How to Rank #1 in Google in 2026: The 3 Step SEO Playbook
possible on your website to give you the highest possible chance of ranking highly in Google. That's a way less sexy but more accurate way to say it.
going to give you three reality checks here. First, if you're looking to rank number one for ultra competitive terms, terms that have been dominated by enterprise level businesses for years or decades, that's probably not a feasible task. These businesses have spent years building their authority and spent millions of dollars on their content. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's probably not worth the resources, especially for smaller to medium-siz businesses. Secondly, you have to
understand that it's one thing to rank number one, and it's another thing to stay number one. Once you crack that top spot for a particular keyword, especially a competitive one, you've got a target on your back, and all your competitors will be trying to outdo you in content quality and build more links than you. So, just know that getting the ranking is half the battle. Keeping it is an ongoing effort that requires regular content refreshing, authority building, and more. And thirdly, you
don't need to rank number one for every keyword relevant to your business. In fact, doing so may be a waste of your resources. For any given business, there are likely thousands of potential keywords across their service offerings and content. And expecting or trying to rank all of them number one is just not realistic, nor is it necessary to have a very successful organic search presence. One of the hardest things about SEO is not really the execution. It's actually the prioritization. And that's something
I hope to help you with in this video. Okay. So, our minds are calibrated. Our expectations are set. Let's get ranking. Now, I know many of you watching this already have a website, likely with some ranking keywords. Whether they're ranking high or low is a different story, but I just want you to forget about all that for a second and start with a clean slate. Ask yourself, what are the businessd driving keywords that in a perfect world my prospects would type into Google and then find me? This
is going to be different for different types of businesses, but the first is almost always going to be your brand name. The next most important are likely going to be explicit names of products or services you sell or keywords describing those things. WBY Parker, a direct to consumer eyewear brand, targets keywords like buy glasses online, affordable prescription glasses, home tryon glasses. Docuign, a B2B SAS company, will target keywords like electronic signature software, signed documents online, or docuine
alternatives. And yes, you want to rank for that, too. And for NYX Plumbing, a local business in Houston, Texas, target keywords might include things like plumber near me, Houston plumber, or names of specific services like drain cleaning Houston, water heater repair Houston, or sewer line repair Houston. Once you've identified your core keywords, Google each of them and really study the results page. The first thing you'll notice, if you haven't noticed already, is that in 2026, the search
engine results pages, or SERs for short, look very different than they did even just a few short years ago. For example, when I Google electronic signature software, I see a series of sponsored posts, a Reddit discussion as the top organic result, a listical of the best electronic signature software platforms, and some homepages of popular software companies like DocYsine. Depending on how Google is feeling that day, you may also see YouTube video results, AI overviews, or accordion style people
also ask questions. So, yeah, we've come a long way from 10 blue links. It's easy to get overwhelmed here, but our main goal is to figure out one thing. What is the search intent behind this keyword? Or put another way, what do you think people are trying to find when they search this? And perhaps more importantly, what does Google think people are trying to find when they search this? I call that last one Google's assumed search intent. And it's very important that your content meets
that search intent as closely as possible. Now, I'm actually glad I use this particular query, electronic signature software, as an example because it has mixed intent. Ooh, meaning there are multiple possible intents that people can have when searching this. How do we know this? We just look at the SER. Someone searching for this term might want to eavesdrop on some Reddit discussions about the best software for e signatures. Or they might want to read a roundup post comparing a list of the best platforms. Or maybe
they just want to be taken straight to a vendor's homepage. Google, despite its sophistication, doesn't quite know. So what does it do? It gives the user an all you can click buffet of options and lets them decide. But this poses a problem because I just said the most important thing is matching your page's content to the keyword search intent. So, how do you do that when the search intent is mixed? Well, there's a few different approaches you can take. I'll explain them and then I'll share which
one I like best. The first is simply adopting the majority view. So, if five or more of the results are homepages, you stick with targeting that keyword on your homepage. The second is more strategic. It involves asking what the most likely approach would be to get you featured on the SER based on your brand's authority in existing search presence. So check this out. This is the approach that get accept has taken with their roundup post. See docuign and pandoc have massive brand recognition. I
immediately knew what those companies were and I'd never heard of get accept before. Now, this massive brand recognition allows them to rank their homepage for [music] this keyword. Get Accept doesn't quite have that yet. So, they sort of find a backdoor approach. Rather than attempting to go band- on homepages, they say, "Well, we'll just publish a roundup page giving our users a ton of free value, even to the point of mentioning our competitors, and we'll let them decide." And even though they
don't have the site authority of a Panda doc or a docuign, they still manage to outrank them with their roundup post, which is just another reason why roundup posts are awesome. Okay, so you've identified your target keyword and you've studied the SER. You know what Google thinks users want. Step number two is to build the best possible page for that keyword. Let's break this down into the components that actually matter. Firstly, matching the format to the intent. Web pages come in all
different shapes and sizes. A product page looks and feels quite different from a long- form informational blog post, which likewise looks different than an ecommerce category page. Your job is to match that format of the top ranking results for your target keyword while differentiating the substance of that content. That's key. And yes, if the format is a video, which is very common in how to Google searches, you need to be making videos. And real quick, I don't know how many more times
we need to keep saying this, but Google does not prefer or reward a particular word count. The question to ask isn't how long should this be. It's what does someone searching this term need to know and have I covered it completely. For every piece of content I create, I start by adding my target keyword into Surfer's content editor. For this piece, I'm targeting how to start a hydroponic garden. I love Surfer's new step-by-step process here in the right-hand panel, which takes the guesswork out of each
step of the writing workflow. I'll usually start by looking through the competitor's outlines to get my creative juices flowing and make sure I'm covering this topic at least as thoroughly as my competitors, but you'll want to go a step further. You can also create an AI generated outline, which you don't need to use in its entirety, but it can be really good for giving you some ideas. And it's all based on real data from the top ranking pages in the SER. As part of my research, I also
click the questions tab to make sure I'm answering all of these in the content. After I finished a draft in my own words, I'll retroactively go back and make sure I'm including all the entities I need to optimize for both traditional search engines and AI assistance. And by the way, I think we're long overdue for a full content workflow from start to finish using Surfer. I don't have enough time to deep dive into that right now, but leave a comment if that's something you'd like to see soon. Now, just having
a well optimized, thorough piece of content, believe it or not, is not enough. The second phase of creating great content that ranks highly is demonstrating real expertise and experience. You may have heard the acronym EAT thrown around. That's a Google term that stands for experience, expertise, authoritiveness, and trustworthiness. And it's how Google claims to evaluate content. See, Google's gotten very good at identifying whether content comes from firstirhand experience or was just assembled from
other sources. According to some reputable SEO sources, the extra e experience is now the most heavily weighted factor. So, what signals real experience? original photos, screenshots, step-by-step documentation from actually doing the thing, case studies with specific numbers, personal anecdotes about what worked and what didn't. And it just so happens that the get accept roundup post we referenced earlier does this very well. First, they explicitly establish authority with this subheader. Yes, we really have tested
each platform. Second, they include original screenshots of every single platform. You can see document editors, signature flows, dashboards. These are the kind of images that you can only get by logging in and using the software presumably. Third, they structure each review consistently. A best for badge, a description, a screenshot, pros, cons, and an ideal use case. That consistency shows methodology. It shows they ran each platform through the same evaluation framework. And finally, there's a real author with a by line and
a photo. Natasha Ellis Knight. You can see when it was published and when it was last updated. These are small details, but they signal accountability. Someone's name is attached to this. In addition to all these experience signals, they have a nice table of contents and a TLDDR section, making the piece highly convenient for skimming. So, if you're writing about a product, have you actually used it? If you're explaining a process, have you actually done it? If you're reviewing a service,
have you actually hired them? If the answer is no, well, you can either get that experience yourself or find someone who has it and involve them in the content. I mean, heck, this could even be someone you find in the reviews of the products and that you then interview for their experience. You don't need to be an expert in everything. You just need to demonstrate expertise and experience, even if it's from someone else. Okay, so you've matched format to intent. You've built a great page that
satisfies EAT signals and you're good to go. Be sure to like and subscribe for more tips and have fun making all that money. No, of course not. If SEO were that easy, brand new websites could outrank behemoth brands in a matter of days. No. Unfortunately, building an amazing page isn't nearly enough, especially if you're a newer site or one that's typically gotten lower search traffic. You have to power up your pages. And that is step number three in ranking number one in Google. Okay. So
how do we power up our money pages such that Google and users trust us with their clicks? Well, the main ways are by building topical authority around your target keyword through helpful interrelated content pieces all connected by internal links. I'll break that down in a second. and by acquiring healthy natural backlinks from other websites to your websites. Let's keep it real simple. Pretend you're Google and you are tasked with evaluating whether or not two different websites should
rank for the keyword best hydroponic garden system. Both websites have a great page on the topic with expert advice, engaging onpage elements like infographics, plenty of firsthand experience, but website A only [music] has one page on the overarching topic of hydroponic gardening freshly published a couple weeks ago. While website B, on the other hand, has an entire ecosystem of related content pieces covering hydroponic gardening from every conceivable angle. Best hydroponic gardens for vegetables, for outdoor
growing, for apartments, for limited space, best gardens on a budget. You name it, they have it. Not only that, but since they've developed so much great content, they've earned powerful backlinks from sites like Better Homes and Gardens and a bunch of niche gardening websites. So, which would you choose to rank for [music] best hydroponic garden system? Keep in mind, there's no difference in quality on the page itself, but I think the answer's obvious. We'd choose the one with proven
trust from other websites and clear topical authority on the subject. This is exactly why Surfer exists and why I personally use it and have used it even before making videos on this channel. Surfer's sites dashboard takes the guesswork out of building topical authority. You plug in your domain, connect it to Google Search Console, and Surfer analyzes your existing content coverage, showing you exactly where you stand and where the gaps are. Those are your next content priorities. Each piece
you publish fills in more of that topical map, signals to Google that you actually know what you're talking about, and creates more opportunities for internal linking back to your money pages. And once you've identified what to write, Surfer's content editor helps you build each piece with the right semantic keywords, proper structure, and comprehensive factual coverage from both traditional and AI search platforms. So, every supporting article actually moves the needle on your authority. The result
is a content ecosystem where every piece supports every other piece and your money pages sit at the center of a web of trust signals pointing right at them. Now, let's talk about the second portion of that powering up equation. Getting back links from other websites to your website. Now, backlinking is a massive topic that deserves its own video or even series of videos. So, as much as I'm tempted, I can't go down that rabbit hole today. That said, I do have a video on my own channel, Matt Kenyon
Marketing, of my favorite backlink acquisition techniques, which you can check out via the info card or the link in the description if you're interested. I will say this though, and I will die on this hill. I believe it's far more important to build your topical authority with interrelated pieces of content first before you go hunting for backlinks. And here's why. Let's stick with the hydroponics thing. Let's say you're trying to build a hydroponic supply brand and you start doing some
outreach to other websites for backlinks. Of course, my preference would be just to create content that's so good that other sites link to you naturally, but everyone gets very upset when you say that. Anyway, which would be an easier cell to try to get a backlink from a site owner? Would it be, "Hey, can you please link to my sales page because I want money?" or hey, I noticed that you linked to a page on an old site that hasn't been updated in six years on the best hydroponic gardening
nutrient solutions. I just wrote a brand new post where I tested a bunch and I think it could really help your audience. Plus, transparently, I would honestly love a backlink from your site. It's a no-brainer. They'd almost be silly not to link to you given the value you're providing to their audience. So, great, you get the backlink to your blog post, but how does that power up your money pages? How does that help me make money, my dude? I'll tell you why. Two words, some of the sweetest words in all
of SEO. [music] Internal linking. More specifically, internal linking. Passing link authority to other pages on your site. That's 11 words and doesn't quite roll off the tongue. But here's the point. When you build content clusters around your money pages and then internally link everything together, all the backlink authority that each of those supporting pages get, like our hypothetical blog post on nutrient solutions, all that authority gets passed up to the money page through those internal links, boosting the
authority of the money page in search results. Then you rinse and repeat. Applying this process to each and every one of your revenue driving pages and the rising tides of organic growth lifts the entire ship of your website. Are you seeing the power of this? Isn't SEO insane? I didn't think as a little child who wanted to make Pixar movies that I'd be saying that about a digital marketing strategy, but here we are. Now, this is a lot of hard work. I just described doing this for one particular money
page. If you have multiple products or services, you'll be rinsing and repeating for each of them. I'm condensing this process for the sake of this video. But creating just one of these topical clusters around your money page, and building links to those pages can take several months of full-time work. And even then, there's no guarantee that you'll see results for another few months. And also, I'm assuming that you already have good product market fit and a technically sound website. But SEO rewards the
patient because traffic gained from SEO is high intent and high quality. And you can often reap the rewards of it for years to come. When you study the patterns of the number one ranking websites, no matter what industry, they follow this playbook. They build killer money pages with compelling copy and engaging visuals. They create whole ecosystems of content around those pages and they build authority and trust from the rest of the internet sometimes over the course of decades. So that's the
move. It's not easy, but it's very doable even for small to medium-sized businesses. And the best part is that you don't have to do it alone and you don't have to do it manually. Software tools like Surfer exist to handle the heavy lifting, identifying keyword gaps, optimizing your content, and tracking your progress so you can focus on actually building the business. If you want to try it out, there's a link in the description below. And if you want to learn more about growing your AI
visibility, be sure to watch this video next. Thanks for watching and happy ranking.