One of the most common questions we’re asked is how people can get their sites listed on the first page of Google. We explain different hints and tips to increase the chances of getting a higher ranking and often suggest our Search Engine Optimisation package, but to be on the first page is really down to several factors, including the popularity of your site and more importantly, Google themselves.

One thing I have noticed, though, is that there are several companies selling a service that apparently guarantees you a top ten Google listing. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

However, from my experience, there is no “quick fix” to get in the top ten of Google and even searching for something pretty obscure like “Bulgarian shoehorn factories” returns over 700 different results. This gives you an idea of the sort of competition that sites have for that all important top ten listing.

If you do want to buy a service from a company that guarantees a top ten listing, my advice is to ask them one question if nothing else: what happens if eleven people buy the service? It would be interesting to hear the answer! Let’s just assume for a moment that there is only one company offering this service - if they are guaranteeing a top ten listing, then technically they could only sell it to ten people who have the same type of website.

Also remember just how much a number one listing in Google would be worth in terms of advertising revenue.  If you could just pay to get your site to number one, it would not be long before the number one spot is going to the highest bidder. With some domain names being sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds, you could be looking at a lot of money to get up there.

We’ve put together a guide in our Knowledge Base that provides some instructions, hints and tips for anyone wanting to get listed on the search engines, including How Do I Get Listed on Search Engines?

We’ll also be talking about the ins and outs of pay-per-click advertising and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in future articles on this blog, so why not subscribe to the RSS feed?