4 Easy Steps to Get YOUR Website To The Top of Google in 2026

Table of contents

Open Table of contents

• 1. Build Genuine E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust
• 2. Write Content Optimized for Both Humans and AI Overviews (GEO)
• 3. Earn High-Quality Backlinks — Forget Affiliate Blog Networks
• 4. Fix the Technical Fundamentals — They’re the Floor, Not the Ceiling
• What Are the Top Search Engines in 2026?
• Wrapping Up
• Google SEO — 2026 FAQ
  • Does ranking #1 on Google still matter if AI Overviews show first?
  • What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?
  • Are backlinks still important in 2026?
  • How do I know if my site was affected by a Google algorithm update?
• Updated for May 2026

1. Build Genuine E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust

Google’s Helpful Content updates (2022–2024) and the follow-on ranking changes in 2025 made one thing clear: thin, templated, or obviously AI-generated content that lacks real first-hand experience gets demoted. E-E-A-T (the extra “E” for Experience was added in late 2022) is now the lens through which quality raters — and increasingly the algorithm — evaluate every page.

What this means practically:

• Write from experience. I share what I’ve tested on my own sites, not generic advice. That first-hand signal is hard to fake and increasingly what Google rewards.
• Author pages matter. A clearly attributed author with a real bio and credentials helps establish expertise. I link my posts to my about page for exactly this reason.
• Cite sources. Linking out to credible primary sources (Google’s own documentation, peer-reviewed research, recognized industry data) signals to Google that you’re participating in the broader knowledge graph, not just selling.
• Original data and opinion. Publish something no one else has: a test you ran, a dataset you analyzed, a contrarian take you’ll defend. This is what earns citations from AI Overviews.

If you’re not sure where you stand, check Google Search Console. The “helpful content” classification signals are partially surfaced there, and your impressions curve will tell you whether you were hit by a core or helpful-content update.

2. Write Content Optimized for Both Humans and AI Overviews (GEO)

Traditional keyword SEO still applies — find the terms your audience searches, use them naturally in headings and early in the body, match the search intent. Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Google’s own Keyword Planner (previously marketed under the Google Ads / AdWords umbrella) remain the standards for this. Keep keyword density natural; stuffing still triggers penalties.

But in 2026 you also need to think about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — structuring content so AI systems can extract and cite it. Tactics that help:

• Clear, direct answers near the top of the page. AI Overviews pull from the text that most directly answers the query. Don’t bury your answer after three paragraphs of preamble.
• Structured formatting. Use ## subheadings, numbered lists, and concise paragraphs. This is easier for both humans and language models to parse.
• FAQ sections. I’ve added one to this post (see below). Explicit Q&A structure matches well against question-type queries.
• Schema markup. FAQ schema, HowTo schema, and Article schema signal structure to Google’s crawlers. Most modern CMS platforms or plugins handle this.
• Semantic completeness. Cover the topic thoroughly enough that a language model synthesizing an answer would naturally want to cite your page.

The honest reality: AI Overviews have reduced organic CTR on informational queries — if Google answers the question in the Overview, fewer users click through. This makes it critical to rank for queries where the user still needs to visit a page (product comparisons, tutorials, tools, original research), not just definitional lookups.

3. Earn High-Quality Backlinks — Forget Affiliate Blog Networks

The original version of this post recommended “SEO hosting” services that set up affiliate blog networks — essentially paying for a web of links pointing to your site. This approach is a liability in 2026. Google has gotten significantly better at detecting and discounting (or penalizing) low-quality, paid, or manipulative link schemes. The manual penalty risk is real and recovery is slow.

What actually works for links:

• Create genuinely link-worthy content. Original research, comprehensive guides, free tools, and data-driven posts attract links without asking for them. My SEO tools guide still earns passive links because it’s the most complete version of that resource I could write.
• Digital PR. Get mentioned in industry publications, podcast appearances, and expert roundups. These links are editorial, contextual, and high-value.
• Broken link building. Find dead links on relevant sites and offer your content as a replacement. Ahrefs and SEMrush both have broken-link finders.
• Guest posts on real editorial sites. Writing a genuinely useful article for a respected blog in your niche is still effective. The key word is “real” — a site with an actual audience, editorial standards, and organic traffic, not a link-farm that accepts anything for a fee.

For social signals: yes, shares and engagement on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and (now) X still correlate with traffic and brand recognition. But they’re a downstream result of good content, not an independent ranking lever to “boost.” Focus on creating things worth sharing.

4. Fix the Technical Fundamentals — They’re the Floor, Not the Ceiling

Technical SEO doesn’t win rankings by itself, but bad technical SEO blocks everything else. The fundamentals haven’t changed much:

• Core Web Vitals. Google’s page experience signals — LCP (load speed), INP (interaction responsiveness, replaced FID in 2024), CLS (layout stability) — are a confirmed ranking factor. Google Search Console shows your CWV scores by URL group. Fix them.
• Mobile-first. Google indexes the mobile version of your site. If your mobile experience is broken, your rankings will reflect that.
• HTTPS. Non-HTTPS sites still exist; they still get soft-penalized. No excuse in 2026.
• Clean URL structure. Keywords in URLs help, but more importantly, a consistent, logical URL hierarchy is easier for Googlebot to crawl and understand. Keep slugs short and descriptive.
• Reduce bounce rate through content-intent match. If someone bounces immediately, it’s usually because your page didn’t match what they expected from the search result. Tighten your title/description to set accurate expectations, and make sure the page delivers on the promise within the first screen.
• Internal linking. Help Google (and users) find your best content. I link related posts within the body — not just in a “related posts” widget — because contextual links pass more relevance signal.

For more advanced SEO moves, I’ve written about SEO techniques and how to increase website traffic in separate posts.

What Are the Top Search Engines in 2026?

Google still commands the dominant share of search globally. Bing (now integrated with Microsoft Copilot) is the meaningful #2 in English-language markets. But “search” has expanded: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s own Gemini now answer queries directly. If you’re doing GEO well — structured content, real expertise, clean markup — you’re positioned for all of them. The fundamentals transfer.

Wrapping Up

“Getting to the top of Google” in 2026 means being the source that both human users and AI systems trust. That requires real expertise, content that directly answers questions, legitimate authority signals (backlinks and author credibility), and a technically sound site. The shortcuts that worked in 2015–2020 — link networks, keyword stuffing, thin content — are liabilities now.

Start with the basics: write one genuinely useful, well-structured post on a topic you actually know. Fix your Core Web Vitals. Get one good editorial link. Then iterate.

Read more:

• My best SEO techniques
• How to boost your website traffic
• What is SEO
• A collection of best marketing guides

Google SEO — 2026 FAQ

Does ranking #1 on Google still matter if AI Overviews show first?

Yes, but the goal shifts. Ranking #1 organically still gets clicks — especially for navigational, commercial, and transactional queries where users want to go to a site, not just read a summary. For informational queries, being cited in the AI Overview itself has become the new “position zero.” You earn that by writing the clearest, most authoritative answer on the topic.

What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is optimizing content to be cited by AI-powered answer engines — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc. Traditional SEO optimizes for ranking in a list of blue links. GEO optimizes for being the source an AI synthesizes its answer from. In practice they overlap heavily: clear structure, direct answers, real expertise, and quality backlinks help both.

Are backlinks still important in 2026?

Yes — probably more than ever, but the bar for what counts has risen. One editorial link from a relevant, trusted site is worth more than hundreds of links from low-quality or paid networks. Google’s spam detection has improved significantly. Focus on earning links through quality content and digital PR rather than buying them.

How do I know if my site was affected by a Google algorithm update?

Check Google Search Console for sudden drops in impressions or clicks, and cross-reference the dates against Google’s publicly announced update history (available on their Search Central blog). Ahrefs and SEMrush also track visibility changes. If you were hit by a helpful-content or core update, the fix is almost always improving content quality and E-E-A-T — not technical tweaks.

Related reading:

• What is SEO · Advanced SEO techniques · Increase website traffic

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This guide is part of alejandrorioja.com — written by Alejandro Rioja, who now builds AI agent systems for founders. Including the agent that keeps this site current. How it works →

Updated for May 2026

Google’s 2026 story is AI Overviews everywhere: the SGE experiment from 2023 graduated to a default feature in May 2024 and now appears on an estimated ~60% of US informational queries. For SEO and ad operators:

• Organic CTR on queries with AI Overviews has dropped 15–30% on average per published studies from Ahrefs, Authoritas, and similar (2024–25 data).
• Google Ads rebranded several PMax features as AI-powered Search; the campaign management UI now defaults to AI bidding suggestions.
• Search Console added an “AI Overview impressions” filter in late 2025 — if a post here references GSC reporting, the playbook needs a refresh.
• Google’s ad revenue crossed ~$265B in 2024; Search remains ~57% of total Alphabet revenue.

The “how Google makes money” answer in 2026: still Search ads (dominant), but YouTube ads, Cloud, and Subscriptions (YouTube Premium + Google One) are all material lines now.