How to rank on page 1 of Google

How to rank on page 1 of Google

Posted on Apr 26, 2012 - 7:45 AM PST

Rand Fishkin: “Being knowledgeable about these tactics is excellent; implementing them may be the opposite. Use caution and judgement.”

This guide is based on Mixergy’s course with Brian Horn.

Brian Horn saw that his client would miss out on millions in sales if he didn’t have a high search ranking, so he used SEO to skyrocket his ranking and generate $6 million in leads. It was all done using SEO tactics to improve search rankings, so we invited him to teach you how to do it.

Brian is the founder of On Page 1 Marketing, Inc., an SEO consulting and publishing company.

Here are the actionable highlights from the course.

1. Get visitors to interact to show Google that people engage with your site

Brian likes the design of Cracked.com because it makes people scroll down and click through to a second page to read a complete article, and that shows Google that the site’s content is interesting to readers.

Take Action:: Present your website content in the form of numbered lists with pictures so visitors have to scroll down to see it all, and break up articles into two pages so visitors have to click to see the rest of the article.

2. Send a press release so news sites will link to your blog posts

Brian sent out a press release for a blog post he wrote about what he learned from his son who has Down syndrome, and other websites picked up the press release and linked back to his blog, giving the post more credibility with Google.

Take Action:: A day or two after you write a blog post, use a free service like PRLog to send out a press release that includes a direct quote from the post and the URL.

3. Diversify your backlinks to protect your search ranking

Brian says that if websites had drawn backlinks from multiple sources, they would have been fine when Google stopped indexing blog networks, but some websites relied on blogs for all their backlinks so their search rankings fell.

Take Action:: Open an account with Majestic SEO to check where your backlinks come from, and try to get backlinks from additional sources like social media or wikis if most of your backlinks are from one site.

4. Automate blog comments so you can get more backlinks and higher traffic

Brian uses software to automatically post a large number of blog comments linking back to his sites, and this makes the sites appear more popular to search engines and increases traffic.

Take Action:: Sign up with BlogCommentDemon, enter keywords you want to target, and have the program find relevant blogs and automatically post comments on them linking back to your site.

5. Use social sharing to look important to search engines

Brian’s client’s site had fallen from the top of Google’s search results to page five, but after Brian promoted his home page and subpages with social media service SocialAdr, the site shot back up to the top of the rankings.

Take Action:: Create an account with a social media service like SocialAdr, and either pay for other people to share your site on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, or promote their sites in exchange for them promoting yours.

6. Stop using Google Analytics so Google won’t see all your SEO tricks

Brian found that SEO-optimized sites that didn’t use Google Analytics fared better in search rankings than comparable sites that did, so he’s removing all of his sites and his clients’ sites from Google Analytics and Google Webmaster.

Take Action:: Stop using Google Analytics, which could tip Google off to your SEO strategy and cause them to demote your site if they don’t like your tactics, and instead download an open-source analytics package like Piwik.

7. Put content on .edu sites so your backlinks will have instant authority

Brian inserted links to his sites in wikis built by students at Princeton and Yale, and these backlinks make his sites seem more credible to search engines.

Take Action:: Search for .edu sites that use MediaWiki, find old wikis that students are no longer using, and edit them by adding links to your sites.

8. Control suggested search terms so you can protect your site’s reputation

Brian found that Google was suggesting “Brian Horn scam” when people searched for his name, so he paid ShortTask workers to search for his name with different keywords until “scam” was dropped from the list of suggestions.

Take Action:: Type your site’s name into Google, and if it suggests any negative terms, pay workers on ShortTask or Amazon Mechanical Turk to search for your site with positive terms.

Want to make sure you get results?

Written by Sarah Brodsky, based on production notes by Jeremy Weisz

Trademark Buster

Wow, nothing like a bunch of whiners. I have news for all you non-SEO sheeple out there who are probably regurgitating everything you’ve ever heard about the mysterious and taboo “black-hat” techniques instead of trying it out for yourself.

You want to learn about some real BH techniques, go study up and implement some cloaking….that will give you some perspective on what it means to be BH.

Anyway….

1. What Andrew has outlined (at least from what I can see in this post) is more grey-hat techniques than black-hat.

2. Don’t believe everything Google tells you. Some of it is mis-information.

3. In my experience, it’s typically the folks who are on the Branding side of things who get all wound up over the BH discussion. That’s because they don’t try/test/evaluate anything for themselves.

In the end, all Google really cares about is you providing quality content to the end user. . The means by which you put that content in front of the user is up to you – and yes, I can back that up.

Kudos to you Andrew! – for having some balls to get the truth out of your guests.
http://socialwebqanda.com/ Andrew Walsh

I was about to comment somewhat negatively on the promotion of black hat in this course, but Marc and Blaine’s comments have gotten me to change my mind. The tactics are clearly identified as such, many are used by big brands, and the majority don’t even qualify as pure “black hat.” Andrew’s point about talking openly really speaks to me. I certainly wouldn’t want to sign up for a course that censors a whole line of thinking about online businesses. Mike’s comment about sharing both sides is valid, but I would point to practically all of the rest of the content on Mixergy as evidence Andrew is doing just that.
http://www.facebook.com/inservo Phil Kowalski

andrew: being open on mixergy means for you to accept shady tactics? Interesting, then maybe fooling bank customers with products nobody understands is ok as well (at least it’s legal) or selling overpriced products? All legal in the end, all making their money for the creators… however, I thought mixergy is different. At least this has shown me it isn’t and in the end you do a lot of hype on your site but in the end the interviews are okay and nice but nothing spectacular anymore (some of them pure self promotion in my eyes). I am off with this and have better ways to spend my hard earned money.
http://twitter.com/TyrellLiddell Tyrell Liddell

I just watched the course. Great info!! This cheat sheet just skims through it. You guys are on the outside looking in and hating on what you don’t see. Do you really think Andrew is going to bring someone on just to show you how to be shady? Come on guys. Obviously you’re on this cheat sheet because what you’ve been trying in seo isn’t working or its costing to much. So take what works for you and leave behind the .edu wiki and auto-comments.
Tony

Yikes… As an actual web strategist for the past 17 years, this makes me cringe. When looking for a reputable SEO, one only needs look at Horn’s own site to see how out of date he is, white hat or black. His footer shows a copyright of 2009. This absolutely reflects on his tactics and makes me question what he’s done since 2009, and whether he even was current then. To wit, I first wrote about the ineffectiveness of Meta Keywords eight years ago. Yes, eight. Mr. Horn’s current meta keywords are:

“confidence of children,overcome shyness,west ridge academy,app,birthday cake delivery,iphone,internet marketing,seo,cell phone search,phone detective,reverse phone seacrh,ableton live,ableton live 8,dj software,cctv camera,cctv camera system,cctv camera systems,reliable seo consultant,seo consultant,web marketing consultant,consultant interview,medical interview,st interview,computer help,laptop help,laptop repair”

At least the good thing is that at least one of the major engines is on record as saying they use these to match content and actually identify spam sites and black hat, and not for any actual SEO value.

If he even bothered to perform even the most basic of SEO, you know, with such groundbreaking ideas as Meta Descrips, effective use of H tags, sitemaps, etc, he could even start to find his own site ranking better. Instead, it’s just junk sites and youtube videos that reference his site, but not his own. That should be enough of a warning sign in itself.
Anonymous

But won’t Panda torpedo my site if I use these tactics?
http://profiles.google.com/cernymichael Michal Cerny

Let me first say that I love Mixergy and all great interviews that you are providing.

Unfortunately I would not recommend half of the SEO tactics mentioned above. Especially when Google just released another update to target spam. Most of the strategies mentioned will get you website penalised and are not very smart if you are trying to have your business for longer time.

I would recommend asking anyone like Rand Fishkin, Will Reynolds, Bruce Clay, Danny Sullivan or someone else who has great reputation in the industry to provide high quality SEO course.

As a general advice I would say provide great content and experience for your visitors. Have a blog and good social presence. Have a great product so you don’t have to deal with ton of bad reputation.
Anonymous

its very important that you know if using these tactics it should not be on your main money site or if you are already ranking. Some of these tactics could end up hurting your overall ranking. However there are some good tips here and some others that you would be better off avoiding. Auto Blog commenting linking back to your site especially your main money site not a good idea overall. All mass linking should be done to another web property like a web 2.0 Blog that you have set up- for example on wordpress. Then link this blog back to your money site with 1-2 links…your site is then protected from any spammy looking links like mass blog commenting. Anyway Cheers for sharing this Andrew your not “forcing” anyone to use these tactics rather opening our eyes to different concepts. Mixergy rocks!
Pingback: The Secret to Good Marketing: Good Business | Outspoken Media
http://profromgoseo.hubpages.com/hub/Duplicate-Content-Facts-from-Fiction Pam Y.

I agree with interaction bit – with the explosion of social media and the integration of those platforms into most websites, it’s more important than ever to encourage people to share their opinions. However, YouTube is a perfect example of why this doesn’t always work out very well…those comments must be the basest form of human communication I’ve ever seen.
Also, I think a very “non black-hat” thing to do is to go back and review your backlinks wherever possible. Even if an anchor comes at the end of a great piece of original content, the wrong text can apparently slap you with a duplicate content penalty.
http://twitter.com/nartz nathan artz

Andrew,
Well done with this article. The quality is conveyed by the polarized discussion in these comments – whenever people are emotional, you know you’ve hit something that they care about either deeply positively or negatively. This is what I feel the core of mixergy is – the honest truth, take it or leave it, and why I will keep reading.
Scott Brooks

Great points. Thanks for being the first person to point out the strong possibility of being banned from Google due to these tactics. While they may indeed get your ranking up, there is a high probability of being caught and I think for any right-minded entrepreneur, that gamble isn’t worth it.
http://mixergy.com Andrew Warner

When I read #4 on its own, I thought, “when did we talk about that?” It didn’t sound familiar.

So I went to the that part of the course to pay closer attention. Turns out there’s a lot of context that the Cheat Sheet didn’t capture because it’s goal is to pull out just *the actionable parts,* that are *easy to communicate in about 3 sentences.*
http://www.contentforconversions.com/boycott-article-writing-services-that-spin-articles/ Mike, Article Writing Services

Overall a good list, but I do not agree with #4. Automated comments may have worked at one point, but I think Google is going to start catching on. Plus, programs like Blog Comment Demon are basically like article spinners in the way they “change” your comments – they look horrible to people who actually read them.
Besides, the high-PR blogs that are really going to give you good backlinks are also usually moderated. You’ll have to say something of substance to get that great backlink from the owner.
http://zrdavis.com/ zrdavis

The energy invested in trying to outsmart Google exceeds what’s required to formulate original, engaging content. I don’t get why people are looking for shortcuts. In the rare instances when they do work, it’s only temporary. Google will catch on and getting de-indexed is not worth the momentary spike in traffic.
http://www.fernandoveloso.com/ Fernando Veloso

Hi Andrew, greetings from Portugal.

Honestly, and I consider myself a experienced optimizer (fulltime since 2004), this is one of those pieces that makes you go hummmm. Blog comments? What an awful idea. Spamming Google is definitely NOT the way you get noticed. Author was crazy or what?

Anyway, there are other precious tips in there: 1, 3 and 6. I won’t get into details about them, but there are definitely worth reading and taking action.

All the best,
Fernando V
Fernando

Wrong.

Just #4 and #7 are outdated. All the others are more relevant THEN EVER. Especially #1, #3 and #6.
http://www.medi101.com Emr Vendors

Thanks andrew
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TPESQLI7U6G7TX6KPPFJQ3AFGA Seattle Dev

Fernando,
Do you guys offer SEO services? Would love to chat.

Thanks
http://www.usemeplz.com/ Usemeplz

Thanks for the information useful. If you have so little revenue that you can’t pay for analytics sofware, there are several other free ones that will not give all your stats to Google.
http://www.twitter.com/jugmendra Jugmendra

Must share article. Google is continuously changing it’s algorithm so it is much harder to achieve good ranking by doing the ordinary stuffs. Google started thinking like a being not a bot or robot. We need to be much smarter to beat the all latest algorithms, all we need to do is to spread our brand in natural way.

I can give you one quick tip:

>>Let take an example of Man-1 has relationship with thousands ordinary men like crowd of classmates, Colleagues or the men in surrounding.
>>And other Man-2 has relationship with hundred extraordinary men like celebrity, leaders, expert professional.

So think a bit, which one is greater. Man-1 or Man-2 ??

Surely Man-2.

One of the best advice from me is that “Spread brand or website to hundreds of extra ordinary resources and i am certain that other thousands ordinary will automatically get to know about you”
http://mixergy.com Andrew Warner

In this case, he didn’t mean it as a money saving option.
Paul

No, but Penguin will – google is really cracking down on any less then ethical link building techniques!
http://bestlookingmanintheworld.com/ Joel

This has to be a joke, right? “Automate blog comments”? “Stop using Google Analytics”?! I sure hope my competitors heed all of this advice.
http://creativefrappe.com/ Micah Flores

#7 Certainly has dirty all over it.

Most of the tips are black hat and that would get you banned from Google.
Tknobe

This post seems so outdated. You should introduce people to talk about seo and those techniques are pretty outdated. I would suggest Rob for a course about SEO especially him analysing the last Penguin update as he did on his post: http://www.micrositemasters.com/blog/penguin-analysis-seo-isnt-dead-but-you-need-to-act-smarter-and-5-easy-ways-to-do-so/

SEO success can be proven by numbers and statistics. All of them are missing on this post.

Yes I want people to be open. But I dont want advices that are outdated and can ruin a business in an instance.

Sorry for my poor English but I am German :p
Anonymous

I guess one positive to come from this is a list of “what not to do”

Really expected more from Mixergy rather than promoting these techniques. I appreciate you’re not endorsing them but to the layman this is just another how-to article and in essence if they follow these techniques it could likely result in more harm than good.Liam
Mike

This is an answer to all the people who are “shocked” by Brian’s SEO advice. I just can say, sorry, guys, Brian just describes how the world, how effective SEO, works. If you want to rank on the first page for a highly competitive search term, then Brian’s steps are the only the way to go and are followed by the vast majority of high ranking websites.

Just to give you an example:

1. Use a clean browser, or delete your cache, log out of all google services, and go to google.de (German google)
2. Search for a highly, easily to monetize keyword, such as “private krankenversicherung” (private health insurance) or “kfz versicherung” (car insurance).
3. Write down all links to price comparison sites (i.e. sans wiki, genuine insurance companies etc.). For the “private krankenversicherung” keyword this gives us 4 links.
4. Go to majesticseo (Brian recommended this site) and sign up for a free account.
5. Now search for information about the 4 links you got in the previous step (type in the exact link from the serp, not only the domain).
6. Pay attention to the right chart about the backlink history (click on it). Do you see the huge spikes in the number of found backlinks? Does that look natural to you? Is that organic link building? – What do the SEO experts say?
7. Pay attention to 1. the websites where the backlinks were found (often english blog sites, which contain in the article the link to the German insurance comparison site) and 2. the anchor text. Does that look like organic, quality, link building? – What do the SEO experts say?

Now a couple of questions to the white-hat SEO experts:

1. If Brian’s advice is such a bad SEO tactic, why do the websites manage to rank on the first page in google (see our example)?
2. Why do only those websites (in our example) rank on the first page that use so-called black-hat-looking SEO?
3. What do you think, would it be possible to rank on the first page in google for a highly competitive term (see our example) without black-hat SEO?
4. If you get easily banned in google/get down-ranked with these techniques, why are the sites in our example still on page 1 (page 2, 3 etc is also full of websites with “non-organic” backlink profiles)?

Cheers

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