My Journey to the Top Search Engine Ranking on Google

If you're curious what it takes to get the top search engine ranking on Google then you need to read this article!

I'm going to tell you why I'm doing this, how you can help make it happen and what I'm going to do to ensure it happens.

By the end of this journey we should all know what it takes to rank in that #1 spot on Google.

Why Am I Doing This?

Well, as I've been writing more and more internet marketing articles on this site it is evident that traffic is the hot topic that everyone wants to know more about. HubPages got hit hard with the new algorithm changes so it makes a lot of sense that people are scrambling for new ways to get traffic. So I thought to myself, "How can I show people the best way to get the #1 spot on Google for their keyword?"

And this article is the answer to that question. A lot of people may not think it's possible, with HubPages to rank that high, especially with a new article. But I don't believe that, I don't want to believe that and I don't want you to believe that. I want to show you exactly how I reached that number one spot so that we all can achieve it. If not just realize that it is still possible.

Yes, this is an experiment but I will not quit until I hit that number one spot for my keyword at least for a split second. And hopefully I remember to take a screenshot as proof and we can close the chapter in the book of doubt about ranking high with HubPages. My keyword phrase that I will be targeting is "top search engine ranking" so that's the phrase I want to rank number one for. And I want to rank in that spot as a broad search term; no quotes or brackets. Yeah, it's a big challenge but you're going to help me get there.

I know that there are a lot of you on here that are good at SEO, backlinking and have achieved that top search engine ranking on Google at one point or another. So I'm not going to go at this alone. I've seen how you all have commented my other articles that I recently posted about traffic. You have swarmed them with comments so that the comment section is almost three times as long as the article itself!

So you're actively giving me your input, even if it is just a thank you. But we all have ideas and we all have our different methods for getting traffic. So what if we brainstormed together? Do you think that our collective minds could come up with a winning combination of traffic tactics to ensure a #1 spot on Google? Well, I do! I know we can do it together so I'm not even going to attempt it alone. My backlinking strategy works alright but I know I probably need help to be able to hit that top search engine ranking on Google.

So, how can you help? All you have to do is leave me a suggestion in the comments below as to what you think I should do to boost the search engine ranking for this article that you are reading right now. Let me know what traffic methods and SEO methods you normally use and the ideas will build up in the comment section. Do you see how this is going to help you too? You're going to have a huge resource of ideas in the comments below. But you're not just going to have ideas because I'm going to put one idea into play each day.

What I'm going to do is check the comments on this page once a day and find a good traffic method that I think I can quickly do before I post an update for the day. So keep that in mind when you leave a comment; don't suggest something that will take me a month to do or cost me a couple hundred bucks. When I find a suggestion I like, I will approve that comment and then I will carry out what they suggested for this article. To start out I am going to use this >> backlinking strategy to get things rolling.

And then I will post a new article that targets a different keyword as an update to let you know how things are going. I'll start out by telling you what I did that day to help boost the ranking for this article. I'll even mention if I made any tweaks to the idea. Then I'll get right into what matters the most; where I am ranking for my keyword. I will manually look at the first 5 pages of Google to see if I've broken that barrier yet.

I'm even going to add this article as a channel in my Google Adsense account to see how well it performs. So I'll let you know each day how it performed the day before in terms of overall money earned. I'll also let you know how much traffic this article got in the past 24 hours, the top 3 sites that are bringing in the traffic and the top 3 keywords that are bringing people to this article. The first two items can easily be found by looking at the stats for this article but the last thing I'll have to check Google Analytics to see what entrance keywords are bringing this article traffic. And then I'll link each new article below so you can come back here and go through the methods I used as if this page is the table of contents.

These methods that I carry out WILL be proven to help anyone achieve the top search engine ranking in Google. So leave your search engine rank boosting ideas in the comments below and let's crush this goal in record time! Now we're firing on all cylinders!

Well, I gave it three weeks to let this article marinate in the link juice to see if it would climb up in rankings. So let's take a look and see what's happened so far. I just recently switched over to a subdomain on here, 8 days ago, so that will have to settle in too. But, in theory, that is supposed to help my ranking on HubPages.

First, let's look and see if the old URL is still ranking in any search engines for the keyword I targeted. Alright good, Bing is the only search engine that has yet to de-index it. Funny that it's sitting way down at 93 though. Now let's check the new subdomain URL and see where we're really at. HA... wonderful! It's not in the top 100 on any of the search engines for my keyword... I think I need to wait a little until everything switches over and sits for a while. Bad timing I guess.

Looking at the stats now, the Google ads only got 24 impressions so far in July, so traffic is down even though this is a highly rated article. Yep, only about 60 views for the month, with HubPages being the top source. My own hubs are of course bringing me traffic, Info Pirate brought me a hit, Google got me a couple and PhilPlasma on here also got me a hit. But there are no specific keywords bringing me traffic from Google... at least none that are listed.

I think what I'll do is wait another 2 weeks and see how well the subdomains settle in. This may or may not have been a failed experiment... only time will tell!

And NO top search engine ranking! I have given the subdomain a bit of time to settle and it settled itself right out of the top search results in all 3 major search engines.

So, does this mean that the linking strategies above don't work? NO! It means that...

1. I may have picked a keyword to rank for that was a lot harder than it seemed.
2. I probably shouldn't have put Google in my title because I'm sure they don't like people trying to cheat the system, which is kind of what we all do when we try to boost our rankings ourselves.
3. I probably should have done this after the subdomain switch to see the real power, but I didn't know there was going to be a switch.
4. And it just takes a little bit more work than what I put in... and people need to keep coming back for more!

So it was an experiment, without an achieved result other than a lesson learned. It's not easy to get to the top, it takes time and backlinking helps but you can't be the only one doing it!

I am ranked number 73 on Google for this keyword, which puts me on page 8 of Google. FINALLY! It took a while and traffic has been surging on HubPages lately so I thought I'd check and sure enough I have broke into the top 100 on Google. I'll have to check back from time to time to see if it jumps any higher.

I am ranked number 60 on Google for the keyword I targeted which means I'm on the very bottom of page 6! It's happening folks... and all it took was time. It will be a slow climb up, and I'm sure it will slow down as I reach page one, but the linking method I outlined above really does work when you focus on targeting an easy keyword to rank for. I'll give updates when I think about checking my rankings again.

I'm going to go back to all the places that I submitted links and update so that they...

1. Are no longer linked to the old HubPage link (that redirect drains link juice)
2. Contain no referral code in the link (that redirect also drains link juice)

And then we shall see what happens in terms of where this page ranks in the future.

Keep your eyes peeled!

Well, that was fast!

I checked to see where I was ranked after switching my links around, so that I got the full strength link juice, and this article is now ranked #23 on Google!

That means that within days of changing my links over, I'm at the top of page three.

So, if you really want to get your rankings back up there, then do this:

• Change any and all links you can over to the new subdomain links
• Stop using the referral code so much when you're doing linking

Yahoo and Bing haven't caught onto the link edits yet, but things are looking good! I'll check this again maybe in a month.