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Is the website content enough to rank on 1st page with Google?

by FKY
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Dear Warriors,

I would like to ask an experienced SEO specialists around here what are the chances that your the website will get ranked on the 1st page with Google without any backlinks only with the on-site optimisation done for fairly competitive keywords (500 000+ websites found on google for specific keyword).

The reason why I'm asking is because we had an SEO company doing the optimisation for us but they link building for the period of 6 months resorted to only about 5 no follow backlinks. When I complained about that I've been told that they aren't so important because they do so good on-site optimisation that it will be enough to start ranking high on Google.

Could you please share your opinions about that?

Thank you
#1st #content #google #page #rank #website
  • Profile picture of the author brchap
    On-page SEO is important. Subject relevance is very important, as Google's #1 goal is to provide the best-suited results for a user's query.

    But, with that being said, there are many other factors that constitute the ranking algorithm, many of which are unknown. Adding fresh, highly-optimized content on a regular basis will help... as Google loves fresh content. Also, a site's age is a key factor, too.

    But, I have seen brand new one-page sites outrank older sites with thousands of pages. Through LOTS of experimentation and testing, we have found that obtaining backlinks from both quality sources and a quantity of sources is what works best for moving a site to the top of the SERPs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ken Durham
    You can match the top competitors in on-site SEO. Look at the page and copy their "method" (title style, keyword density, keyword placement, LSI, etc...)
    So what is left to distinguish your equally optimized sites from the rest?
    Recognition.....a link is a vote for recognition and authority. So yes, backlinks matter.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
    With all due respect, I think you hired the wrong company. I have had sites rank accidently on page one, even #1 for 2 word keyword phrases. SEO work was not done on either word or page, but was done for other words one other pages. Not sure if that is related or not. I would say it would have to be darn good content, and relatively obscure words or long tail phrases to rank on content alone. As always, depends on the competition.
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  • Profile picture of the author Muhammad Mustafa
    As said above, mostly depend on the competition, but I doubt you'll go through without any link building activity, even for a fair keyword competition, unless you compete in very very un-competed phrase which left you with nothing! lastly, take in mind that ranking is based in 200+ factors, so, check your current rank for these keywords, it better tells than anything or anyone here, if you are in the top, these guys knows their ****, otherwise, cancel the contract they know no-****! just my 2 cents...
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    • Profile picture of the author AustinDigital
      Sounds like they aren't really doing what you hired them to do...

      Ranking on the first page iwth just content is certainly possible, it just depends on competition, quality of content, and onpage seo. I would suggest you contact the company you're working with a be a bit more stern in your response to them.
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  • Profile picture of the author OnlineMarketingSys
    Onpage optimisation is only one part of a complete SEO plan and depending on your keywords competitions mainly it will determine if that alone will help you rank on page one of google.

    But really the important question is where are you ranked and what work are they putting into your site? To be brutally honest, I run across clients like your company all the time at our SEO company. Who basically are getting ripped off to the tune of $1,000+ a month by a SEO company that is doing absolutely nothing and just collecting the money.

    So it really depends, are they writing a lot of relevent SEO keyword optomised content for your site on a montly basis, where is your site in the Search results, and what are your overall feelings about everything. If you feel like your being taken advantage of, then you probably are. And you should certainly sit down with the SEO company or part ways.
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    The sad truth is that you can't rank on top of the Google for a competitive keyword using only great content and On Page Optimization. I am not saying that is not important, I am simply saying the link building is a must.

    I sure loved the answer that company gave you... I would not be doing business with them again, but that's me.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      I wouldn't go as far as to say that you got ripped off. I don't know what terms were agreed upon, nor how much you were paying.

      That being said, I've been doing SEO for quite some time and I completely disagree with those who say that content is king. Content is very meaningful for your visitors and increasing the chance of them returning to your site, buying from you, etc.

      Content means almost nothing for SEO.

      Go to Google right now and search for "click here", no quotes.

      The first page on the listings (out of 3,950,000,000) is Adobe's page to download their rankings. Nowhere on their site do the words "click here" appear. They are not "optimized" for the words click here. Nope. They just have a ton of links coming into that page with the anchor text of "click here" or some variation of it.

      On-site optimization is important, but not nearly as important as backlinks, IMO.
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  • Profile picture of the author alcymart
    It all depends on how competitive your keyword is. Lets presume you optimized your page Big time for just 1 keyword. If there is barely any competition, Top 10 will be fairly easy, however if it's competitive, you may end up 300th, and only backlinks and social networks can push you up the ranks so backlinks matter mostly if you have high competition for the keyword you are using.

    Don't forget the Quality of the backlinks. Here is a page explaining PR and backlink value. PageRank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Take care,
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  • Profile picture of the author pjman
    They say content is king, but that is bull. I have two or three pages that are honestly 10 x better than any competitor. 3 times the content and much more relevant. Humans look at it and say unbelievable, the competition doesn't compare.

    But google thinks I'm the 8th best on the web because my competitors have been around for 9 years and have a huge head start in backlinks. I'm doing it for 4, but tons better.

    I see this is every niche. I see competitors that kill my stuff, but I started backlinking years before them, so they are in the dust. Google still doesn't get that right.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryu
    Great content isn't enough. Google has to think your website is important and the only way to do that is by getting relevant back links to your site.

    "Content isn't King, Backlinks are"
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    • Profile picture of the author FKY
      Many thanks for all your contributions.

      I've been interested in the SEO for some time in the past and present and
      I personally couldn't agree more with all the statemens above.

      That's why after 6-7 months of campaign running without any tangible results I decided to kiss our SEO company good bye. Not saying that I did approach them few times before and did bring to their attention the importance of a link building and the fact that it hasn't been done properly. I was assured that they will improve their efforts if it comes to that but nothing could be further from the truth. Even a content was provided from our side and they just made a certain modifications for SEO purposes. From 10 keywords chosen by us we saw a real progress only with one keyword. And yet they don't hesitate to contact us back few months later asking for a cancelation fee worth of 3 monthly payments because we canceled contract before 12 months period of the contract expired. Well I don't see the reason why we should keep paying for the work that is not being done properly.

      And the keywords are quite competitive (etc. london massage, london body massage).

      The sad thing is that after the period of 6 months that was just entire waste of money and time I started to do a link buiding by myself. After few months of doing that we could see an amazing progress. And yet the company who was doing an SEO for us doesn't hesitate to make claims now (after few months) that this happened because of they efforts not mine. I do agree that the work they have done helped but it's quite clear that after 6 months without any tangible results it was't enough and something was missing. Backlinks.

      Well I guess we will meet at the court and it will be up to the judge to decide.

      I would like to thank you again as all your contributions here make me feel more confident that it's not me who is being an idiot here. And also it might be a good contribution at the court from experts with experience in an SEO field.

      Many thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author rain21
    according to my knowledge, off page SEO also very important to get a good search engine rank... not just good content
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  • Profile picture of the author eppingvonryan
    I agree with MikeFriedman above...content is nothing in SEO ..... just look around the internet click on those 1st position sites...and what do you get? around thirty percent of those sites look and read like they were put together by a ten year old.....off page SEO is everything!!!
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