At a glance
- No code or setting puts a website at the top of Google. Google says so itself.
- Your website has to be easy for Google to read and worth reading for people. We handle the first. The second depends on what you publish.
- For a local search, the Google Maps listings often appear above every website. Your reviews help decide who is in them.
- AI answers are built from the same material: your pages, your listings and your reviews.
- Advertising is the only way to buy a position, and you hold it for as long as you pay.
A big question most website owners have is how to get their website to show up higher in Google. The question behind it is larger. You want more of the right people to find you, and you want more of them to call, buy, donate or sign up.
Your website is part of the answer. It is not all of it, and nothing we add to the code will move it to the top of the results. Google's own SEO guide says, "There are no secrets here that'll automatically rank your site first in Google." Here is what does make a difference, and who does each part.
A well-built website is important, but it is not enough
On-site SEO is the work done on the website itself: page titles, headings, descriptions, links between pages, image text, loading speed, mobile layout, security and a sitemap. It tells Google what each page is about and whether the page works well for the person who opens it. Risingline builds this into every website and keeps it current.
This work counts. Google's page experience guide says the speed and stability measures it calls Core Web Vitals "are used by our ranking systems," and its SEO guide says the text of a link "tells users and Google something about the page you're linking to." A website without this work starts behind.
It cannot win alone, though. The same page experience guide says Google "always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par." When two websites are equally well built, Google chooses between them on what the pages say and on what the rest of the web says about the business.
Google ranks you for what your pages say
Google ranks a page for what that page says. To be found for a service, you need a page that covers that service in detail: who it is for, how it works, how long it takes, and the questions people ask before they call. Google's guide says useful content "will likely influence your website's presence in search results more than any of the other suggestions in this guide."
Google's guide to helpful content asks for what it calls people-first content. "People-first content means content that's created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings." The same guide says Google's ranking systems "are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people," and that SEO "can be a helpful activity when it is applied to people-first content."
Lists of keywords do not help. Google ignores the keywords tag, and repeating a phrase until the page reads unnaturally is something Google penalizes. It calls this keyword stuffing, and pages that do it can rank lower or drop out of the results.
This is the part only you can supply, because you know your work and the questions your customers ask. Send us the material and we turn it into a page: we title it, structure it, link it to the rest of your website and publish it.
The more specific the search, the better your odds
How hard a search is to win depends on who else wants it. A general search such as "dentist Los Angeles" has hundreds of practices and several national directories competing for ten places. A specific one, such as "sedation dentist for children in Pasadena," has far fewer. A page that covers that one service in detail has a much better chance there than a general page has anywhere. Most businesses do better with several pages that each answer one specific search than with one page aimed at the broadest term.
Google counts who links to you
Google also counts who links to you. A link from a respected website in your field or your area tells Google that your website is worth showing. These links come from real relationships: associations you belong to, partners, local news coverage, industry directories and organizations you sponsor. Ask for them.
Take a law firm. A link from the state bar association, a court's referral list or a news story that quotes one of its attorneys carries weight, because those websites are trusted and do not link to anyone who asks. A paid listing in an attorney directory is advertising. It may send the firm clients, and that can make it worth the fee, but Google expects paid links to be marked as paid, and they do little or nothing for the firm's ranking. Link packages sold to raise your ranking are a different matter. Buying links for that purpose is against Google's rules and can get a website pushed down or removed from the results.
Reviews help decide who appears in Google Maps
Search for a type of business and a place, and Google often shows a map with three listings near the top of the page. Those listings come from Google Business Profiles, not from websites. Many people choose from that box and never scroll to the results below it.
Google says a place in that box depends partly on how well known the business is, including "how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have," and that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." It also says there is no way to pay for a better position there.
The profile is free. Claim it, and keep the hours, address, phone number, services and photos current. Ask every customer for a review, send them a direct link, and reply to the reviews you receive. Offer nothing in return, because Google removes reviews that were paid for. We cover the details in Online business profile best practices and How to ask customers for reviews.
Google says AI search is still SEO
Google now places an AI-written summary above many results, and people ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude for recommendations directly. You will see services sold for this under names like AIO, AEO and GEO. Google's guide to AI search says optimizing for its AI answers "is still SEO." The AI reads your website, your business profiles, your reviews and what other websites say about you. Everything on this page is also the AI strategy, and no special code is required for it either. SEO and AI: what's real and what's hype covers this in full.
Advertising is the only position you can buy
Advertising is the one way to buy a position. Google Ads places you above the ordinary results for the searches you choose, starting the day the campaign goes live. You set the budget and the area, and you pay for each click. When the spending stops, so does the placement. Ads do not improve your ordinary ranking. Google says, "Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results."
Ads suit a search with heavy competition, a new business, or a campaign with a deadline. Nonprofits should look at Google Ad Grants, which gives eligible organizations up to $10,000 a month in search advertising at no cost.
Managing advertising campaigns sits outside Risingline's services, but we are glad to help you get started: setting up the account, tracking which ads lead to calls and form submissions, and finding the right person to run the campaign.
A visitor who leaves is not a customer
A visitor who arrives and leaves has not helped you. The page they land on has to say what you do, show that you can be trusted and make the next step plain: a phone number, a form or a donate button. Visitors judge a website before they read a word of it, and the analytics on your website show which pages and which sources bring in inquiries.
Accessibility belongs here too. The CDC reports that more than 1 in 4 U.S. adults have some type of disability. A visitor who cannot read low-contrast text, use the menu from a keyboard or complete a form with a screen reader leaves the same way any other frustrated visitor does. Google does not rank a website higher for meeting accessibility standards, but several of the same things serve both: image descriptions, link text that says where the link goes, and pages that work on a phone. Risingline builds and tests every page against ADA (WCAG) standards and keeps it that way as the website changes.
Focus on these six things
| The work | What Risingline does | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| The website itself | Titles, headings, descriptions, speed, mobile layout, security and sitemap, on every website we build and manage. | Nothing. This part is ours. |
| Page content | Turns your material into pages: titles, structure, links and publishing. | Supply the substance: your services, your experience and your answers to the questions customers ask. This is what Google judges a page on, so it counts for more than anything else in this table. |
| Accessibility | Builds and tests every page against ADA (WCAG) standards. | Nothing. This part is ours too. |
| Google Business Profile and reviews | Sets up the review request links. | Keep the profile current, ask for reviews and reply to them. |
| Links from other websites | Can point you to a specialist. | Ask the organizations you already work with. |
| Paid advertising | Helps you get started: the account, and tracking which ads lead to calls and form submissions. | Run the campaign, or hire a campaign manager. |
Results come from many small things done right
No single change brings more visitors overnight. Paid advertising is the one exception, and it lasts only as long as you pay for it. Everything else on this page is cumulative: a page that answers one more question, a new review, a link from a partner, a profile kept current. None of these is large. Done correctly and kept up over months, they add up to a website that more people find.
Google takes time to register each change. Its SEO guide says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months. It also says, "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Unlike an ad, though, a page, a review or a link keeps working after it is in place.
If you are not sure where to start, ask us. We will look at your website and your Google listing and tell you which of these would do the most for you.