"How can I be #1 on Google?"

One question that we hear very often from our customers is, " How can I be #1 on Google? "  Perhaps you have been told by a friend, business associate or vendor that they can help your website achieve top rankings on Google.  The truth of the matter is yes, you can be #1 on Google however that is an over-simplification. 

Click on this link and Google will open in a new window.  Type in a term that you think your customers would look for.  Chances are they aren't necessarily going to search on your business name, they may not even know about your business yet.  Instead they will search on a term that describes your business so, do a search on such a term.  

The Google results for that search are divided into 3 areas on the page.  Sponsored results are at the top and right side of the page and the "organic"/Google results are on the main body of the page.

The listings on the top and right side (sponsored results) are companies that use the Google adwords http://adwords.google.com tool to create and link paid ads to their website.  When a prospective vendor promises that they can make your website number one on Google, the only way they can make that promise is to configure your website with the Google adwords tool.  Adwords is just a tool.  You can do a very basic setup in about 20 minutes or you can invest in real strategy and research by spending hundreds of hours.  With adwords you are able to pick the keyword terms where your ads will appear, the text of the ad that will be displayed and oh, yes, the amount you want to spend when visitors click on your Google ad.  You will be able to setup your credit card which Google will charge automatically, to keep pace with your budget.  Keyword terms that are in low-demand may cost as little as $ .10 per click while keyword terms that are in high demand can fetch $20 per click and some much more.  Advertisers are willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars each month for this Google service - the smart advertisers are able to study the results of this spending to determine which keywords and ads may provide them with the highest return on advertising investment.  If you want to use the Google adwords tool, be prepared to invest substantial time to really learn the in's and out's of the system.  It is an excellent tool that people make a specialized career out of. 

For most small businesses, if you are not yet at the point where your website is a key element of your business process, your time may be best spent initially in developing helpful and unique content on your website.  By developing great information for your customers on your website, your site will become a useful resource for your customers and will also be indexed by search engines like Google.  As your rich and unique content is indexed by Google, some of the key terms that you use in your website may begin to appear in the organic results in the main body of the search results.  Even if they don't appear on the first page of Google results they may appear in the following pages. 

Although there are no direct out-of-pocket costs to Google for website listings that appear in the organic results, they are hardly "free".  You will have spent many hours thinking through the issues that are important to your customers, writing unique and pertinent information about these issues and apply them to your website.