Custom Search
|
|
Is A Number One Position The Seo Holy Grail!
So, is it really all that important to have your site sitting top-of-the-stack? Are SEO's or Internet Marketing Agencies more than happy for a clients site to settle for a Page Two listing? Before I can honestly answer that question, lets delve into some facts and figures to get the general consensus of what page ranking means to your on-line business success. It's no secret that there are figures available on the Internet as to how many searches are performed on a keyword phrase. Some major Search Engines (Yahoo for example) release their figures to on-line sites or third-party desktop applications every month. One of the best examples that I have come across of determining the search criteria of a keyword phrase is SEO Book's Keyword Suggestion Tool: (www.tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/suggestions/) ; This tool collates the information released from Overture (Yahoo) and determines the estimated monthly searches by Google users simply by doubling the number. In the USA, Google has around roughly 60% of the market share and Yahoo 20% - that's three times as much, not twice as many, I hear you cry but remember to take into account vanity searches, click bots, rank checkers, and other forms of automated traffic. Google in the UK has around 78% of the market (source: www.999today.com/technology/news/story/3285.html) and an educated estimate would be to times Overture's figures by eight to find the Google audience for your keyword search. The only Search Engine to release relevant figures to help figure out Click-Through-Rates (CTR) for Top Twenty Positions were AOL (source: www.jimboykin.com/click-rate-for-top-10-search-results/) and the figures were surprisingly astounding: Number 1 Position would get 3.5 times more Clicks than Number 2 Position Number 1 Position would get 4.9 times more Clicks than Number 3 Position Number 1 Position would get 8.5 times more Clicks than Number 5 Position Number 1 Position would get 14.1 times more Clicks than Number 10 Position By using the above example I can run a test against a keyword search to determine the CTR for a competitive keyword phrase. If I type in “SEO Company” I'm informed that I get around 9084 searches in Overture (Yahoo) and by using our 50% greater-than ratio for Google (US) this gives us just over 18,000 estimated searches per month. If we be liberal here and apply that 50% of searchers click the Number One position then this gives us 9000 estimated clicks for the top rank site for “SEO Company”. Number Two position decreases by 3.5 times thus 9000/3.5 = 2571 searchers would click this link. It gets even more extreme when you consider what Position Ten of Page One is equivalent to: 9000/14.1 = 638 clicks. If we carry and consider that Page 2 clicks are worth only 10% of the total monthly searches then we can truly grasp the real rapid decline that is happening to a site that is positioned at the bottom of the pile on Page 2: Position Twenty makes 900/28.2 = 32 clicks. So my answer to the question “Should you settle for a Page Two listing” is if your budget allows it and your SEO Company has the skills available for achieving Top Ten results... Absolutely No! Never, believe the hype that Page Two is an affordable place to be. When you consider 9000 clicks against 32 clicks that is when you conceive that SEO can be the greatest return-of-investment your on-line business is ever going to participate in and why many SEO firms still hail that Number One ranking as the Holy Grail. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Paul Steven is an SEO Consultant with a leading Scottish SEO Company. Affordable Ayrshire Web Design Company. |
|