Going from rank 30 to rank 1 on Google…

Social media seems to trump search. That doesn’t mean you can ignore your Google presence. Google is still one of the most profound ways to seek information, if not the foremost in many situations.

One of our client’s websites went straight up from rank 30 in Google to rank 1 after we rebuilt his entire site from the ground up. Same design, but everything new under the hood. When we spoke, he said he had used a VPN to check his site from Germany for the keywords we had targeted for him, and it ranked number 1.

Now, his is a unique service in the Dubai film industry and his company has been around for about two decades. He’s well established, so there’s a clear advantage to his rankings. There just aren’t hundreds or thousands of competitors for the top slot. Yet, there are reasons why he ranks at the top. Here’s my take:

1. Google, plain and simple, loves his site. A simple five-pager, to the point, with minimal content. People like Neil Patel will yell at you that the average site ranking at the top has ‘bla bla’ number of words on average. That may be true, but it’s not true in all situations. Google doesn’t use the same algorithm, or just one algo, across the planet. I’ve always felt they use different stuff out here than they do let’s say, in more web savvy markets. So a five-pager with about a paragraph of content on each page, averaging 80 words per page, with the home page having about 160 words (20 of those his clients’ brand names).
2. No fancy stuff, no WordPress, no custom CMS. Just plain HTML pages with CSS and JavaScript (for the photo gallery). Besides that, essential meta tags, Open Graph tags, and that’s it. No ugly animation.
3. Each page targets his core service in terms of SEO. A meta title tag includes his service name, like: ‘Dubai’s #1 your-keywords-here service company.’ The same phrase is used on his pages, just once, if it’s relevant. So what’s being said in the meta title, continues in the meta description, and on the page, same words, a little more elaborate at each level.
4. The code is clear and sharp. The previous site had all kinds of bloat and code blocks from I don’t know when, so we rewrote everything, removed all the old libraries (some of them unused), and kept it all in plain JS. In most projects, there’s no real need for any fancy stuff.
5. Straight to the point, useful information. Here’s what we do, here’s how we do it, and here’s how you can get to us. Clear communication, with actual photographs (not stock), that someone seeking the service would love.

I must add, my client’s site was always in the top ten, so as soon as Google spotted positive changes, it went right back into the top ten and regained its position. Like I said, Google simply loves his site. Yet, it’s worth remembering that most websites lose rankings when web developers change hands and spoil them.

Is it possible to go to rank 1 on Google in 2025? You bet, it is!