How to get my business on top of Google Search: Here’s 5 ways to do it

Being at the top of the Google search rankings is important for increased online visibility, which leads to more site traffic and engagement and ultimately boosts your brand awareness and conversions. That’s why it is vital to master your SEO tactics.

To help move your way up the Google rankings and get your business at the top of the Google search, there are three main things to focus on: usability, authority and relevancy. All of these are key SEO components when it comes to dominating the SERPs. 

These three main factors are a mix of onsite and offsite optimisation, and they will all help Google determine the overall user experience of your website. Google then makes a decision about how high your should rank based on these factors.

At Embryo, we help businesses get to the top of Google every single day via a range of tried and tested SEO tactics. Therefore, we’re very confident that this blog is perfect for people looking to get their business to the top of Google’s search pages.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we would use the following five techniques (plus many more) to get your business to the top of Google, then get in touch. You can call us on 0161 327 2635 or email info@embryo.com.

Without further ado, here are the top 5 SEO tactics that you can use to get your website on top of Google Search.

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5 ways to get your business on top of Google Search

1. Identifying target keywords searched for by users 

If your goal is to appear at the top of Google for the products or services you are offering, then you need to make sure you are identifying the relevant search terms or phrases for your business. These are known as keywords; they are the terms that your potential buyer or user will be searching for in the hope of finding your business.

To identify the relevant keywords your business needs to rank for, you need to carry out some keyword research based on your website’s category pages, products or services. I have outlined how to conduct keyword research in the next section. 

Once you have identified a variation of relevant long and short-tail keywords, you can then embed these into your web pages. There are plenty of different places that you can embed keywords on your site: 

Content: You can add keywords to any copy within your site. They should appear in the very first and last paragraph but also evenly throughout the copy. You need to be aware of keyword stuffing and avoid doing this as Google can deem this technique as spammy, which ultimately reduces your chances of ranking high.

• Page titles: Embed keywords into the title of your web pages; by doing this, you can increase the page’s visibility. Ideally, you should put the most important keyword at the start of the title.
• Meta descriptions: A meta description is a short summary of the content on your webpage. It should aim to inform users about the content of a page, convince users to read the content and provide search engines with enough information so they can ensure relevancy and authority. By including relevant keywords in your meta description, you are attracting users to your page and showing search engines that they should rank you highly. 
• Heading tags: Heading tags are the different HTML elements that identify the various headings and subheadings on a webpage, e.g. H1, H2, H3 and so on. By putting keywords into heading tags, you are helping search engines organise your content and make sure to pop your primary keyword in the H1 heading.
• ALT text: ALT text is a description of an image that helps search engines understand the visual elements of an image. The better a search engine can understand the website content, the better it can determine where your site should rank in the SERPs. They also provide insights to users with visual impairments who may not be able to view an image.

By adding keywords to all of the components outlined above, Google can crawl your web pages and index the pages for the relevant keywords targeted to that page. Therefore, you are more likely to display in the SERPs.

What is keyword research (and why is it important)

Keyword research is the process of identifying and analysing the different search terms that people are entering into search engines. It helps you identify the keywords that you can target confidently, as well as those keywords that are too hard to rank for in your industry. Keyword research is a vital step because it helps you create relevant content that is likely to get in front of the right audience (and you should get more traffic because of it!) 

Keyword research can start with something as simple as a pen and paper. You can simply make a list of the more relevant keywords to your business; aim for around 10 topic buckets that will help you create more specific keywords later on. 

• Top tip: Think of buyer personas and what they might be searching for and what words you would like to rank for.

Once you have your topic clusters, you can create more specific keyword phrases that relate to each cluster. You can even just type a keyword phrase into Google and use the ‘related searches’ feature to help give you more ideas. You can also look at competitor websites and see which keywords they target to inspire you.

When it comes to carrying out your keyword research, there are also plenty of tools that can help you with the process. Everyone uses a different tool when carrying out keyword research, but here are a couple of the favourites:

• AHREFs
• KWFinder
• SEMRUSH
• SERANKING

For example, let’s say you used KWFinder to carry out some relevant keyword research for your business, which was an online ecommerce website which sold “mystery football kits”. You could search for a relevant keyword such as “mystery football shirts for sale”. The results would give you a list of varied keywords around your original main search terms and an average monthly search volume, which, let’s say, would be 5,000. It would then also give us the KD (Keyword Difficulty), which is a score out of 100 on the competitiveness of the industry and how easy it will be to rank in the top SERP positions.

Along with this, it also gives us a bit more insight into the industry with the current top 10 positions for that selected keywords and a trend in search volume over recent years.

2. Create quality content 

You may have heard of the saying ‘content is king’ before, and when it comes to SEO it’s true. There is a massive emphasis on the quality of content you are providing to your user. 

What do we mean by quality content? Content that is considered high quality is well-researched and relevant to the target audience. It should also fulfil the users’ search intent by accurately providing the appropriate knowledge. As well as this, it should also be visually presented clearly and be easy for the reader to follow. Content that is of high authority and filled with expertise is deemed high-quality. Let’s break down the key aspects of quality content for SEO: 

• Relevance to the target audience: Creating content that makes sense and provides appropriate knowledge to your target audience is crucial. It should address the questions your audience needs answers to. After all, if your readers don’t find your content useful, then there is no point in creating it. 
• Well-researched content: Your content needs to be accurate. If you want to showcase expertise and establish authority in your content, you must take the time to research the topic and provide evidence when making claims. The more educated you are about a topic, the more quality content you can create.
• Make your content visually appealing: Of course having the knowledge and expertise is essential but it’s no good if the users/search engines can’t read it. By producing content in a clear writing style with correct formatting and user-friendly navigation, you can be confident that your content is easy for your readers/search engines to digest. 
• Showcase your topical authority: Topical authority is your website’s perceived expertise. Therefore, by being original with your content and standing out because of your expertise, the higher your topical authority will be. The more authoritative your site is, the more likely you are to get your business on the top of Google search. 
• Why is quality content important? When ranking your website, Google looks at each of the page’s content and ranks it based on how helpful it is to the user. Your content needs to educate and help the user along their journey. 

Along with meeting Google guidelines of providing helpful content for the user, it also needs to be optimised for when Google is crawling your webpages. What we mean by this is ensuring that those target keywords match up with the page content. As mentioned before, keywords are important, but they also need to be relevant; avoid keyword stuffing and add keywords where they fit naturally in your content. 

Designating target keywords for each page and making sure it is included in the page title, URL, meta description, heading tag and alt text at least once can all contribute to achieving a higher Google ranking, however, it is important not to go back to those old ways of blackhat SEO and stuff the pages with keywords as we can be penalised for this.

3. Backlink profile and authority

So we’ve spoken about content and that ticks off the relevance part of SEO. As mentioned, Google also monitors your website based on its authority and trust and the higher this is the better your website will appear in the SERPs. One way to improve the authority of your site is to increase the number of ‘good’ backlinks to your site. 

What are backlinks? Backlinks are links from other websites that direct users to your site. They can also be known as inbound links / incoming links. 

Why are backlinks important? Backlinks are a key component of SEO; they act as a signal to search engines that your website is authoritative and trustworthy. Not only that, but backlinks also increase brand awareness. If a user sees your link from another site, they are likely to click on that link and discover your site. A high amount of traffic is another way search engines can determine the credibility of a site.  

What is a backlink profile? This is the number of external links pointing to your website. Essentially what this is doing is giving Google a signal that you are trusted by others therefore a user visiting your website can trust you.

How do you get backlinks? There are a few ways you can start getting backlinks: 

• Create content that people organically want to link back to. This is valuable content and content that people can easily link to (e.g. stat blogs and how-to guides) 
• Get in touch with relevant experts: Simply reaching out and asking industry professionals to link back to your site is a great way to get backlinks. It is important to choose these experts carefully and contact people who are relevant to your content but also those who hold high authority within the industry.
• Fix broken backlinks: Plenty of websites have broken backlinks, so by researching and identifying these broken backlinks on other sites, you can then get in touch with those sites and offer to replace the backlink with yours. 

What makes a good backlink?

Some people say the more of these you have, the better, and that can be partially true; however, it does come down to quality over quantity. A good backlink can be determined by a few things, but the most important thing is to make sure your backlink is coming from a source relevant to your content. By this I mean, make sure the backlink you are getting to your site is relevant to your blog, product or category page. 

• For example, let’s say we were an online ecommerce website that sold men’s designer clothing and we wanted a link to our “men’s designer t-shirt page”. A great link for our site would be the likes of Vogue, which are a luxury fashion magazine so as you can see, this is relevant and meets our target audience.

There is also another reason why Vogue would be a great backlink for our “Men’s designer clothing client”. As Vogue is an industry-leading fashion magazine, they have an overall DR (Domain Rating) of 86/100 and are well trusted by Google, therefore, the fact they are linking to us will boost our overall DR and help us appear higher in the SERPs.

Here is what our Organic Lead, Amy Leach, had to say about what makes a good backlink:

Amy Leach

Organic Lead

"A good backlink consists of multiple factors, first of all it needs to be relevant. Relevant within the content, and from a relevant site, to provide contextuality to users and crawlers alike. Links from highly authoritative sources are also preferable for building backlink authority and demonstrating EEAT signals within the industry"

Things you should avoid in backlinks: 

• Backlinks from low-quality websites: Low-quality sites could be any site that uses excessive ads, writes poor content, creates content about irrelevant topics or practices spammy behaviours. You should aim to get backlinks from sites that share a similar target audience to you and produce content of the same/similar niche to yours. 
• Avoid backlinks that you have to pay for: By paying for backlinks, you are directly going against Google’s guidelines, and if recongised by Google, paid backlinks can harm your ranking. 
• Avoid having a non-diverse link profile: Only having backlinks from the same sites and leveraging the same link type over and over again can be problematic. Work on diversifying your backlink profile so your links don’t seem spammy or manipulative. 

4. Optimise and update Google My Business (GMB) profile 

A Google My Business Profile is a free business listing run through Google. It helps businesses manage and improve their online presence on the search engine. Not only does GBP help with visibility, but it also helps you promote your business, interact with your community and provide key information to your customers. By utilising GMB, businesses can improve their ranking in the search results. 

It is normally found on the right-hand side of the SERPs where the white space is. This usually appears when a user searches directly for your brand.

How to optimise your Google My Business profile

There are a few steps you can take to make sure you are getting the most from your Google My Business profile: 

• By simply adding images to your listing, you can improve your rankings. 
• Taking the time to respond to reviews and comments left by your community (whether they are good or bad!)
• Make sure to add your products and showcase your quality offerings on your profile 
• Optimise your description by using keywords and providing key information so customers understand your business and what you offer 
• Choose categories relevant to your business (it is worth understanding that by choosing less popular categories your chances of ranking higher increase)

Making sure this is fully optimised with contact details, images, opening hours, description, recent blog posts, and website URL is a great way to increase visibility as you are taking as it enables Google to see all your business information in another place, giving you extra credibility. 

Google My Business is particularly effective for small businesses:

• It increases online visibility in the search results, which for small businesses is vital when brand awareness is limited. 
• It also is a helpful tool for small businesses that want to increase customer engagement: by posting offers, responding to comments/reviews and posting company updates, businesses can keep customers engaged with their business. 
• GMB helps businesses improve their customer trust through the ability to interact with their community and address customer concerns 
• It is also great for small and local businesses as it gives customers a chance to read positive reviews and reach your site through a number of different ways, helping to increase CTR.

If you want to discover more about the importance of your GMB profile and why it is more important than ever, try reading one of our latest posts.

5. Improving Usability through Onsite and Tech SEO

We’ve discussed the authority and relevance when it comes to SEO, however, we can’t leave out usability. Ensuring your website is optimised to the best of its ability to make the usability of your website better for your potential users is vital as it will ensure they are choosing you over your competition. 

Improving the usability of your website can be done through all different aspects of on-site and technical SEO; however, we will touch on a couple of the important ones now. Things such as URL structure, site speed, internal linking, structured data and many more. I will delve into some of these to help you improve the technical SEO on your website. 

URL Structure

Just before we get into how to optimise your URLs, it’s important to know what a URL is. A URL is the address of your webpages. It helps users navigate through your site and pages. URLs are a ranking factor, so search engines also value a clear URL; they help Google understand a page’s content and what search terms it should rank for. 

When it comes to URL structure, there are a couple of things you need to remember to get it right.

• A good URL should have a seamless and clear structure so the users know where they are at all times on your website. For example, homepage/category/product. This also allows the authority to pass through the funnels of the site correctly from the top, that is the homepage.
• Keep URLs short so they are quick for the user to type and read. 
• Have a standardised URL structure across your company. Of course, URLs will all be slightly different, but having a foundation that follows the same structure across all pages is beneficial to SEO. 
• Include a target keyword so Google can identify what we are trying to rank for; this will also help us with the relevance aspect of SEO.
• Avoid adding dates to your URLs. By avoiding this, your pages stay timeless. For example, if your URL is homepage/blogs/building-brands-in-2025, by the time 2026 comes around, it will no longer be relevant in the user’s eyes.
• Separate words with hyphens, as this helps users and search engines understand the key themes in the URL quickly and easily. 

Internal linking

Internal linking is when you link one page on your website to another. Internal linking doesn’t just help users navigate your site but is also a vital component of SEO, as it helps search engines understand your site structure and relevance. 

Why is internal linking key? It’s easy for our homepage and those main category pages to be indexed and gain traffic; however, some of our web pages sit a bit deeper and lack authority. Internal linking is a great way to help pass that internal authority to our web pages and guide our users through the site to the next relevant page on their user journey.

How to improve internal linking?

• You should use keywords in your anchor text: The anchor text is the text chosen to highlight with the hyperlink. 
• Make sure all links work: Ensure that 301 redirects are in place if a page has been removed and no longer exists. 
• Conduct an internal linking audit: By crawling your site regularly, you can make sure all links are accurate, and it also allows you to fix any broken links quickly. 

Structured Data & Schema Markup

Structured data provides more context and clarity about website content to the search engine. This can lead to richer search result displays, so it can play a significant role in click-through rates (CTR) and ultimately improve your rankings.

Although a schema may not have a direct effect on organic rankings, it will help your listings look a lot richer within the SERPs. Adding review, faq and organisation schema code to the backend of your website can massively help when it comes to improving CTR as you are taking up more of that white space over your competition within the SERPs.

Do you need support with your SEO? Get in touch.

As you can tell, there are plenty of ways you can improve your rankings and get your business on the top of Google search. Whether you’re a local business or a multi-million-pound company, all these different aspects of SEO will contribute to getting your business on top of Google Search, so make sure you consider all of them when looking to boost those rankings.

If you need any help with getting your business to the top of the Google search, then be sure to drop us an email at info@embryo.com or call us on 0161 327 2635.

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