Google referencing tutorial: position your site on page 1

By Charlotte Goyard

Published: 24 October 2024

When you know that Google accounts for over 92% of searches in France and worldwide (December 2019 figures), it's only natural to want to optimise your website's Google ranking .

Apart from a few countries that are still resisting the invader (Russia with Yandex, China with Baidu, etc.), positioning your website or blog on the first page of Google is a must if you want to do business on the internet.

However, this requires strategy, method, hard work and the right tools if you opt for natural search engine optimisation (or SEO).

The aim of this tutorial is to show you the different ways to be visible on Google, a method for ranking, using the positioning of this article as an example.

Discover the fundamentals of SEO and the steps you need to follow to appear in the search engine and gain organic traffic today!

See all software Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Understanding the basics of Google search engine optimisation

How do I appear on Google?

There are several ways to appear on the 1st page of Google:

👉 Using the Google Adwords advertising network.

This paid search technique (also known as SEA for Search Engine Advertising) involves paying a bid for a given keyword.

👉 Create a listing on Google My Business/Google Shopping/Google+/Google News according to your activity.

As Google loves to highlight its own services in the results, your listing can be displayed according to the search, the user's history, their geographical location or any other criteria for personalising the results.
Note that Google Shopping is paid for and works on the same principle as Google Adwords.

👉 Work on the natural referencing of your website/blog (also known as SEO for Search Engine Optimisation, or free referencing) to be present in the remaining results.

Unlike Google Adwords, this method is "free". It is more sustainable over time, because it does not require a permanent budget.
On the other hand, it does require work, a certain amount of expertise and SEO tools. This is the method we'll be looking at in this article.

How do you get listed on Google?

Here are the 3 pillars of natural referencing on Google.

1. Technical pillar

For Google to index your site, it needs to be able to understand it and access it as easily as possible. There are therefore a number of criteria that will be important in the design of your website:

The technology used: Google interprets HTML mark-up language better, combined with CSS for formatting, than a site designed using JavaScript programming language ;
The accessibility of the site: the Google robot (Google Bot) must be able to quickly crawl the important pages of your site.
- orphan pages,
- 404 errors, redirection errors, etc,
- loading times that are too long (due to heavy images, for example).
Responsiveness to all screen sizes: Google seeks to present sites with the most user-friendly browsing experience possible.
URLs rewritten with short, understandable words to enhance the browsing experience.
Generating a sitemap, an XML file that lists all the useful URLs, and sending it to Google (via Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools) to indicate which pages of your site should be indexed.

2. Content pillar

For Google to rank you in its results for a given topic, it needs to understand that your site "talks" about that topic.

Your content must be :

high quality, varied and complete so that :
- Google sees you as an expert on the subject ;
- have as many subjects as possible on which to position yourself;
- meet 100% of your target audience's needs, and cover all business opportunities;
unique: Google's objective is to present relevant content to the Internet users who use its search engine.
Through its Google Panda algorithm, it hunts down any duplicate or overly similar content that provides no added value for web users.
What's more, content theft is also punishable by law (article L.122-4);
structured to optimise Google's understanding, with :
- a document title (title tag),
- a main title (h1),
- paragraph and sub-paragraph headings (h2, h3, etc.),
- images to illustrate (with a file name containing real words and an explicit alt tag to tell Google what the image represents);
hierarchically structured and accessible via links (internal linking) to enable both the web user and Google to discover this content.
Here's a classic internal link structure:

3. Popularity pillar

If people are talking about you, it's because you say interesting and credible things. You are reliable. Google translates this reliability for a website by the number of links to your site from other sites (backlinks).

Just like in real life, a recommendation does not have the same weight depending on who is recommending you. For a website, we prefer links :

from sites in the same universe,
ideally authoritative, i.e. known and credible,
with a certain popularity.

☝️ Google, with its Google Penguin algorithm, is trying to track down 'cheats' who try to boost their positions by buying links, using site networks (PBNs), etc. There is nothing illegal about these practices, but they can seriously damage your SEO if they are poorly managed.

Theory is good, practice is better! We are now going to detail the steps you need to take to position your content, and therefore your site, on Google, by working on the content and popularity aspects.

How can you rank well on Google? 4-step tutorial

To work effectively on these three pillars, the use of several SEO tools is generally essential. This is why natural referencing, which is a "free" acquisition channel, can represent a certain monthly budget.

In order to reduce costs and simplify the process, this tutorial is based on two tools that we have selected to support our approach: SEObserver and SEMrush.

If you don't have these tools, you can reuse the tutorial methodology by combining other SEO tools (see the list of alternative tools at the end of the article).

Step 1 ^: Define the subject

The aim of this tutorial is to position this article on the 1st page of Google.

▷ Subject: natural referencing,
⇲ Angle " tuto, guide ",
🎯 Marketing target: junior to intermediate SEO, or senior SEO looking for new tools.

1.1 Finding queries

When we position content on the 1st page of Google, we position it in relation to a query, a keyword, in other words a need expressed by the internet user.

→ So we're going to look for the most relevant query in terms of intent, search volume and feasibility.

⚙️ For this stage, we need a keyword research or generator tool to obtain an exhaustive list of queries typed by internet users on Google.
With SEMrush, we use the "Keyword Magic Tool". Type in "SEO" (the subject of our article), then click on the "Search" button.

We browse the queries, which are automatically sorted by decreasing search volume.

🔎 The "search engine optimisation" query is a high-volume generic query (6,600 searches per month) with a stable seasonal pattern (in the third Trends column, we see the volume of searches per month and therefore its evolution throughout the year). (in the third Trends column, you can see the volume of searches per month and therefore how it changes throughout the year).

You can then type the query into Google to check the results proposed for this query and the intention behind it. The results suggested are "tutorial, guide, training" and are aimed at a fairly novice target group, which corresponds to our objective.

1.2 Defining the feasibility of the query

In order to be able to position our article on the 1st page of Google, the query must be reachable, i.e. the other competing sites which also deal with the subject must not be too "strong" compared to our site.

→ We are therefore going to try to determine the level of competition on this query in order to see if it is realistic to work on it. To do this, we are going to study the sites that are positioned on page 1.

⚙️ For the feasibility study, this time we're using SEObserver. Click on the "Keyword Competition Checker" button and fill in our site (/) to compare the power of the appvizer site with other sites.

1️⃣ We look at the power of the sites themselves (middle column, Root Domain).

TF (Trust Flow) is a metric from the Majestic SEO tool that gives an authority score out of 100 and RD (referring domains) corresponds to the number of external sites making a backlink to the positioned site.

🔎 There are 4 very large sites compared to the others (sites 2, 3, 7 and 8) that we won't be able to compete with.

2️⃣ We then look at how these sites "rank", i.e. how they are positioned on Google (right-hand column, SEMrush Domain).

KWs indicate the number of queries on which these sites are positioned, Traff indicates the estimated number of monthly visits thanks to natural referencing.

🔎 Sites 1 and 6 are fairly effective SEO sites, so it will also be difficult for appvizer to compete with them.

3️⃣ We now look at the pages that are ranking. The URLs indicate that this is a deep page (it's not the site's home page, but a page dedicated to this query) and the left-hand column (URL) gives us the "power" of these pages.

🔎 We can see that they all have backlinks and that site 4 will also be difficult to compete with given the number of backlinks to its deep page.

4️⃣ Finally, we look at the Topical Trust Flow: this is the theme of the backlinks, which can be discovered by hovering over each coloured box.

For example, if the content of a page is technical and its backlinks come from travel sites, this casts doubt on the quality of the site's backlinks.

🔎 Skimming over the TF for our example, we can see that it doesn't seem consistent for site 4.

➡️ Conclusion: this query does not seem impossible for appvizer, and sites 1, 4, 5, 9 and 10 can a priori be dethroned.

However, backlinks to the article will no doubt be necessary.

1.3. Check whether the SERP is stable

→ The SERP (these are Google's results) can experience movements (changes in the position of sites) that are more or less significant and frequent depending on the theme.

⚙️ Still in SEObserver, click on "SERPmachine" to observe the stability of the SERP over the last 30 days for the query "referencement google".

🔎 The sites in the top 10 are broadly the same over the last 30 days, so the SERP seems relatively stable. If our article is positioned, then there wouldn't be too much turbulence to expect from Google.

Step 2 ^: Write the article

→ So we're going to write an article on the query "referencement google". To maximise your chances of being referenced in Google, you opt for a two-pronged strategy:

2.1 Identify the long tail, related subjects and define semantics

⚙️ Using the SEMrush tool, click on the "Keyword Magic Tool" tab, then type in your query again, with the aim of identifying alternative keywords. Click on "Exact match" or "Questions".

The keywords appear grouped according to themes close to our query (such as "site", "comment" and "page", as shown on the left). The list on the right corresponds to all the keywords on this theme.

For example, by clicking on the how theme, we can see that "how to SEO" or "how to improve the SEO of a site" can be covered in the article.

🔎 This gives us an overview of the vocabulary, or semantic field, most commonly used by sites that are well referenced in Google on the subject of "google referencing".

☝️ The most important keywords are both those that are used most often and those present in important tags such as Title, h1, etc.Using these keywords allows us to stay within the semantic "framework" expected by Google, but does not guarantee a position on page 1.

Google's objective is to offer content that is as relevant as possible to Internet users in order to remain a key search engine. If the content is just a rehash of everything else on the web, it has no added value and Google has no reason to offer this content to web users.

To rank, you need to provide a new, original and unique response.

2.2. Drawing up a plan and writing

When you look at the Google results for the query "google search engine optimisation", you'll see some rather generic content on what is "search engine optimisation".neric content on what natural referencing is, how it works and SEO tips and best practices, but it's still largely theoretical.

→ In order to stand out from the crowd, we are therefore going to not only explain the theory, but also produce a very practical tutorial to show how to implement these SEO tips.

2.3. Defining the title tag

The title is a very important criterion. By optimising the title with the query (rather at the beginning), long tail and related keywords, you can really achieve positive results in terms of positioning.

The title should also summarise the article and make people want to read it.

Finally, it should fit into 70 characters maximum.

→ As a reminder, we have as elements: "référencement google", "site internet", "site web"That's why we're going to try :

Google referencing: tutorial for positioning your website

Step 3 ^: Position the article by hunting for backlinks

It's important to give content a chance and time to rank.
However, if the article doesn't manage to reach the 1st page, you need to give it some "juice" through backlinks.

When we analysed the competition, we saw that it would certainly be necessary to have backlinks in order to rank.

There are several possible strategies for achieving this:

buy backlinks on specialised platforms. This solution is not very long-lasting and is of relative quality;
requesting backlinks, by canvassing relevant sites with a short email. This is the preferred method;
wait for natural, spontaneous backlinks (this is the method recommended by Google).

3.1 Identify sites that are already providing backlinks to competitors' articles

→ If sites have cited competitors' content as a source, it may be relevant for them to cite this article too. We therefore need to identify them so that we can contact them.

⚙️ To do this, we once again rely on the SEObserver tool. Once in the "Competition Checker", click on Options > Find top backlinks > URL.

This gives you a list of the best backlinks from your competitors to their home page. All that remains is to export the list of sites ("Export" button) for easier follow-up when canvassing.

3.2 Identify other sites to cite the article as a source

We need to identify sites that are not competitors, but complementary to the subject.

For example, we could canvass SEO consultant/agency sites wishing to discuss the method.

1️⃣ To do this, go to Labs > Domain extractor > domains currently ranked in the TOP 100 > on google.fr for the keywords "SEO consultant" and "SEO agency".

You can also add criteria to narrow down the results.

In this example, we will require a healthy TF (Trust Flow = Authority)/CF (Citation Flow = Popularity) ratio (> 70%) and sites that are themselves recommended by at least 20 other sites (Referring Domains).

2️⃣ Export the list and quickly check the quality of the sites in: Labs > Domain Profiler.

Copy the list of URLs (by 100) that you have just exported. Select "category = domain" and "view = detailed".

The aim here is to detect whether there are any inconsistencies in the profile of the sites.

3️⃣ So we're going to check whether there is a network of sites (PBN) that Google can detect and therefore potentially penalise.

To do this, we will look to see if there is a significant difference between "Referring Domains" (number of unique sites making a backlink) and "IP" (number of different IPs [= site owner] making a backlink).

If the same IP (person) owns several sites that backlink to the same site, it is certainly a network of sites.

4️⃣ We'll also check whether the site has a lot of sidewide backlinks, i.e. links that are repeated on all the pages of a site (e.g. in the footer of a website, in the top menu of a website, etc.): in the footer of a site, in the right-hand column of a blog in the "my friends" section, etc.).).

This type of link has less value than a single link contextualised in a single article. It should be used in moderation and only on legitimate sites on the same theme.

We look at the difference between "Referring Domains" (number of unique sites) and "Backlinks" (total number of links). The greater the difference, the more sitewide links there are.

5️⃣ We then check whether the keywords (in the "Keywords" column) on which the site is positioned are consistent with its universe, and whether the anchor profile (in the "Anchors" column) seems natural (Anchors" column) seems natural (we expect brand and URL type anchors and not anchors optimised for positioning on a query).

6️⃣ Finally, we look at the quality of the "TopBacklinks". Among the site's best backlinks, we expect real, legitimate, healthy sites rather than sites dedicated to netlinking (PBNs, directories, etc.).

7️⃣ Once you have this short list of sites, you can further refine the analysis by going to the SEObserver home page > Enter a website.
Enter the site for which you want to refine the analysis.

We can check whether netlinking activity is consistent over time by looking at changes in the Topical Trust Flow (stable or changing colour) and changes in the number of RDs (black curve).

A TTF that regularly changes theme may be synonymous with the creation of artificial links of dubious quality.

A regular fall in the RD curve may also indicate a site that is losing speed because it is losing backlinks.

8️⃣ Finally, we need to monitor traffic trends. Since TF (Trust Flow) and TTF (Topical Trust Flow) can be manipulated, the traffic indicator is almost the most important indicator.
A site that is growing and getting more and more visitors is a site that is doing well.

In the hunt for backlinks, TF and TTF are the metrics that will send you juice to boost your site. But without traffic, this juice may not be sustainable because it is artificial.

In the example above, although the TTF is stable and the site has good metrics (TF/CF ratio, anchor profile, etc.), the site has had virtually no visits for two years. As a result, this site will not be retained.

Once the analysis is complete, all that's left to do is to contact the sites that have been selected to ask them for a backlink, the famous and long-awaited backlink.

Step 4 ^: Monitor the article's performance

Now that the article has been written and published, you need to monitor its positioning on Google in order to :

4.1. Enter the keywords to be monitored

→ We are going to monitor the evolution of the positioning of the article on its main query, but also on related and long tail queries.

⚙️ To do this, we use SEMrush: we create a project for our domain, Appvizer FR, then go to "Position Tracking".

Then enter the list of keywords whose positioning you want to track (for our example: "tuto referencement google", "referencement google", etc.).

You can create a "google referencing" campaign to track overall progress. We add appvizer.fr to track the evolution of the entire domain in relation to this campaign and the queries.

4.2. Tracking changes in the positioning of the site and its competitors

Several criteria are displayed, such as average position, visibility, estimated traffic, etc.
The date tab on the right allows you to determine the period to be tracked to see the evolution of our website's positions over the time periods of your choice (yesterday, 7 days, 30 days, etc.), as well as the overall evolution of the serp.

The "Winners and losers" tab allows you to detect our competitors' ranking gains (or losses).

4.3. Tracking backlinks

Although we have a small idea of the backlinks created by the sites we approach, we do not have control over the natural and spontaneous backlinks recommended by Google.

⚙️ To get an accurate picture of the situation, we're going to take the SEObserver tool and set it up so that it detects new backlinks received by appvizer.

This allows you to check the latest links created, the site and its metrics for the linking page, the anchor and the presence/absence of dofollow (for a backlink to send juice, it must be in dofollow).

In "Backlinks" > Timeline of backlinks, you can also check all the new backlinks created for the query "google search engine optimisation" to competitors.

SEO tools for improving your search engine optimisation

As explained at the beginning of the tutorial, this guide has been produced using SEMrush and SEObserver, because they complement each other and can be used to carry out all the stages of SEO.

However, if you are unable to use these tools, here are some free (generally limited) and paid alternatives.

Search tools and keyword generators:
- free ones for ideas (but not search volume): Google Keyword Planner, Keywordshitter, Answer the public ;
- paid tools: Insight Yooda (for the French-speaking market), Ahrefs and Moz (for international use), Ranxplorer (for analysing competitors' keywords).
Semantic analysis tools :
- free: Alyze.info ;
- paid tools: 1.fr, Yourtextguru, Seoquantum.
Backlink tracking tools:
- free (for your site only): Google Search Console ;
- paid tools: Majestic, Ahrefs.
Traffic estimation tools :
- free: Similarweb ;
- paid tools: Ranxplorer, Insight Yooda (for the French-speaking market), Ahrefs and Moz (for international use).
Positioning tracking tools:
- free: Serplab ;
- paid tools: Advanced Web Ranking, Monitorank.
Tools for analysing the serp and the competition:
- free: Serposcope ;
- paid tools: Ahref SERP Checker.