Ranking #1 in Google: A Four-Pillar SEO Blueprint
Recent HS research shows that 97% of web pages get zero organic search traffic from Google. So what does the top 3% do differently? That's what you're going to learn right now. I'll show you a proven four-pillar SEO blueprint to help you rank number one in Google. For example, this page grew by 214% in only 30 days using this blueprint. Then, we used it again to grow this website's organic traffic by 300%.
If you're new here, I'm Gotch, and for over a decade, I've led hundreds of successful SEO campaigns in the most competitive industries, such as legal, health, and SaaS. I'm also the founder of the number one SEO training program, Gotch SEO Academy, author of The SEO Entrepreneur, and co-founder of Rankability.
So, let's begin with pillar number one: exploit your SEO competitors.
Pillar 1: Exploit Your SEO Competitors
Search your keyword on Google and then open up the top five competitors. Next, create a Google Sheet because we'll identify the competitors' strengths and weaknesses.
The first step is to study their on-page SEO. While on the competitor's page, click on the Detailed Chrome extension. Copy the title and meta description, and add it to the Google Sheet. Then, click on the headings tab, copy the H1 text, and add it to the Google Sheet as well. Then, go to the page, copy the first official paragraph, and add it to the Google Sheet.
The last step is to run the keyword through Rankability's Content Optimizer. Click on the competitors tab, copy the Rankability score, and add it to the sheet. The Rankability score simply measures a page's relevance and topic coverage compared to the top competitors for that keyword. Then, just repeat this process for the rest of the top five competitors, and do it for your target URL if you have one. If you're not ranking in the top 100, you can still collect your Rankability score by entering your URL on the competitors tab.
Once you have all the data, it's time to analyze. Let's start with the URL column. In this example, only one competitor uses the best URL structure, which includes the whole keyword phrase. The other four competitors are missing "Chicago" in the structure. Imagine if we removed the root domain and you had to figure out what the page was about without looking at the content. That's what you're forcing Google to try to figure out. Google is good at understanding relevance, but it's far from perfect. You need to treat the algorithms like a one-year-old: spoon-feed it the inputs it needs to fully understand your page's content, and it begins with the URL.
Next, look at the title tag. Notice that the top three competitors have the exact match phrase in the title. This is perfect. Number four and number five have the keywords mixed in, but it doesn't explicitly state the exact match keyword phrase. Our example page doesn't include "lawyer" or "Chicago" in the title. They could climb at least 25 spots in the rankings by simply changing their title tag. This isn't theory. Google's leaked documents have a feature called "title match score," which measures how well the title matches the keyword.
Now, moving on to the meta description, which is a tiny factor, but there are a few things to note here. First, simply having a meta description and including the primary phrase might be a tiny ranking factor. Secondly, I recommend not including your phone number in the title or the meta description. Now, this might seem counterintuitive because the goal is to drive leads. But from an SEO perspective, you want searchers to actually click through on your result because organic CTR is a proven ranking factor. Remember that your title and meta description aren't visible to users on your website, but appear in Google search results.
The H1 tag, on the other hand, is what users can see, and it's essential for SEO. The top three competitors in this example are doing it correctly, but the others are not. Next, you should include the primary keyword phrase in the first paragraph. Once again, the top-ranking result is doing this incredibly well.
Last, but definitely not least, you need to measure topic coverage for your page. The top two competitors have the most relevant and comprehensive pages for this target keyword. I'll cover how to do this later in the video.
At this point, we haven't even studied the pages themselves, but it's already clear how to win by simply exploiting the competitors' on-page SEO weaknesses. But now that we have the basics covered, it's time to identify our angles of differentiation.
Pillar 2: Angles of Differentiation
I analyzed the top 10 for this keyword and found multiple angles for winning:
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Match the intent 100% perfectly. If someone is searching for "motorcycle accident attorney," they, or someone they know, has likely been in an accident. That means the goal of this page is to get the searcher to know, like, and trust the lawyer. That's accomplished by creating bottom-of-the-funnel or conversion-focused content like testimonials, case studies, unique selling propositions, and any other information that helps the prospect make an educated decision. What shouldn't be on this page is safety tips for bikers. This type of content is fine for a blog post, but it doesn't match the intent of the keyword phrase. In other words, that type of content doesn't help this person get closer to their goal of hiring a competent lawyer and getting a sizable settlement.
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Crush the competition with better content design. Having words just to have words doesn't help SEO or conversion rate optimization. Instead, you should scrutinize every page element, section, and the copywriting. Ask one simple question: "Does this help the prospect get closer to becoming a lead?" I'll show you how to design your content using real-life examples later in the video.
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Install engagement triggers. It's now proven that Google uses user signals as one variable to determine rankings. There are ways to ethically increase engagement on your page while helping users achieve their goals. In this example, we could add an extremely well-produced video that gets users to click, watch, and increase their dwell time on the page. We could also create and embed a micro-calculator specifically for motorcycle accidents on this page. For example, "How much is your motorcycle accident case worth?" A simple calculator embedded on this page will massively increase the volume of user interaction on the page itself.
At this point, we know how to differentiate from our competitors. Now it's time for pillar number two: feed the machine.
Pillar 3: Feed the Machine (NLP)
NLP, or natural language processing, is the technology used by Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other tech giants to understand human language. We can use it in the context of SEO to create insanely relevant pages that Google's algorithms love. Here's how it works:
Simply enter a keyword into Rankability, and the tool scrapes the content from the top competitors and uses NLP to extract topics from that content. As a result, the NLP recommendations are simply what your top competitors cover in their pages, and you want to cover the same topics but with better quality, depth, and differentiation. The first step is to build an effective outline. Go back into Rankability, copy the NLP keywords, open ChatGPT, and use the following prompt (prompt not provided in transcript).
Now we'll take this outline to the next level. Copy the law firm's about page and feed that back into ChatGPT to revise the outline. Then, just paste the outline back into Rankability. Now, add a human touch to the outline.
Once you're confident, it's time for pillar number three: create an addictive page.
Pillar 4: Create an Addictive Page
This begins with copywriting. But there's a dilemma: should you use AI or a human to write this content? I analyzed the top five results for "Chicago motorcycle accident lawyer," and three of five use human-written content, including the number one result, who you should try to dethrone. So, in this case, I would go with human-written content.
Go back to Rankability, click "Share," enable the shared link, copy it, and open it up. This link will allow the copywriter to see the content brief, and they'll be able to write the content within the Content Optimizer without even needing an account. Advise your copywriter to hit the low end of the word count target, as this will force them to create lean and compelling copy. They should also aim for the optimal Rankability score, ensuring your page is more relevant than the top competitors. Most importantly, tell your copywriter not to worry about how often they mention a specific topic. Instead, focus on covering each topic entirely. Now that may take a sentence or an entire paragraph, but focus on topic coverage, not keyword stuffing.
Once the copy is ready and fully optimized, it's time to design your content. An effective lead generation page should really be designed like a sales page, and that
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