Is the amount of traffic you will get in the #1 position really worth the effort and cost?

The answer to this question is yes, it is generally worth the effort and cost to get in the #1 position. The stipulation, however, is that the amount of traffic return you will receive depends on your industry. Some keywords are able to bring in traffic percentages close to that top position, according to this study done on traffic percentage differences when they reach positions 1, 2, and 3 in Google. Unfortunately, some are not even close.

To sum up, the study suggests:

• Position one gets 34% of the projected traffic for the selected term.
• Position two gets 17% of the projected traffic for the selected term.
• Position three gets 11% of the projected traffic for the selected term.

How to Compare Your Industry to the Study

To know how your industry compares to the above projected percentages, do the following:

1. Dive into your analytics and gather historical data that shows how much traffic you were averaging each month when you were in positions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on.
2. Go to the Google Adword Keyword tool (or some other reliable keyword traffic estimator) and get the estimated number of searches for that single term in exact match.
3. Do a little Algebra.

For example:

This example is from an actual client. Let’s take one of their terms that is projected to bring in 33,100 visitors a month in exact match. If we are to assume that this keyword is in the same industry as the study above, they would get roughly 11,254 visitors a month from that one term alone (if they are number 1).

But, it is not in the same industry. It is actually a completely different industry. So, from their historical analytics data I gathered, when they were in position 6 they were getting 1,006 visits per month from that term (3% of the projected search volume for that term). The study suggests that position 6 should be getting 5.05%. When they were in position 3 they were getting 1,728 visits per month (5% of the projected search volume for that term). The study suggests that position 3 should be getting 11%.

Now the Algebra:

To solve for x in position 2, I simply took 5, multiplied it by 17 (the study’s percentage of traffic for position 2) and divided that number by 11 (the study’s percentage of traffic for position 3). This equaled 7.7%. To solve for position 1, I took 7.7, multiplied it by 34 (the study’s percentage of traffic for position one) and divided that number by 17 (the study’s percentage of traffic for position 2). This equaled 15.4%.

Here is the client’s projected percentage of traffic for positions 1, 2, and 3:

This is great! According to this calculation, although we are not getting the same percentages of traffic as in the study, the client’s traffic will still double from position 2 to position 1. However, because their traffic numbers from when they  were in position 6 differ from the study less than their position 3 numbers differed, I had to do this calculation again based on their position 6 numbers and then take the average of the two calculations.

Take a breath (if you’re still reading this)…

Average the two for positions 1,2, and 3:

Because this is an actual case, I already know the results and how they compare to these calculations. When this client started with us they were in position 6 for this term. As of yesterday they are in position 1 and I will be able to compare the accuracy of my number 1 position estimations after a month of occupying that top spot.

When they were in position 3, they got about 1,728 visits from that one term alone, about 5% of the visits. My calculations say it should have been 5.7%. Last month they were number 2 and they received about 2,200 visits from that one term alone, about 7% of the visits. My calculations say it should have been 8.9%. So I’m a little off, but it’s safe to assume that over this next month (since they are number 1), their traffic should almost double for that one term.

It’s hard to project exact numbers for ranking positions, there are so many factors at play. Just as I’ve done here, you can kind of get a feel for what to expect when you reach number 1. I have a rank-checking tool that is funny. After showing that you are ranked number 234 it says, “Keep trying, you can beat Google one day!”

After quickly clearing your cache, cookies, search history, and signing out of your Gmail account, you see the real results, and come to the depressing realization that many other people are not seeing you in that same spot. Once this realization sinks in, you will likely appreciate the following audio clip from the one and only Nacho Libre:

Thanks to Entertonment for this great clip.

With Google’s personalized search results, several factors are at play, including:

• location
• search history
• cookies
• cache

Understanding that these factors are at play and that they affect search results for everybody differently, we have to ask ourselves; is there really a number 1 position anymore? Number 1 for you could easily be number 4, or 7, or 9 for someone on the other side of the country.

So what should SEOs be focusing on?

The truth is that there are still national ranking placements to be gained, and SEOs should still be focusing on obtaining these positions for their clients. It is also true that SEOs need to help their clients optimize their sites for location-specific terms. Doing this may require some additional research, but can help bring them targeted traffic, and fight the personalization factor.

How to Check Rankings without Seeing Personalized Results

There are a few things you can do to view search results that are not affected by your personalized search history and location. Some of these include the following:

• Clear your search history.
• Clear your cache.
• Clear your cookies.
• Search from your mobile phone.
• Search from a different IP address than where you normally do all your searching.
• Add &pws=0 to the end of your search query URL and search it again.
• Have a friend, who lives in another part of the country, search that term (you might get results based on their personalized search, however).
• Sign out of any Gmail, or any other, account you use frequently while searching.

I personally don’t like personalized search results for times when I want to learn something new. I want to see the results that apply to everyone. How are you supposed to research something new if you’re just getting results which are mostly from your own search history? To me, this is a cop-out. It’s like the search engines are just being lazy and saying, “Eh, just show him the usual stuff he always searches and don’t worry about computing something new.”

I do understand that personalized search can be useful in many situations, but I personally don’t care for it most of the time.

How Do We Optimize For Personalized Search?

We need to do more extensive keyword research. We need to be more aware of trends that people are following while searching. Understanding these trends may help us “predict” people’s personalized search history. You can use tools like Soovle to view suggested terms throughout all the major playing search engines, or read great posts like, 3 Ways To Use Google’s Search Results For Keyword Research.

In the end we have to understand that personalized results only impose upon us for some search results properties, but not all. Stick to the long tail terms and the very relevant power terms and your efforts will remain effective, and it will not “suck to be you.”

I have been in this position many times and always get excited to see how quickly I can get my new site to rank well. It’s fun to do and I have learned a lot about what it takes to get a new website on the first page quickly. For the record, I have learned that you can get a site on the first page within a short period of time, but keeping it there and even getting it to move up to the most important positions can take a lot of hard work and time.

One of the things that I have been frustrated with in the past is the amount of time it would take Google to index my sites. I had the site up with some good content on it and everything was optimized perfectly–so why hadn’t Google crawled my site yet? After asking myself this a few times I decided to go out and tell Google about my site. I’m going to give you a couple tips on how to do this. Please keep in mind that with the new Google Caffeine, Google has promised faster indexing, but these tips should still prove useful.

• Set up a free Google Webmaster account and verify it. This is a great way to tell Google about a new site and a great way to set things up the way you want them.
• Submit your url to Google for free. What? You can actually just submit your url to the all powerful Google? Yes. You can.
• Set up a free Google Analytics account. This is another way to tell Google about your site and is also the best free analytics program you can get.
• Build a few directory links to it with the directories you know accept free links fast. I’ve always had quick success with ones like Directory-Free.com and Jayde.com. There are thousands out there, these are just a couple of examples.
• Throw a quick link up to it on another site you own that gets crawled frequently. Usually one of your blogs would be best since it gets crawled every day because you post on it every day…right?
• If you are concerned about Yahoo, they also have a place to submit your url.
• Post a link to your new site on Twitter and Facebook to get some initial traffic to it. If your site is freaking awesome, you may get a couple links out of it at the same time.
• Stumble your site. Digg your site. Wibb-it your site. Basically, go out and put it in every social bookmarking site you know of.

By following these simple guidelines, I have seen some great success with getting my sites indexed quickly. I’m not going to tell you how quickly, because there is no guarantee, but you can believe me when I say quickly. Once your site is indexed and optimized, it’s time to bust out your super SEO powers and build a ton more sweet links!

Not only is the name of a website a determining factor when it comes to people being attracted to your site and whether or not they will remember how to get back to your site, but when chosen correctly, the domain name can give your site a tremendous head start in ranking ability. Keep in mind that you can still rank well without a killer domain name, but from what I have seen, it sure helps.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say your big, 100% relevant, targeted keyword is seo blog. What would be the best domain name to buy to help you show up for this? The best domain name you can use is the exact keyword phrase you are targeting. So, SEOBlog.com would be your optimal domain. Just to demonstrate the importance of this in SEO, go ahead and search “SEO Blog” in Google. For me, seoblog.com is at position 19. What’s so amazing about this? Click on their site and you will see that there is virtually no content. Check their back links–less than 100. This is a fairly competitive term and it takes some good search engine optimization to show up for it. But, it is my opinion that this site ranks well mainly because of its domain name.

Let me give you another example. On July 27, 2009 I started a website for my wife. She is a very accomplished pianist and is going to start offering wedding pianist services in the state of Utah. We did some keyword research and decided to target the keywords “Wedding Pianist”, “Wedding Pianist Utah”, and “Utah Wedding Pianist”. The keyword “Wedding Pianist” is not 100% relevant, since she only offers her services in Utah, however, we found another Utah wedding pianist who shows up for that term already as well as many other wedding pianists who are also geographically limited. We couldn’t buy the domain WeddingPianist.com, that was already taken. Instead we bought www.weddingpianistutah.com. This domain contains our main keyword (at the beginning of the domain even), and it also gives us a geographic location to help customers clarify where she is available.
Today is August 3, 2009 and her site shows up number 8 for “Wedding Pianist” and number 2 for the other two terms. How did this happen? First of all, these terms are not super competitive, but even if they were, I would bet that her site would still show up well in a reasonable amount of time, maybe not 7 days, but still quickly.

In addition to helping you show up well for your terms, having a url that is the main keyword you want to be recognized for is beneficial because people will be able to remember your website easily when referring you to others or when they need to come back themselves. Again, you can still rank well and build a great reputation online with other domain names, but I would recommend a keyword oriented domain if you’re just starting out.

It’s interesting that people can become so engulfed in this old tale, that they spend considerable time looking for this monster, when there has never been any solid evidence. Sure, there are plenty of blurry photos of dark objects in the woods, and several audio recordings of unidentified howlings in the mountains, but there is no tangible proof of Bigfoot’s existence.

The same can be said about SEO practices. There are some common SEO myths that generate lots of excitement, but shouldn’t be given as much attention.

One of these is page rank. For some reason, many SEO consultants persuade their clients to use the page rank estimation of their site, as a primary means for assessing ranking potential and progress. The Google page rank estimator is fun to watch, and it gives an idea of how a site might be perceived, but in reality, it shouldn’t be given much weight when evaluating the success of a given SEO project.

The actual site page rank cannot be known by anyone except Google. We are only given an outdated version of page rank and cannot know the current status of any given site. We know that page rank does help sites pass link juice to other pages within the site and other sites that it links to. However, sites with a high page rank may not rank well in the SERPS, while sites with a lower page rank may show up really well.

My point is this: like all the excitement over a potential Bigfoot sighting, some SEO page rankings should not be given undeserved momentum. There are many who fabricate Bigfoot stories just to generate attention and make money. This is, of course, unethical. In the same way, SEOs should not lead people to believe SEO services are working, based on single tactics like an upgrade in estimated page rank. A true SEO company will help increase the site’s conversion, not sell clients individual tactics that don’t provide results.

There are many different techniques to building good, quality links. I’m not going to talk about getting links naturally through link baiting, I want to talk about recognizing willing websites to request links from, and making those requests correctly.

Link building is supposed to be natural, but when you’re competing for some major keywords, you have to be proactive. In a political campaign, you go out and entice people to vote for you. Similarly with link building, you have to go out and make contact with those that will vote for you, or in other words, link back to your site.

The trick to getting links from sites that will provide your site with some good, succulent, link juice, is to simply find the right site. That’s it.

There are plenty of sites, for practically every category, that would be perfect to request a link from. When doing so, think about the likelihood that an unassociated site would place a link back to your site in the contextual form you need. Why would any site do that? It takes up some of their time, it takes away from their site’s linking authority, and they didn’t start a monetizing website to help out your business.

Recognizing the Perfect Site
When looking for the perfect site to request links, look for the following:

• Sites that show up for the keyword, or the industry of the keyword you are targeting. If you can find a site that is centered around your keyword, or the industry of your keyword, and it is not a competitor, you’ve just found yourself a potentially willing candidate.
• Sites with content relating to your keyword but have no examples or references.
• Sites that have posted something about your client or your company. This is really the first thing I look for when seeking links. There are countless websites (especially for some of our bigger clients) that have posted a review or other useful information about a client, but have no links to their site. Or, they have a link, but it’s in url form only. Many times, these websites are happy to make the change and add the link.
• Sites that ask for suggestions or that ask, “if you know of any other websites that would be relevant to this page, please contact us at wegivelinksforfree@justfortheheckofit.com.” I love coming across a website like this after hours of link building failure.
• In general, sites with a “links” page. There are many websites that have an “industry links” or a “favorite links” page that are willing to add yours without a reciprocal link.

Making the Request
When requesting a link from that perfect site you finally found, don’t screw it up. There are a few guidelines that I follow. Some of these include:

• Find the email address of the right person to contact. This could be the webmaster or a prominent member of the company. I actually prefer to contact people like editors who manage the site’s content, but don’t directly make the changes. These kinds of people are good at getting the webmasters to make the changes, as long as you’re professional and polite with them.
• If your client will allow it, create an email account from your client’s domain. This will establish credibility and will help them see that you’re for real and not a spammer.
• Use the subject line in the request. Try to make it sound important, yet be somewhat ambiguous. If you are contacting the webmaster and if it’s applicable, webmasters always take attention to subject lines that say “problem with your site” (a site all about software, with no links to a software site, is not very user friendly). Do not use words like “link”, or “link request” in the subject line.
• Be professional, or at least try to sound professional. When emailing this person, use their name in the introduction.
• As soon as naturally possible in the email, mention their website and the page you are emailing them about. This will help maintain their attention.
• Be simple and clear in your request.
• Give them exactly what they need to make the change as effortlessly as possible.
• Thank them for their time.
• Make sure your message is free of spelling and grammatical errors.
• Format the letter as professional business correspondence.

Following Up
The last thing you need to do is follow up. Some people are just busy and need a reminder. When they do get back with you, make sure you respond promptly. I have had many successes from people who have had a concern or question regarding my request, because I responded quickly with respect and compliance for their concerns.

While real success in search engine optimization usually requires the assistance of a professional SEO or SEO company, there are several techniques webmasters can perform themselves.

Some of these include:

• Ensuring website copy is sufficient and indexable throughout the site.
• Implementing title tags that make sense and target appropriate keywords.
• Using tags effectively.
• Making certain site structure is consistent, and is as simple as possible.
• Providing useful information, so other sites link back to yours naturally.

It can be quite humorous to view websites that are attempting SEO, but are blundering. The SEO Fail Blog is my blog featuring sites that are endeavoring to perform SEO, but simply fail. Here is one example taken from the SEO Fail Blog:

In this post, I highlight a site attempting to succeed with a tactic that is more of a black hat strategy–which will ultimately fail. This site, composed of mostly pictures and very little useful content, has placed the exact same alt tag on almost all of the images. In addition, the alt tag given is nothing more than a keyword spamming attempt. Here is the actual alt tag on these images:

Alt=“Web Design India, Website design company India, Web designer India web Designing company, Outsourcing to India, banner designs India, graphic Designers, Small business web site design Website Maintenance Service.”

A good alt tag should describe the image as accurately, yet as briefly as possible. Keywords can be inserted where it sounds natural and makes sense. It is wise to only place images on a page that relate to the keyword targeted for that page.

While helpful SEO information can be found all over the internet, it is always wise to consult a professional. This is especially true for sites competing for popular keywords. Many times, making mistakes like the example above will cause serious consequences in the long run.

The next time we met, each of us brought our own invention to try. One by one we tried them. First there was the parachute, which provided a fairly safe landing, but took quite a bit of time to get to the floor. Then there was a paper-made vehicle to hold the egg with a long streamer coming out the back to slow it down a little. This did well, but as it landed, it would tip over and the egg would spill out and break. Then came the Jell-O. One member of our team thought it would be a good idea to put the egg inside a Jell-O mold which was then inside a sealed plastic (breakable) container. As dumb as this idea was, we still tried it. So back up to the fourth floor we went, and looked straight down to the hard-tiled floor. “Ready, three, two, one!” and down went the Jell-O packed egg hitting the floor with a loud pop! Red Jell-O went everywhere, staining the carpets and walls surrounding the tiled area. The egg, of course, was also demolished and the janitor was furious.

Ultimately, we collaborated and came up with an oversize plastic pill bottle stuffed with cotton and a large, flat square piece of cardboard on top to act like a parachute. It was a success. It brought the egg to the floor safely and quickly every single time. Although I will not disclose whether we officially won or lost, there is still a great lesson to be learned here. Our egg never broke, and it still made pretty good time. Other eggs made great time, but those teams were just chancing whether or not it would break.

In real life, if that egg was something you really valued, would you care more about security or speed? Wouldn’t you be willing to lose a little bit of your speed to ensure security? Gaining traffic is the same way—speed referring to just any traffic, and security referring to the right traffic. Properly targeting your site traffic is so important and will greatly improve your conversion rate. However, many businesses still fall into the “speed trap” of desiring to gain traffic without concern for the security or relevancy of the traffic.

Don’t think that because your site is 60% related to a keyword that is searched on 30,000 times per month versus a keyword that relates 100% to your site but is only searched on 1,165 times per month, you should go with the bigger keyword. Obviously you want to try and find the biggest keywords, but just remember that even though a keyword might be as much as 60% relevant to your site and searched on far more, you will still have a high bounce rate. In the long run, you will wish you had chosen the smaller keyword that will bring people that will actually stay on your site and buy something.

So can you just turn back once you have realized this mistake? Yes, but it will take time to re-optimize your site and get solid rankings for your new keywords. When it comes to keyword research and choosing which keywords to optimize your site for, you are really deciding the fate of your business. Don’t fall into the trap thinking that if you go after the biggest keywords they will bring you the most business. Instead, go after relevant keywords.

There are a few specific benefits to writing articles and posting them on the internet. The most important benefit is learning from others experiences and knowledge. This is the real reason articles should be written.  When you are creating information with the potential audience of the entire world, it is definitely important to consider the facts and how accurately they relate to your own opinions and experiences. Unfortunately, there are some who abuse this great tool by writing articles and posting information that is not accurate or true in any sense. The most important thing to look for when trying to determine what is or is not accurate on the internet is consistency. Chances are, if there is one article written on a given topic then there is probably another article on the same topic available.  Being able to compare many different sources will help you establish what is and is not reliable information.

Another benefit that comes with writing articles is the ability to establish yourself, your website, your company profile, etc. Sharing valuable information is a great way for businesses and individuals to help the world get to know them and trust their services or knowledge. In terms of optimizing your visibility on the internet, writing articles and giving reference to you as the source is something that can help people find more accurate information from you and also from the other sources connected to you.

We all know the best way to find information on the internet is through the search engines (particularly Google, Yahoo, and MSN).  The great thing about these search engines is that their main objective is to help people see the most accurate and relevant information first. They are constantly trying to develop better systems and methods for sifting through the information to generate the results that people are really looking for.  When done with a natural and beneficial intent, writing articles is a great way for the search engines to recognize who you are and what you are trying to do.

Within the article, there is a great opportunity to give yourself or your business a “vote” for the information you are presenting. The search engines are just as interested in presenting relevancy as you are interested in finding it. One way they determine who deserves to show up first for any given search is the amount of “votes” that have been delegated to that website for the targeted topic(s). Considering this, articles are a great place to insert natural, contextual links back to your site. These links are the “votes” for your website. Links in a contextual form surrounded by relevant and accurate content are a powerful vote for your website and your trophy key terms.  These links, when used accurately, are a great way to show the search engines that you are really about what you are saying.

The other thing you always want consider is the title. The search engines read articles much like people; they look at the title to determine what the content will be about. Having a title that is consistent to your content and contains your targeted keywords is a great way to show the search engines what your website is about.  Additionally, including your targeted keywords within the article itself in a natural way will help the search engines more fully identify and categorize your article. It also helps to have those contextual links come from a source with a title and content that is consistent with what your site is about.

Again, it is important to remember that increasing visibility on the internet is about being relevant to your users.  Ultimately, the top search engines will find better ways to bring those that deserve to be at the top, to the top. Writing articles to share accurate and beneficial information while establishing those contextual links to your site is a great way to help the search engines find you.