Getting into Google’s good books: Top 10 tips to get on the first page of Google

Written By Sophie Tutt

When starting my own pet portrait business, there was so much to learn and there still is. One important topic that I have put a lot of energy into researching and implementing in my business is having a high ranking website. I thought I would share what I have learnt so far.

At the moment most of my clients find me on Instagram, but I want to increase my ranking on Google so that when people search for “pet portraits,” I’m on the first page. That’s a huge challenge as the pet portrait business is highly competitive and it will, therefore, require doing a lot of what’s known as “search engine optimisation” or SEO. This is basically just writing and designing your website so that Google will recommend it to people when they search for relevant content. 

I’ve needed lots of help with this so I thought it might be interesting to share some of the non-arty things that need to be done to help Google get to know and recommend my new art business’ website SophieEllaFineArt.com to it’s searchers. So here are my 10 tips to get into Google’s good-books.

1) Creating good pet portrait related content

People like to read informative, relevant, and accessible content, so this is the sort of content that Google wants to point people to. I’ve designed my website, therefore, to look professional and give visitors easy access to all the information they are looking for. Nothing particularly technical about that so far.

2) Creating more high quality content

While all of the content on my site needs to be of really good quality, Google also likes quantity. I am continually developing my website, therefore, by adding pages and posting blogs in order to increase the value of the website to my visitors. As you build up a body of helpful reliable information related to your site’s main focus (in my case “pet portraits”), Google recognises your site as more authoritative and points more people to it.  

3) Using keywords in your content

If people visiting my site like it, then it’s likely that Google will also be impressed. There are, however, a number of things you can do to help Google understand your site and so be more likely to point more people to it. Making sure you include the right “keywords” is really important for this. Keywords are just words and phrases like “pet portraits” or “gifts for dog owners in Norfolk” that people might be typing into Google. The latter is called a “long tail keyword.” It’s longer and more specific which makes it easier for new websites like mine to get ranked for it on Google, since competition for the shorter ones can be much higher. 

4) Clear titles and text

Google likes clear understandable headings with the main one on each page being the most important. It should include your keywords to help Google know what the page is all about and when to recommend it to searchers. The title for this post was originally “Top 10 tips to get into Google’s good books” but that may not have given Google a clear idea of what this article was about so, as you can see above, I decided to spell it out a bit more. While I don’t really need lots of SEO related referrals (that’s not the focus of my site), maybe you came here looking for SEO information but you also have a pet you are really fond of. Well, do get in contact as I’d love to draw it for you!

Using the keywords in other text on the site is also helpful of course, but not so much that it sacrifices it’s readability for people. Filling out whole paragraphs with nothing but the words “pet portraits” looks unprofessional and no longer fools Google anyway.

5) Adding image descriptions

Adding text meta descriptions to images (which are not normally displayed on screen) is also a good idea since, as far as I know, Google does not “look at” the pictures. It may well do so in the future as AI becomes more efficient, but for now it’s good to describe the images in words. It will also help visually impaired people access your site.    

6) Accessible and connected content 

Organising pages well so that the most important are within a few obvious clicks helps Google, as well as people, access the information on your site. Meaningful internal links between pages can also help people and search engines alike understand the relationships between different parts of your content. Whenever adding new content, it’s always good to see where it goes and how it links to everything else. Where relevant, linking to external websites helps Google and people see how your content is related to other sites.  

7) Building backlinks

A backlink is a link to your website from another website and they act a bit like a vote of confidence in your content. If another site thinks yours is worth pointing people to, then perhaps there is something there that others might want to see too, which means Google is more likely to rank it higher. The more backlinks you have, the greater your “domain authority.” It’s not quite that simple, though, as backlinks from domains with a higher domain authority count more. It may also help if the backlinks are from relevant sites, but I’m not sure if and how that is factored in.

So far, with lots of work over many months, my domain authority is kind of ok for a pet portrait site but I’d love it to be higher. It’s good to keep reaching out to other related sites with a high domain authority looking for more quality backlinks. Hopefully, though, as my site grows, the backlinks will increasingly be obtained naturally as people find and like my content.

8) Getting to know Google console & co.

I never knew this existed but there is something called “Google console.” You can use it to nudge Google to take a look at your website or individual pages. It can also help you see when your site is showing up in various keyword searches. Here are some other helpful free tools:

9) Good use of videos 

I’ve not added many videos to my site yet but these help deliver content in an engaging way, so Google likes them too. The longer someone stays on a page the more relevant and interesting Google estimates its content to be. I post quite a lot of time-lapse work-in-progress (WIP) videos to my Instagram and Facebook accounts, and I’ve put some of those on my site, but I’d like to add more videos to my website in the future.  

10) Advertising my website

I’m told it can take months, if not years to rise up through the Google rankings, but there are a few other ways to drive traffic to your site that are a bit more immediate. Many people come to mine from my social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. My site is also on my business cards of course, and I’m trying to put it on more of the images I post online. There is, though, one more option to get your site known if you are prepared to pay. Advertising, either online or in printed publications, could be a good way to let more people know about my pet portrait business. I’ve not needed to do that yet as my waiting list is still growing, so hopefully I have a bit more time for Google to get to know me better.     

Conclusion

After six months of hard work on all the above, I am now appearing on the first page of Google for some keywords such as “pet portrait prices,” which is great but so far I don’t get a mention for the prized “pet portraits” keyword. I’m not even on page 20 of Google’s results for that :-(. 

All this might not seem that related to drawing pet portraits but it’s something new businesses like mine have to work hard at in launching and developing their online presence. I can’t say it’s paying off much at the moment though. The vast majority of my traffic still comes from Instagram, which I am very grateful for, but hopefully in a few years time, my website will begin to appear on the coveted first page of Google searches for “pet portraits.”   

Sophie Tutt
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