The first position in organic search results receives maximum visibility, which in turn represents the highest opportunity for organic traffic and conversions. At least, it used to.
The search engine results page (SERP) has seen many changes in recent years and has become so populated with SERP features, new ad types, and now, AI-powered content that the top organic position can get lost and buried under it all. While it is still always pertinent to strive for the top positions, at the end of the day, performance is all about the bottom line.
To hold the top positions for your most coveted keywords and still not see the kind of performance hoped for can be a puzzling situation. After all, how much higher can one climb when the summit has been reached? Fortunately for us all, there is always something to improve upon and focus on, no matter the situation. Let’s explore the summit and the different ways to improve your site support performance when you’re already holding top positions in the SERPs.
1. Service Secondary Content Opportunities
The first thing to examine is the most straightforward: Which are your secondary keywords and products for which to pursue performance?
If a site is already placing first for its best keywords, search for opportunities to improve secondary offerings to supplement the bottom line. I like to think of it like a hamburger shop. If you’ve already got the best burger in town, work on your fries or milkshakes when there is room for improvement, so to speak. You may even want to consider expanding your product line to include accessories that complement your main offerings.
With mindful measuring, it should be possible to identify the products or services that are doing better than others in order to focus efforts there.
2. Expand Topical Authority
It can be argued that topical authority is as important now as ever. Google is increasingly seeking out and rewarding content with E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). This means that any given piece of content does not stand on its own but is perceived through the authority of the site it is hosted on. Expanding that authority can potentially help performance for a given keyword that a site has relevant content for. Finding the right way to build content for site authority will vary depending on your type of business and require an ambitious yet sensible approach to content creation.
Suppose that a business sells tires for everyday sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and the like. It may be relevant to build content explaining how tires are made and how they’re repaired. After covering all the bases, it may even be prudent to expand into tires for other vehicles, creating content about the composition of monster truck tires, the durability of airplane tires, or even the superior traction of Formula 1 racing tires.
While all these topics fall outside the example business’s main offerings, having content around them sends a clear message: We know tires. Not only will this instill a sense of expertise in visitors, but the idea is that ranking algorithms may also take note and reward the site accordingly. Just be sure to include calls to action and links to converting pages on that content to make the most of the additional traffic you receive — and to funnel the link authority that those blog posts earn back into the highest value and most relevant pages on the site.
3. Make Time for Technical Improvements
Top organic positioning allows breathing room to work on aspects of the site adjacent to search engine optimization (SEO) goals. Site authority also depends on technical performance as a ranking factor, so this would be a good time to see if any technical functions on the site may be hindering performance. A technical audit may help reveal issues that need to be addressed and also highlight opportunities to take advantage of.
While page speed performance is not the end-all-be-all of ranking, there is a rankings boost to be had if you can ensure that all your pages fall into the “Good” category for Google’s three main Core Web Vitals metrics: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. This may require considerable investment development depending on the condition of those metrics, but you may also not be far off.
It may also be worth ensuring you’re taking advantage of schema mark-up. Schema, or structured data, helps search engines and crawlbots understand the different content and data of a web page.
Make sure to spend plenty of time in Google Search Console’s Pages reports to identify the issues and errors that Google sees and determine how to resolve them.
Normally, these would not be your main SEO efforts, but here, we’re looking for all opportunities to squeeze out any extra performance from the site. Speak with your SEO manager and development team to find what’s right for your site.
4. Compare with Competitors
This may also be a great time to conduct a thorough competitive audit. A competitive audit allows you to dive deeper into the strategies of your rivals, ensuring that your site remains resilient and continues to outperform others in the long run.
Even if you are leading in your main keywords, competitors might be capitalizing on secondary or long-tail keywords that you haven’t fully explored. Expanding your keyword strategy not only broadens your traffic sources but also strengthens your overall SEO presence and authority. As previously mentioned, it’s similar to expanding your product line to include complementary items that attract a broader customer base, except here we’re looking for secondary strategies to enhance what is already working well for our site.
5. Optimize for Conversions
The above recommendations are all geared toward making the most of efforts when the site is already excelling for its main keywords. Ultimately, the goals are to improve traffic and conversions, and if you’ve already exhausted all of the above, you may have to take a step outside of SEO. It may just be that you have all the right things in mostly the right places. Changes to the user experience of your site might help with conversion drop-off if you are already getting traffic to your pages.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) focuses on testing different aspects of the user experience on a web page to minimize drop-offs and increase conversions. This can include things like offering proof points, optimizing the checkout or conversion process, modifying colors and button placements, adjusting accessibility issues, and so much more. With proper CRO, everything is validated by A/B testing to help make data-driven decisions.
Reaching and maintaining the top positions in organic search results is no small feat, but achieving this is never the end of your efforts. Instead, this opens up valuable opportunities to enhance your website’s performance by focusing on other opportunities to boost your bottom line. Continuous improvement across all these areas not only safeguards your current success but also paves the way for ongoing growth and success. Embrace the room you have to explore these strategies, ensuring that your website not only remains at the summit but also thrives in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.
