"My site on the first page on Google!"

It's a heart-warming message that can be seen quite often in WA messages and blog posts. Being on the first page on Google it's an admirable achievement, which should be a powerful encouraging factor for others. On the other hand, it can be a serious discouraging factor too ...

Why? Because, the most common scenario is something like this ...

You've made you keyword research, you've created your content masterpiece and after many hours of hard work you've managed to get your post indexed. You can finally see your page in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) results! On the 25th page ... Which is obviously, not want you want ... We all know the saying: the best place to hide a dead body is the second page on Google ...

Then, you'll see somebody who is celebrating his/her firts page ranking achieved in less than a week ... I admit, it can be very, very discouraging. Well, DON'T GIVE UP!

SEO is NOT just about keywords and content creation! SEO is a long-term game! In other words: you can - and you should! - work onwards to improve your rankings!

How? Well, you might have heard about on-page and off-page SEO ...

So ... The on-page factors are those that can be determined by directly looking at the page you try to optimize (keywords, written content, page architecture, navigational structure, etc).

Their advantage: they can be easily tweaked and modified along the way and that’s a great plus.

Disadvantages: they can only be optimized to a certain point. Once you have fulfilled the requirements your job is done.

The off-page variables which are not entirely in your hands, but depend on other external websites (for example, links to your website from other sources, social networks, etc).

It means that is harder to control and influnce these factors. That's the bad news.

The good news: usually, they will have a bigger - and constantly increasing - impact on your search engine rankings! Why? Because they are harder to manipulate and the third-party endorsements are extremely important for search engines. More than that, they can always be improved. There is always room for more social shares or more inbound links.

Needless to sya, I am talking about two different SEO strategies. If you want to transform Google and Bing into your slaves, you will need them both.

And there is more ...

There is something called SEM or search engine marketing. Which is nothing else, but the paid version of SEO. In plain English: everything you pay for to get more search traffic. For example, PPC ads.

And it goes without saying, SEO and SEM are complementary marketing methods. Each one has advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. If you want real results you should use them both. Marketers using both organic SEO and PPC ads see an average of 25% more clicks and 27% more profits compared to using a single technique (Search Engine Land).

So, DON'T EVER give up! Follow the WA training, do your best to achieve the best possible rankings, then keep up the good work to improve your initial rankings!