First page placement for some high-volume keywords: that’s the bread and butter of every single business online. But it’s a lofty goal if you’re a novice webmaster; it can seem impossible to obtain for any keyword worth having.
Of course, that’s why keyword research is the most important part of any website’s functional lifespan, but that’s neither here nor there. The point here and now is that any website can achieve first page placement — it’s just a question of whether you have time, money, or both.
Time
Having time means you can afford to wait a while for your first page placement. It means that you can invest time in creating your own backlinks, and then wait for months while those backlinks slowly build your website up further and further on the SERPs until you reach the front page.
Money
If you have money (and no time), you can obtain instant first page placement using the Sponsored Links section of any given major search engine. In order words, you hire a decent your website onto the first page of the search engines by bidding on keywords and putting up sponsored advertisements.
Both
If you have both, you can pursue both plans at once — get a pay pre click campaign going for instant money, and then sit back and work on your backlinks and other SEO until you start getting some significant organic traffic flowing. Once you’ve achieved that, you can choose whether or not the PPC management is bringing in enough money to warrant keeping it up, or if you want to drop it and run with just the organic traffic.
Of course, it goes without saying that there is no “neither” option. If you’re a typical startup entrepreneur that’s already investing all of your time and money into your website, you’re going to have to sacrifice something in order to get onto the first page. It might hurt a bit up front, but once you commit to doing whatever it takes to achieve that front page placement — and you succeed — you’ll find that it was well worthwhile.
