A recent study by Pew Internet shows that the majority of buyers looking for information prefer the Internet…ahead of all other source. Further, when researching products and services, Internet users preferred using search engines like Google to simplify the task.
The results of the study make sense to me because I like Google and use it to find a variety of things such as recipes for dinner, directions and even as a quick dictionary just to check my spelling.
So, if Google is such a powerful tool, how can we harness its strength and put it to work for us? The answer is Search Engine Optimization or SEO.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the visibility of unpaid Web site listings in a search engine’s results page. Said another way, we want to be listed as close to the top on the front page of Google as possible…and SEO is a technique to get us there.
As a marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, words that are used while searching and maximizing the total quality traffic to a given Web site.
As with any new industry, there are many intelligent people claiming to be experts. Some of them are truly gifted and others, well…not so much. The trouble with SEO is that the information on how to do it right is truly worth a fortune; thus, those who understand SEO aren’t going to publish the real answers in a book. We’re going to try to change all that with our SEO Saturday.
SEO Saturdays
Every week, on Saturday, we’re going to examine and unlock another SEO secret that will drive new traffic to your site. Some days we’ll focus just on myths, the stuff that everyone thinks is going to work but in reality is just a waste of time; at other times we’ll focus on tools that can help you analyze and understand your site. Today’s lesson focuses on the first page of Google and the value of top positions.
An organic click-through rate study was conducted by Optify which examined 250 websites. They concluded that the top spot in Google received 36.4% of all clicks, while a number two position received just 12.5%. The numbers continue to drop as shown below:
As you can see, there are huge advantages of claiming the top position in Google!
In upcoming weeks we’ll focus on how to achieve front page and top listings that will drive tons of quality traffic to your Web site.
And soon you’ll be joining that elite group of webmasters who enjoy…Money for nothing and your clicks for free.
This is a guest post to the Graphics Unleashed Blog by Doug Dickson. Doug Dickson is President and Chief Energizing Officer of Print Source One, one of the Arizona’s leading printing companies. His clientele includes all of America’s largest financial and insurance companies, celebrities, as well as top professionals in the medical, plastic surgery dental and orthodontic specialties. Mr. Dickson is well known for his ability to analyze Web sites and help them achieve front page listings in Google, a process known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He is an industry expert and has been recognized by Google as a Certified Adwords Partner.
Comment from Sonia Taylor sent via e-mail:
On the ranking by google front, the only trick I know that works, for sure, is to have PLAIN TEXT on every page. The reason I know this is that when I first put up the current version of our website, the home page was a graphics only splash that you used to click through to three parts of the site (I’m a designer, no surprise there). I entered all the key words, bla bla bla, and google didn’t index at all. When I added plain text under the graphic image, we were indexed within a week. And are the first result on google when you search for Errant Art. Not that we get any traffic to speak of, but still. I’m sure this is one of the tricks that people pay big bucks for. Happy to spread the word, as long as doing so doesn’t cause google to stop using plain text to index!
Good to see the details here.