| Is a Number One Position the SEO Holy Grail! |
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Many-an-argument has taken place within on-line forums and community sites over the importance of having a top ranking position for a sought-after keyword phrase. Some contributors have readily stated that they are more-than-happy if their site comes within the top ten to twenty positions stating that their customer/client's on-line ROI (Return On Investment) targets have been met and traffic to the site has doubled, tripled or peaked greater than their initial expectations.
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: (http://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
The only Search Engine to release relevant figures to help figure out
Click-Through-Rates (CTR) for Top Twenty Positions were AOL (source: http://www.jimboykin.com/click-rate-for-top-10-search-results/)
and the figures were surprisingly astounding:
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. About the AuthorPaul Steven is an SEO Consultant with a leading Scottish SEO Company. Affordable Ayrshire Web Design Company. |