Your website’s place on the list when a user searches your niche on Google is a critical statistic. Having a high enough ranking can be the difference that can make or break the survivability of your website. So it is easy to see why people would go to huge lengths to have their websites come up first in the search result, but is it possible to pay your way there?
Although you can’t pay Google to regularly put you on the top Google search results, you can make use of the Google Ads program and have a space for your website above the top search list. With that said, keep in mind that your website’s position will be labeled as an Ad.
So buying Ad space is the closest you can get to paying your way to the top of Google’s search results. However, how exactly do Google Ads work? And is there a way to improve your chances of appearing higher in organic listings?
Do Google Ads Put You To The Top Of Search Results
Google Ads is an online advertisement system that allows advertisers to bid in order to display their advertisements, services, and product listings among other things. This system even gives you the option to place your website as an Ad that will appear above the organic search results.
Although your website will appear as the first result when someone Googles a specific keyword, your website will still be clearly marked as an Ad. Therefore, many people will not see it as holding the same authenticity that an organic listing would and might not click on your site.
Payment Structure Of Google Ads
Google Ads usually operates on a pay-per-click model. With this, Ad placement is earned through a bidding system where you put down how much you are willing to pay to Google for each click you get through the Ad placed by Google.
Google allows you to budget out how much you want to spend on an Ad over a period of time. So even if your costs vary from day to day, you cannot be charged over the maximum limit that you have set for your advertisement.
Benefits And Drawbacks Of Using Google Ads
Utilizing Google’s advertisement system is not always a surefire way to have your website traffic skyrocket, and it comes with its own set of pros and cons that any business would want to be aware of before opting to utilize it.
Pros
This is a quick way to jump-start your website, and with the amount of control you are given over how much traffic you are willing to pay for, it can be great to advertise to niche audiences without breaking the bank. It can be a beneficial endeavor for a website during any stage of its lifespan or at any amount of success.
You are given a fair amount of control over your spending; you can put a daily budget on how much you spend through your Ad, helping cater to your specific marketing strategy. This makes it better than most any other form of advertising as you only pay for the traffic you get through the Ad.
Cons
The costs of paying for advertisements can rack up, and they don’t always pay off. Having traffic brought to your website does not mean that it will last, especially if your content is not engaging enough or up to par with other high-ranked websites for that keyword. So more than anything, this method is a financial liability that increases the risks associated with the failure of your site.
Google is also very transparent about the fact that its Ad service is an artificial way to get the attention of its viewers and that your position near the top of its search results does not indicate the quality of your content. Most users are also very aware of this fact, and they would, therefore, rather click on the link that is organically on the top of their search results, since that is a better indication of quality.
So Does an Organic Search Ranking Matter More?
It definitely does, and the simplest answer to why is traffic. Users trust Google’s organic listing a lot, to the point where their click-through rate (proportion of visitors to a web page who follow a hypertext link to a particular site) for every other search position pales in comparison to that of the first search result.
| Search Position | Click Through Rate (approx.) |
| 1 | 28.5% |
| 2 | 15.7% |
| 3 | 11.0% |
| 4 | 8.0% |
| 5 | 7.2% |
| 6 | 4.0% |
| 7 | 3.2% |
As you can see, the first search position dominates user traffic at a whopping 36%, and the immediate decline in the second search position can be seen at 12%. From there, it tapers off bit by bit, and the curve eventually more or less flattens.
So the amount of traffic you can get just by getting to Google’s top search result position for a particular niche can be the difference between your website taking off or not.
It is also not a liability that you have to pay Google for, unlike Ad space, so it is the ideal way to be higher up on the search rankings.
Utilizing SEO To Get To The Top Of Google’s Organic Listings
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an entire field of study that helps identify what aspects of your website matter most when it comes to, in this case, Google boosting it in its algorithm. Although Google itself does not accept payment to give you a higher search position, what you can instead do is hire a dedicated search engine optimizer.
This is a delicate job, and making sure that your hire is experienced and dependable is vital. An unskilled search engine optimizer can damage the reputation of your site as well as its future prospects. However, in the same vein, they can also be the catalyst that launches your website to unprecedented success. They have a number of skills they employ when optimizing your website.
Keywords
SEOs identify terms that users search in Google and with that information they provide direction on how to optimize your current content and what content can be created in the future. Their mastery over long-tail keywords, which 91.8% of all searches involve, helps them significantly boost your standing in front of Google’s algorithm.
On-Page Optimization
Various techniques that a skilled optimizer will utilize with respect to the structure of the page itself can boost your ranking tremendously. These range from integrating keywords into the page’s URL to updating the page’s title tag to use more relevant search terms. Other techniques such as updating the page’s meta tags can also increase the click-through rate of your site.
Semantic markup
This is when they add extra snippets of information regarding a piece of content, such as images, or information about the author. These can come up on Google’s search page and, although they likely don’t directly have an impact on Google’s algorithm-based rankings, they do help improve your click-through rate, which results in an increase in organic traffic.
Link Building
Adding external links, or backlinks, to your website content is an effective way to increase your site’s ranking on Google’s algorithm. This is because it is similar to a vote of confidence from other websites. An optimizer can not only organize your website in a way that promotes other websites to give it positive backlinks, but they can also remove any potentially toxic backlinks that could hurt your reputation and ranking in front of the algorithm’s eyes.
Architecture Optimization
Internal, on-site links matter too in the discussion of search engine optimization. Ensuring that links with relevant information are used on your website can go a long way in bumping up your Google ranking. Your website should also be simple to navigate and understand for the visitor if you want a higher ranking in Google’s search results.
FAQs
Does Google’s Algorithm Remain The Same?
Google updates its search algorithm in order to avoid websites abusing any exploits or utilizing information about the algorithm to gain an unfair advantage over those creating good content to climb the ranks more organically.
How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?
Google’s algorithm is updating and changing all the time. In 2020 alone, Google made 4,500 changes to its search. They also ran over 600,000 experiments, tinkering with and optimizing their algorithm regularly.
Can You Add More Ranking Keywords To Gain a Higher Organic Position?
This is known as keyword stuffing and will be deemed as a black hat SEO practice by Google, and your website will be subsequently penalized.
Wrapping Up
Google does not offer a straightforward way to pay your way to the top of its organic search result rankings, though you can get there through the Google Ads program. This is not as effective however and comes with definite costs. The optimal way to achieve this goal is to hire an expert search engine optimizer with the skills to have your website performing like never before, and with that, you’ll be rolling in success in no time!