positions

The Adwords “ad” mention

Adwords is the engine that feeds the most famous company in Mountain View. It offers the top 4 positions at the top of the first page plus another 3 at the bottom, in results 11, 12, 13.

These ads are also sometimes displayed at the top of pages 2 and 3…

The principle of keyword bidding governs the ranking of these websites at the top of the SERP.

It is therefore the best bidder who takes the first place in the SERP, it is a question of marketing budget, and this vector — totally independent of the principles and organic ranking (natural referencing).

Even if an Adwords campaign must be of quality to appear in these first 4 places, they remain linked to the investment capacities of companies…

There are still a large number of Internet users who are still unaware that when they click on these 4 results,

• They are expensive for the advertiser (up to $80/click in insurance)
• They don’t necessarily arrive on a site full of information, but rather on a landing page designed for the campaign, i.e. designed to sell them a product.

The presence of the word “announcement” remains very discreet and the choice of the word “announcement” instead of “advertising” also leaves an element of ambiguity… and guarantees a large number of visits to the website.

Google Local for Queries… geolocated

2 natural results then the map with “the best locals”, then again organic results. (capture June 2017)

Osmosis of Google Place and Google Business, this engine is displayed on the first page of Google when the query sends a signal of the type business + city or when it guesses the usefulness of serving a result physically close to the search.

For example, the word pizzeria alone triggers the insertion of nearby websites, the engine counting on the fact that you don’t want to travel 50 km to eat a pizza…

These results are almost independent of the websites themselves, as it is the Google pages that are displayed and largely serve as references for these 1st page results.

We regularly see companies without a portal and even without any real activity of their business account in this ranking.

This is another topic…)

What I am saying is that if this presence is limited to the geographical area linked to the address of your company, it is a display at the top of the first page relatively easy to obtain, the competition being much more limited since it only concerns your city (and the neighboring ones when it is small)

The Google Images Engine

The image results banner on page 1 of the SERP

Google image is a service that dates back to 2001, it promotes visual search via the illustrations present in the sites. Pinterest didn’t invent much.

It often happens that this strip of images slips very high in the first Google page after the first two snippets of the organic results. A link gives access to the results of this specific search engine which is very popular with people who are looking for everyday consumer goods: furniture, clothing, electronics, decoration…

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that SEO optimization of images is both simple and essential and that any article should be accompanied by at least two illustrations.

Other engines are invited on the 1st^page

Other Google search engines that are on the 1st page

In other cases, the image results banner is occupied by video results.

The query “report + subject” naturally triggers this intrusion of YouTube results.

Similarly, the different specific result drivers:

• news, (enter a recent news in Google)
• shopping, (enter “summer pants”)
• Books and Stars
• air flights (type Montreal-Paris to see it)

are also invited according to the search intent perceived by the search engine.

As we can see, the first page of Google or Bing (very similar) takes many forms offering sites according to the types of queries.

Improve the look of results returned on the first page

Different Snippets present the natural results in the SERPs and, even if it means working hard to be in the top group, work on enriching the look of these 4 lines that serve as a teaser.

The Snippet

Snippet : an English word designating a short representative excerpt of a piece of information, a news item or a conversation.

Composed of a title, the URL of the page or breadcrumbs and a short description, it sometimes displays the date of publication of the article.

The snippet must be thought of as “eye-catching”, various technical means exist to enrich the elements that make it up and stand out from other clickable results.

The classic look of this small presentation consists of a small text that offers the article selected by the search engine in its best light in the form of a title on a single line in large blue characters and a description in 165 characters.

The snippet is not an excerpt from the web page, it is a teaser that the writer partially controls through the composition of the title> and meta description tags<.

These two tags are essential for indexing and site positions, I invite you to read ” the on-page criteria ” on this subject.

The elements, breadcrumbs and date of upload depend on your configuration and the microformats implemented.

Mastering the content of this short presentation of your article allows you to encourage clicks on the result offered by the engine.

Rich snippets to attract the eye and provoke the click

Rich Snippet of cooking recipes

The rich snippet is a “rich snippet”, it is made up of additional information related to the content of the page.

Implemented in 2009, these rich snippets are different from standard snippets by offering excellent opportunities to stand out from other results offered by search engines.

The most common and most used are

• the famous “stars” that display the reviews acquired by the site
• photos and details of cooking recipes for the sites concerned.
• the data of music tracks there too for sites specialized in this theme.

Rich snippets depend on the correct implementation of micro snippetsin the source code of the page or article.

Position zero or featured snippet

Since November 2016, Google has been deploying the “featured snippet” or “one box” because this “text box” is placed IN front of the first natural result (I think I even saw it in the middle of the paid results).

This result is particularly visible and advantageous

The Zero Position corresponds to a result-definition of a term or notion, a bit like a dictionary, moreover Wikipedia collects them with all its might.

This position is a must, it can contain text and image and display the winning site while its natural result is not in the TOP 3.

I illustrate this remark with sample queries that display in the Zero position

• yours truly in this position on SEO Expert and
• Passion for land on “sustainable tourism” on the other side

while pages are not necessarily in 1st position in the organic ranking.

One box of sustainable tourism for Passion Terre

Meanwhile, 5 companies pay $15 per click to appear in Adwords results.

However, this result remains very volatile and from Google’s voice even it remains experimental. There is no doubt that all this will change.

No one can assume that an article will meet the criteria of position zero, however, by respecting its editorial specificity, we still have a good chance of succeeding, this display being new and the competition still very open.

Finally, since the “answers to questions” results (Read the article Other questions asked) are displayed in Canada (November 15, 2017) the position takes on even more weight since they are displayed above questions while the first natural result is pushed back under these questions…

Position zero, then “other questions asked”, then 1st organic position

Sitelinks:

4 sitelinks invite the user to go directly to a relevant page according to his or her needs

Sitelinks enrich the snippet and are displayed in the form of 4 to 8 links to internal content, an additional link “Other results for…” gives access to all the pages of the site via the “site” command:”
Sitelinks give more choice of content to the selected site, more visibility.
They are only displayed if the article is in the first position, sometimes in the second position on a query.

The Knowledge Graph

Knowledge graph on the “SEO” query (June 2017)

The Knowledge Graph displays at the top right — in the margin — of the first page an aggregation of information (“knowledge”) available on the Internet.

A big and very conspicuous block, this type of result appears mainly on queries

• Encyclopaedic
• Famous people
• Companies listed by Google Mybusiness
• Companies or associations
• Brands
• Cities
• Event
• Generic terms

Like here on the query “referencing”

Note that the knowledge Graph box does not necessarily display the site that ranks first in the organic results.

This presence in the knowledge box of the first page of SERPhas a significant impact on the click-through rate, it is worked on the reputation criteria and the trust index that the site returns.

Less common and less intrusive

These results are displayed at the top of the first page in the form of tiles mentioning, for music for example, the title of the song, the singer and a video, the click only modifies the open graph returned by YouTube

Read this excellent article by Etienne Lesaffre about Google Mybuisiness for more information.

How long to put a website in the top six

The other recurring question (with “how much does it cost”) that companies looking for SEO support ask.
There is no answer to this question, as it depends on the

• From site status to case management
  • technique
  • editorial
  • Inbound links
• of the competition that the theme encounters
• the owner’s involvement in the tasks to be implemented

From 3 months to many months, it is the quantity, quality and regularity of work that counts.

Blog articles “Everything you need to know to work on your SEO”

Update 15 June 2017

Barely a week after the publication of this paper, the engine offers personalized results that enrich this article.