In this post I’m going to give you three tips that are vital to get right, if you want to be number 1 in Google.
It’s obviously very important to continue to build as many backlinks as you can to your web pages if you want them to rise in the search engines and eventually get to the top.
However what I’ve found, is that not many people discuss the crucial elements that ensure you stay at the top.
Google are clever, they have to be, and one thing that many SEO experts will agree on, is that Google records the amount of time that a visitor spend on your page, and this plays a role in your search position. Remember that Google’s main goal is to provide relevant information for its users.
In fact all search engines would be happy if the user typed a search phrase in and the very first result they displayed, ended the user search, because it was exactly what they were looking for.
With that said, one way Google and other search engines can tell if they have provided quality to the user, is by measuring the amount of time the user spends on your page. If the user very quickly hits the back button, it’s not a good thing, and Google will take this very seriously.
Three Ways to Decrease Your Bounce Rate
1.) Make it Obvious: Once the user is on your page, your job is to immediately tell them what they will get from this page. DO NOT leave it up to the visitor to work it out, or have to read the first paragraph of text to see if they are on the page the need to be.
Look at the first sentence of this blog post, I have written: “In this post I am going to give you three tips….”
Do you think if someone lands on this page, that they will be wondering what the post is about, and if it will be useful to them? No of course not, because I have purposely engaged the reader with a hook, to encourage them to stick around!
Headlines that are tightly focused on the keywords your are targeting is also important. So make sure the headlines and relevant and enticing for all your affiliate marketing pages..
2.) Clean Layout: This next point is rather obvious, but I’m still amazed out how many websites that I see with terrible layouts, that make it very difficult to see what is going happening on the page.
Make sure you space every thing out and use plenty of white space in your text.
I for one hate landing on a page that is giant pile of text and nothing much more. I can’t be bothered reading something like that, and very quickly hit the back button.
3.) Using Video and Graphics: To further engage the visitor in your page, the use of video and eye catching graphics can help. Not all videos will work for every site, but if they do, then I encourage you to use it wisely as it is a great way to keep the visitor on your site, especially if you remove the fast forward option on the video.
One thing to be careful of is not to use videos from Youtube that give the visitor links to other sites, as this can backfire and the user may leave your page in favor of the link in the video. Just use pure content and non-promotional videos.
If you do these simple but highly effective things well, you can increase the amount of time that someone spends on your web pages and in turn this will help you to maintain number 1 position in Google.
Matt Carter
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Hi Matt, thanks for these tips, god it’s so simple to just start a blog post off telling the reader exactly what they can expect from reading the rest, I will be sure to use that tip in every post I do now, Sally 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Hey Sally
I guess sometimes it is easy to overlook the obvious sometimes!
Thanks for your comment
Matt
The longer the visitor stay on your site the better, not only it will increase the chances of getting sales, now it will help to maintain your ranking.In order to do that you need to have a heading/title which can grab their attention so that they will continue reading.
Adding video to the site also increase the chances the visitor will stay longer cause people like video.
Great tips,Matt.
Hi Matt
Thanks for another interesting post
I think that today I can contribute from my experience
You can make a small change in YouTube’s script
We gained two things:
1.The film begins to work immediately !
2.No references to other films !
That’s what needs to be changed:
param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/OsplK9CMBbE&hl=en&fs=18&
param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/OsplK9CMBbE&hl=en&fs=18&rel=0&autoplay=1
Thanks and good luck everyone
Dave
Matt Carter Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Awesome Dave, nice comment there, I love it when people add value in their comments, well done!
Thanks
Matt
Another relevant and very timely post thanks Matt. It’s great to see someone who really walks the talk!
PS: Just bought your Rapid Rewriter software. Absolutely LOVE it but the bonus Backlink Blueprint course is almost even better! You always over-deliver on the free content. Thanks again Graeme
Matt Carter Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Hey Graeme,
Nice to see you on the blog again my friend!
Keep up the good work
Matt
Really enjoyed the post Matt, particularly the tip about opening your post stating what you are going to be talking about. Once you think about it, it’s rather amazing how many blog posts don’t start that way. Thanks for the tip. I will definitely be incorporating this into my future posts.
Thanks,
Steve
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Hey Steve,
Yeah it is amazing how many blogs and web pages take forget to engage the reader straight away!
Thanks for your comment
Matt
Hey Matt,
Great post. Something I did not realise had that much importance when it comes to SEO. It’s made me think about my lightbox name capture pop up and whether it’s making people hit the back button too quickly…
I agree with Graeme’s comments too; Rapid Rewriter and your backlink course are exceptional value for money. good work 🙂
Neil
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Hey Neil,
Yeah I would make sure you delay any pop over to 30 secs, this way the reader will be less annoyed
and probably get more sign ups too.
Thanks
Matt
Hi Mark
The three tips are so important that is amazing why we forget them so frequently.
Thanks a lot for remind us the basics, sometimes we get so involved in complexity that we forget the ancient KISS principle.
Tell people what they will get, present a clean layout and giving the reader a rich experience with video and graphics it’s exactly what every smart marketer should do EVER.
Cheers
Jorge
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Hey Jorge
You’re welcome and thanks for the comment
Regards
Matt
Hi Matt,
I had been suspecting that for a while. I submitted quite a few articles to ezinearticles.com, all with a few backlinks (not much.) Not all of the time, but often the ones with the highest CTR — so I knew the reader had been on the article for a while — also got top rankings. Interesting.
Rebecca
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Hey Rebecca,
Yes that is interesting, especially if the one that people stayed on longer
help better rankings
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thank You For This Information.
Rachid
Matt I like your article a great deal. As a result I am going to use rapid rewriter to re write your article and then I am going to tell people what I have done along with affiliate links to purchase rapid rewriter. I think it will be a great way to show the masses how good rapid rewriter really is. Thanks for the post but more intensely thanks for rapid rewriter. . . It’s GREAT
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Hey Ross
Sounds good to me, thanks for the great feedback
Regards
Matt
Thanks again Matt for the info! Sites that are easy to read and navigate, save precious time especially when looking for something in particular. For example, your site is so clean looking and easy to navigate and soooo much free, highly targeted info. I could spend hours on your site alone!
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:20 am
Thanks for the great feedback again Linda!!
Matt
Hi, matt.. nice tips… all Internet marketing people understand of this strategies… Thanx matt
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:20 am
Hey Sarjit
Nice to see you on the blog, and thanks for the comment!
Kind regards
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the post. It’s a very good point you make that isn’t often discussed in SEO /IM circles.
Traffic is useless if users don’t want to engage with your site either because it’s ugly or has a bad layout.
Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think” is a great introduction to the topic of web usability and every internet marketer should have a copy on their bookshelf!
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Hey Jeff
Thanks for the input there,
Regards
Matt
Thanks for this useful information, Matt.
I am pretty sure that we all are trying to find ways to decrease the bounce rate from our websites and your tips will certainly help us to focus on this critical area of attention.
Matt:
Thanks for the information. You make it sound so simple. And you know what Alex says…K.I.S.S.
“Make it obvious” – Now that should be obvious, but it was not for me. It is one of those Doh! moments.
Thanks again!
– Rick
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:23 am
Hey Rick
Yeah K.I.S.S. is where it’s at, but it is amazing how often people (myself included) tend to complicate things.
Thanks for your comment
Matt
Useful tips,and very straight forward.
I think that I’m going to use some video on my blog to increase my traffics.
But I am wondering if there is a script for that? since my site design doesn’t have room for video post and stuff…
Thanks for the tips
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Hey Ben,
Yeah video can work well, its actually not something I use a lot of, but it is worth
investigating, as it can be very effective for traffic and decreasing bounce rate.
Cheers
Matt
Matt,
you made the point…
Essential, straight and clear. What else?
Thanks!
Joe
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Thanks Joe
Matt
Great info, I did not know google checks time on your page, but makes sence. Seems to me SEO is common sence rather than a think out of the box process.
Simple but brilliant post, thanks Matt
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Hey Dave
yeah Google check a lot of things, and I’m sure a lot
of things that I have know idea about either!
Bounce rate does make sense to check though as you say
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt,
The number of readers to my blog had gotten stuck at the under 5,000 mark. I did a post on a type of food popular in Denmark. But, I also included the name of the very popular T.V host who recommended the food on her show.
Long story short, the number of readers to my blog, quickly reached 5,000 and I’ve gotten 30 to 60 readers a day since then.
So please Matt, don’t forget to mention that including the name of a very popular celebrity in the title, can also give you good standing with Google.
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Hey JGib
Interesting point there, thanks for adding that!
Regards
Matt
The more authority your web pages have the better you will
rank on Google.
Hi Matt,
Thank you once again for valuable tips. I am following your advises for sometime now and can see the improvements in my Affiliate marketing business.
What I like the most is simplicity and clearness of your trainings. Even newbie can understand what to do.
Wish you further success,
Svetoslav
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Hey Svetoslav,
Great to hear your affiliate business is improving!
Yeah I like to keep it simple, as this is what works
for me and I know it makes it easy for people to
learn.
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt,
I had a quick scan of the comments and apart from Dave providing some code to stop Google showing other videos I thought I’d share with everyone a very simple way already built into YouTube.
Go to YouTube and open the page where your video is located and click on the button. You should then see a tick box option for “Include related videos”.
Ensure this option is unticked and then copy the code and paste it into your web/blog page.
Once the video has completed on your web/blog the related videos that used to show up will no longer be there.
I hope this is helpful.
Cheers
Mark
Thanks Matt,
What a timely post, I have spent the last week or two promoting my site which is now at No. 6 on google. I came to work this morning in the knowledge that I now need to spend some time dealing with the very pleasurable fact that I should now be getting some traffic.
On that note, I love the simplicity of your Blog layout here, is it a theme you have developed for your self or openly available?
Cheers
Steve
Hi Matt!
Great information! Love it.
Some of the comments were very helpful specially Mark and Dave.
Keep up the great work, will keep coming back for more.
Thanks,
Joel
Matt Carter Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hey Joel
Glad you liked it, and thanks for your participation
Kind regards
Matt
Hey Matt
Thanks for another very sensical and interesting post. All the information I get helps, and again this certainly will, especially as I have now found a niche that I really want to focus all my efforts on. I have also bought rapidrewriter. It looks awesome, but I am waiting to testdrive it as soon as my new site is completed.
Thanks also for the tons of purposeful information you are sending me via email. Good to be a subscriber to someone that really understands this business and always adds value.
Lastly, and off the topic but I cannot resist ;-)…I am a South African and if you’re a keen follower of rugby…need I say more?? Maybe next year?
Stay well
William
Matt Carter Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Hey William
Nice to hear from you and thanks for your positive feedback
Cheers
Matt
Your so right, Matt!
I embed YouTube videos on my site with the hopes of people watching them on my blog. Tutorial videos are best.
It is equally important to have a nice YouTube channel, for those that will click through to your video channel.
Thanks for another great tip!
Todd
Hi Matt,
Awesome info! Apart from the 3 vital points you have mentioned, I think making the fonts large enough (and lines spaced well in between them), using bullets and just making sure each paragraph doesn’t have more than 3 sentences will improve scannability and readability.
Seeing huge paragraphs scares people away!
And your site incorporates all these nicely.. 🙂
And this link shows the importance of no.1 spot in google with some great stats. http://chitika.com/research/2010/the-value-of-google-result-positioning/
Hi Matt,
Thank you for sharing this info!
If one spend some time to make some tiny changes of their high-ranked webpages according to your tips, then he/she will see good stats in their google analytics account in terms of bounce rate and Ave. time on site. Thus, solid proof for your tips is showed.
Thank you again.
Hey Matt,
I wasn’t expecting this when I first read the title of your post. Usually, any posts on seo contains lots of boring tech talk, but you kept it so easy and simple!
Your tip on keeping attention to improve bounce rates is so simple to implement but genius! I’m going to apply it straight away. I’m so glad I found your blog. Will be adding you to my feed.
p.s nice blog theme too.
Bailey
Matt Carter Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Hey Bailey
Great to see you on the blog and thanks for the positive feedback there, I do try and keep my posts to the point and full of useful tips!
All the best
Matt
Thanks again for your helpful advice. It has brought up some good comments from the other participants.
Hi Matt
There are many people on the web giving advice. There are only two that I think are worth listening to – Mark Ling begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting and you Matt Carter
Thank you for your great and ongoing advice
Paul
Matt Carter Reply:
May 30th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Hey Paul
Thanks for such a nice comment and encouraging words there. Funny thing is that Mark Ling is a good friend of mine, and we have similar styles, which focuses heavily on putting the subscriber first!!
All the best
Matt
Matt,
Thank you once more for a great insight into page rankings. What I am finding out is that it’s a lot more dificult to get ANY ranking at all with Google than with any other serach engine. I have 2 sites that are on the first page of Yahho and Altavista (for my keyword) but nowhere to be found on Google!
Could it be because Google takes longer to index sites?
Matt Carter Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 9:55 am
Hey Joseph
Actually I find Google is faster to index sites. Anyway, Google can be harder to rank, but again, I have some sites that I am right at the top of Google and yet way back in position 80 for Yahoo!
Its kind of weird how its works, but if you keep building links they will rise up in all search engines eventualy.
All the best
Matt
Very well said Matt,
This tips are really useful and helpful to everybody, especially for me. Thanks for sharing it. I would love to visit your blog more often as I start loving it.
– Felix Albutra
BloggingAccess.com
Matt Carter Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Hey Felix,
you’re welcome and thanks for taking the time to comment!
Regards
Matt
google’s years are numbered
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it has been very helpful to me.
Robert
Hi Matt
I’m still plugging away at my new site, some pages at top of all 3, but others seem to differ as the comment above.
Can’t make it out!
I’d better change some keywords (LOL)
Your blog hints are always helpfull
Thanks
Graham
Nice article.
Can’t agree with this though —
In fact all search engines would be happy if the user typed a search phrase in and the very first result they displayed, ended the user search, because it was exactly what they were looking for.
The longer a user spends on their search engines, the better it is for the search engine. And that for several reasons, the prime one obviously being there’s more chance of a user clicking sponsored listings if s/he lingers for a while as well as discovering the sticky modules the majors have – videos, freemail, books, etc. Of course, there’s a something of a point of diminishing returns there also if a user simply cannot find what they’re looking for, but the search engines would prefer the user to reach that point of diminishing returns than the one they would face if the user typed in a search, found what they wanted at the top of the page and didn’t return for that session.
Matt Carter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Hey Warren
Thanks for you great comment there, and you make some valid points, however I still wonder if search engines want people lingering as you say…this could also be considered frustrated that they can’t find what they want perhaps, and consider another search engine, but I think you have made some excellent points, and something to think about for sure.
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt
You are among the very few who keep on giving heaps of content and advice without holding your hand out for payment. I am a newbie but have have come to the conclusion; “nothing is free on the internet”. But you are one of the very few exceptions.
Colin
Matt Carter Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Hey Colin
Great to hear from you and also great to see you joining out community here. Thanks for the kind words also, glad you like the free stuff here.
Thanks
Matt
Hey mat thanks for the valuable information…………..
Very insightful article – the importance of people spending time on a page is crucial, and you nailed that.
“Making it obvious” is a good tip. Confusing your reader is not likely to get them to stay or indeed come back again. Thanks
We are very visual creatures, so I completely agree with you regarding images and video. If a video is enticing enough, it could greatly lengthen the time that people stay on the site. Great tip!
i really like the first one -making it obvious – it’s really overlooked by many people including myself 😉 Thanks for this!
I love your helpful post. You have just helped me to redesign one of my website that is ranking on #3 of Google for that keyphrase. I am not really making good sales as i’m supposed. I think I have to work on my Article titles as well as take clean layouts seriously.
Thanks, your tips help us a lot to optimize our projects !!
Excellent tips. I bought your program and looking forward to using the knowledge to grow my business. Thank you Matt.
Ranking on Google #1 has always been my desire but I succeeded about 2 weeks ago. It took me 6 months and I had a bunch of backlinks. Now, I have discovered that quality links are better than quantity with PR 0 or thereabout. Your blog has positioned me for even greater ranking. Thanks a million MATT.
This post is awesome and one of the best I have read in this year 2011. I saw something of this post in 2010 but never put it to work. But I respect you matt and you specifically taught me how to get loads of .edu and .gov links. It has helped me rank on Google #1. Thanks and God bless
Hello Matt,
This information on ranking on Google #1 is awesome.
As usual, your posts are huge impact on the readers
especially me.
I have started niche blogging like you recommended on your
free report “search engine optimization.”
I hope it works for me like it’s doing for you.
Bye.
every poeple wana be number 1 in google…
Great information, really help me optimize my blog.
Thanks for share matt.
Successfull !
very useful tips and more helpful to me
thanking you.
poonsarel