Page 1 of Google, in the minds of many companies we speak to here at Just In Time, is an unrealistic target. They just don’t think they’ll ever get there.

Or at least, they think that if they are to get there the only way will be by advertising or paying shed loads of cash to some pricey SEO firm that speaks in a language they don’t understand.

Thing is, there are lots of dodgy SEO firms out there and at the same time Google ads can cost an arm and a leg. As a result not a lot tends to be done: things go on the back burner.

In reality, you can blog your way onto Page 1 of Google yourself. And what’s more you can do it quicker than you’d ever imagine.

For some reason, though, this is something that is still to get through to many SMEs. They’re missing out on huge amounts of traffic, and potential clients, as a result.

Page 1 of Google? Be realistic!

But you need to be clever when blogging. Whatever you do, don’t set yourself ridiculous targets.

Instead, start by focusing on less competitive, ‘long tail‘ keyphrases, and getting to the top of the search results for those.

Long tail keywords may not get the traffic of their more competitive counterparts but the traffic they do get is much more likely to convert. It’s better quality traffic.

And that’s really important.

Liberty SIPP target the long tail

We recently started blogging on behalf of the best SIPP provider out there (we reckon anyway): Liberty SIPP (SIPP stands for self invested personal pension).

We only started doing this a month ago and already they’re on page 1 of Googley Woogley for a number of keyphrases.

One of their primary keyphrases, unsurprisingly, is ‘best SIPP providers‘.

Simply by targeting this long tail keyphrase in two optimised blog posts, a week or so apart, we got them straight onto the front page of Google in less than a fortnight (see screen grab below).

OK, they’re not at the top of Page 1 YET but we’ll get them in the top 3 in the weeks ahead for sure.

Make sure you’re targeting the right page 1 of Google. ‘Long tail’ keywords can be far more beneficial to you.

Why long tail keywords?

Why are long tail keywords so powerful? Let’s stick with the ‘best SIPP providers’ example….

We know that when someone taps in ‘best SIPP providers’ there is a degree of (buying) intent there.

While someone tapping in ‘SIPPs’ may be doing so for any number of reasons, someone googling ‘best SIPP providers’  is much more likely to be considering taking out a SIPP, or moving SIPP.

In other words, the person tapping those keywords into Google is a much higher quality ‘searcher’.

So while this term will deliver less traffic than the much more commonly searched for ‘SIPPs’ keyphrase, it will be much more likely to convert a visitor to Liberty’s site into a client.

And that’s all you can ask for.

Don’t set the bar too high

The moral of this particular tale is simple: when you start blogging, focus on easier long tail keyphrases.

Not only will they deliver you results much more quickly, they will also add real momentum to your blog for when it comes to getting onto Page 1 of Google for the more competitive keyphrases.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.