Somewhere deep inside Google’s vaults is a very tired machine sorting out who deserves to be on page one. It doesn’t drink tea. It doesn’t care about your logo. And it certainly doesn’t care that you spent two weeks choosing between “sky blue” and “cornflower” for your website background.
It looks at the facts. Who’s saying what? Who’s saying it clearly? And who’s saying it in a way that helps people find answers without having to wade through waffle and marketing gibberish?
And that, dear reader, is how you beat the system without buying your way in. You just give it what it wants. No sorcery. No secret handshake. Just proper pages that make sense to people and machines.
The Truth About Page One
Page one is not a reward for trying. It’s not a school certificate for turning up. It’s a prize for being useful. As an experienced SEO consultant in London, I have learned several things.
Google ranks things based on:
- Relevance
- Trust
- Clarity
- Speed
- And whether your website falls apart on a mobile phone
It’s a bit like a pub quiz. You don’t win by being the loudest. You win by getting the right answer, quickly, without annoying the landlord.
Step One: Pick the Right Words
If you want to show up, you have to know what people are actually typing into that little search box.
Not what you think they should be typing. What they’re actually searching.
So if you run a bakery in Norwich, don’t try to rank for “world-class artisan pastries” unless your customers are typing that in. They’re probably searching for:
- “cake shop Norwich”
- “birthday cakes near me”
- “best sausage roll Norwich”
Start small. Start specific.
Use free tools like:
- Google’s autocomplete suggestions
- “People also ask” boxes
- AnswerThePublic
- Your own common sense
Step Two: Write Stuff People Want to Read
This shouldn’t need saying, but here we are.
Don’t fill your site with vague fluff about “delivering excellence” or “solutions that matter.” That tells no one anything. Instead, write useful pages that answer real questions.
A few ideas:
- A clear service page for every thing you offer
- A blog answering common questions (“How much does X cost?” is always a good one)
- A local area SEO page if you work in more than one place
- An FAQ page that isn’t just there for decoration
Write like you’d speak to someone in the shop. Plain English. No need to pretend you’re writing an academic paper for the Queen.
Step Three: Tidy Your Site (Google Hates Clutter)
If your homepage takes longer to load than it does to boil a kettle, you’ve already lost.
Fix the basics:
- Make sure your pages load quickly
- Check your site works on a phone
- Use headings (one H1 per page, then H2s and H3s where needed)
- Add clear page titles and meta descriptions (that’s the bit that shows in Google results)
- Make sure people can find things – don’t hide your contact info under seventeen clicks
And please, for the love of clarity, don’t autoplay a video the moment someone arrives. That’s not SEO. That’s punishment.
Step Four: Link Things Together (Like Breadcrumbs for Robots)
Google follows links like a mouse follows cheese.
So help it out. Link your blog posts to your service pages. Link your location pages to each other. Create little paths between the bits of your site so it knows what leads where.
And get other sites to link to you too – but only the real ones. A local business directory. A genuine blog. Someone who liked your work and said so on their website.
Don’t fall for the “1,000 links for £20” trap. That’s not good SEO. That’s buying fake friends.
Step Five: Be Consistent and Patient
This isn’t a magic trick. It’s gardening. You plant the right seeds. You water them. You don’t dig them up every day to see if they’ve grown.
Keep your site fresh. Add a new blog now and then. Update old content. Make sure your business details are the same everywhere – your website, Google profile, Facebook, directories.
And most of all: stick at it.
Ranking on Google takes time. But if you’ve done it right, it’ll stick longer than any paid ad ever will.
And That’s the Secret (Spoiler: There Isn’t One)
Getting on page one without paying is not about tricking Google. It’s about giving it no excuse to ignore you.
- Build a site that works.
- Write like a human.
- Answer real questions.
- Use the words people search for.
- Keep things tidy.
- Link things properly.
And don’t vanish once you’ve done it.
That’s it.
