Now we are going to get into the nitty-gritty. Roll up your sleeves because things are going to start to get messy.
Search engine ranking -- everybody is talking about it.
Why?
In one word, Traffic!
Not all traffic is the same
You can easily get traffic to a web site by paying PTC sites or posting on generic social media sites, but not all traffic is good traffic. Only Targeted traffic is good traffic. As far as affiliate marketing is concerned we want the bulk of our traffic to be targeted. Targeted traffic is traffic that has a need for what you are selling and most likely to become a customer.
Ultimate Secret: Nobody tells you for any price:
Secret #1
Not everyone on the web is searching to buy something!
Oh sure, It is obvious now that I've said it.
Just for that, I’ll throw in a bonus!
Secret #1b
Bookmark two websites:
- http://www.google.com/webmasters/
- http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster
These sites are pay dirt. You have hit the mother lode. Google and Bing are so chock full of information I should have charged a $199 up charge, but I forgot to sell them, so I guess it will have to be a freebie!
Back to Traffic
Two statistics you should memorize:
Search Engine Market Share (http://gs.statcounter.com 2010-2011)
Google 91.32%
Bing 3.55%
Yahoo! 3.43%
Other 1.70%
And
Google Search Results (Original Source Unknown)
Rank CTR
1 46%
2 29%
3 19%
4 17%
5 14%
CTR is Click-Through-Rate. I’ll summarize this, 91% of all users use Google, and the site ranked number 1 has a Click through rate of 46%.
It is no wonder that the number one spot in Google is so coveted in SEO!
Now wait a minute!
Statistics is a wonderful thing, especially if you are showing them to people who don't know them.
I want you to stop and think about your searching habits for a second. How often do you click the first result? It could be as high as 46%. So why am I questioning them?
Actually the statistics are very accurate. But the statistics are based on ALL searches. Here is where we need to take a trip back to Targeted traffic and my little secret (remember – not everyone is searching to buy something).
First we will look at targeted traffic angle. Pick a product, any product, then search for it – what site shows up in the number one spot, possibly the next couple after that? If you said the manufacturer's or retailer's you get the grand prize!
Now pick a good research topic and search for that on Google, try “Volcanoes”. What is the number one spot? If you said Wikipedia. Ding Ding Ding – another prize!
Do you see a pattern about that number one spot? Google is trying to give you the most relevant website – and it succeeds. As for traffic for SEO the story is very different.
Now lets take a look from the "I’m looking to buy something" angle. What am I most likely to search for.
Hmmm. The product? Yes, we covered that one, what else?
The retailer! – yeah, the store that I think sells the product!
Now comes the stinger! If you are not searching for products, or stores, or research topicswhat else are you searching for?
I hope you guessed this one. You are looking for information about a product!
Armed with this knowledge, the statistics make perfect sense. These statistics are meaningless for my SEO because I want my traffic to be buyers, not information hunters. Yet the whole SEO industry swears by the statistics.
When I search for a generic keyword, it is not very rare for me to move on to page two-three-four and five until I get a description that is what I want BEFORE I click! Why is Google wasting valuable server time to show them to us? After all, according to the statistics – Google only needs to show us page one!
Another consideration is do you only click one site per search result - I don't. And if I did click number one, my second choice would not be number one again. To that end I don't work down the list clicking each result in turn either. The point that I'm making is don't blindly take statistics, you need to think about them.
Okay, so what are the real numbers? Unfortunately at the moment they are not publicly available, nor do I think anyone is keeping track yet – everyone is banking on the ones we already have.
So where does that leave us to get targeted traffic?
You need to make your pages relevant. Don't obsess about being only number one. but don't be number 31,000,000 either. The more relevant your pages are the better the ranking. When people read your description and if that description is relevant to them – they will click it.
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