# Getting to the 1st page on google.



## AmericanVeteranPaint (Nov 29, 2016)

I built my own website using Wix. The speed is good now and there are 15 keywords that I have in there I am focusing on.

Anyone want to give pointers as I am very new to this. Just trying to rank on the first page of google. I am working the backlinks and ranking in the 50s on a few keywords but I have just started and want to tune this a bit.

What can I improve on with the website?

Should I do a blog and/or videos that backlink?

Will paying for google adwords help my website gain traffic and push it to the first page of google?

www.americanveteranpainters.com


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## Rbriggs82 (Jul 9, 2012)

There's no exact science behind it and depending on your market you may never rank no matter what you do. It takes a lot of time (as in years) to rank and sometimes it seems like just luck. 

Adwords will get you to the top but you're gonna pay for it. The best advice I can give is to create quality content, aim for long tail keywords, and go after easier things to rank for like kitchen cabinet painting, popcorn removal, garage floor coatings, wallpaper removal, ect. That kind of stuff is way easier to rank for than just painter. 

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk


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## AmericanVeteranPaint (Nov 29, 2016)

Rbriggs82 said:


> There's no exact science behind it and depending on your market you may never rank no matter what you do. It takes a lot of time (as in years) to rank and sometimes it seems like just luck.
> 
> Adwords will get you to the top but you're gonna pay for it. The best advice I can give is to create quality content, aim for long tail keywords, and go after easier things to rank for like kitchen cabinet painting, popcorn removal, garage floor coatings, wallpaper removal, ect. That kind of stuff is way easier to rank for than just painter.
> 
> Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk


Well you are doing well as far as ranks go! Mind if I take notes and mirror a few things? Also, how long have you been working on SEO to rank where you are?


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## Rbriggs82 (Jul 9, 2012)

AmericanVeteranPaint said:


> Well you are doing well as far as ranks go! Mind if I take notes and mirror a few things? Also, how long have you been working on SEO to rank where you are?


Sure go for it, obviously write your own content and pictures but feel free to use whatever you'd like. 

I had a leg up because I've had the website since the beginning of the internet which really helps. But I didn't really start getting serious about it until five or six years ago. Although, I must admit that I've been slacking for the last year or so. 

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk


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## mles (Dec 8, 2017)

Looks like you are missing H1 tags on your site, those are very important. Make sure you include keywords in those


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## stl911 (Jul 16, 2014)

I built my website in Oct last year and worked on SEO myself. here is my 2 cents about SEO for painters. 

first, you need to understand google's intention is to help people find useful information online. if your site has more information than the others most likely yours will be rank higher.

second, the purpose of website is to build trust for potential customers as your returning customers never bother to look at your site.

with my experience, i have found people are busy. the longest time people stay on my site is about 2 to 3 minutes. how your site gain their trust in this 2 mins is the key. 

google uses bounce rate to measure this. for instance, if people enter your site and stay only for 2 second, your bounce rate is 2 second, however, if people enter your competitors' website but they stay on their sites for 2 minutes, google know your competitors's website has better bounce rate, it means they have more useful information than yours, so google rank their sites higher than yours. 

with this two points in mind, you need to think how you optimize your website to gain the trust and to make them stay longer on your site. the longer they stay, the more chance they pick up the phone and the more change google rank you higher

third, narrow down your niche. if you are in bigger market and focus on what you are really good at for easy ranking. if you are enjoy and good at residential repaint, focus on that only to optimize your website, covering two many stuff will loose the focus easily. 

you mentioned you cover 15 keywords, if you cover only one keyword it will be easy to repeat that keyword multiple times naturally on your site. once you are ranked higher for one keyword, it will be easy to do the rest. 

for instance, i started on my own 4 years ago, i live in the bigger market and i am small and growing, the bigger guy does not go the high rise condo market, so i optimize my website for this condo market and i was on page 1 of google once and now am steady on page 2 if you search condo painters toronto

i also tell google displaying my website for Canada only by specifying the country location on google webmaster tool. i am not sure if it helps with SEO but I think it will be easy for google. 

fourth, target long keywords, if your site is new, it is very hard to rank high for "location painters" this type of keywords because your site does not establish authority on google. however, long keywords is very easy to rank. So, write blogs to cover those long keywords. even though long keywords have less traffic volume, it still gives you the chance to be exposed

fifth, learn from your competitors. enter your competitors' website into google keyword planner and see what keywords their website show up. 

also, do this two commands on your browser "site:www.yourcompetitorweb.com" and "cache:www.yourcompetitorweb.com" to see how many pages their sites are indexed by google and see how google read their website (click "text-only" with cache command). 

i checked your website with this two commands, your site is already indexed by google, which is a good thing, however, your seo title missing location keyword. 

"American Veteran Painting: Painting Contractors & House Painters"

i will change it to " location Painting Contractors & House Painters | American Veteran Painting: "

also, the meta description is missing location keyword

"American Veteran Painting is the preferred local house painter for any interior or exterior painting needs. Call 813-520-6096 for a consultation today!"

I will change it to 

"American Veteran Painting is the preferred Florida house painter for any interior or exterior painting needs. Call 813-520-6096 for a consultation today!"

adding location will make google easy to find you otherwise you are competing with others globally. 

I also see your site has reviews, which is good to build trust. however, i will move them to google reviews. i am not sure if google review can help with SEO but i got feedback from several customers that they checked my google reviews before picked up the phone

sixth, be social, keep updating your facebook, google plus and Instagram with hashtag to help people find you. i was told by one customer that she found me on Instagram first, then she googled my review before she contacted me

seventh, backlinks are also important, you can check your competitors' website with MOZ opensiteexplor to see where they build their backlinks so that you follow them to build yours if possible. but focus on your onsite SEOs first then move on to the backlinks.

at the end, i am also running google adwards. but it does not help you with ranking. 

hope my 2 cents helps


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## AkronPainters (Jan 20, 2017)

stl911 said:


> I built my website in Oct last year and worked on SEO myself. here is my 2 cents about SEO for painters.
> 
> first, you need to understand google's intention is to help people find useful information online. if your site has more information than the others most likely yours will be rank higher.
> 
> ...




His two cents would cost you hundreds if not thousands in consulting expenses to be told the same thing :vs_laugh::vs_laugh::vs_laugh:


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## SunHouseProperties (Feb 19, 2015)

This was appreciated, thanks for your 2 cents , Im sure that investment will pay out BIG


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