Why Top Rankings Deliver Traffic
When people do a search for a site such as yours, they rarely look beyond the first 30 results. It is therefore of no use to you if your pages appear at say, position #356 - almost no one will scroll through pages and pages of results to look at an entry at position #356.
Most search engines are set to return results 10 at a time. A position in the first 5 results is, by far, the most valuable and a position on the first page of results (top 10 results) many times more valuable than a position on the third page of results (results 21-30). A ranking of 50 or higher (sixth, or greater, pages or results) has little or no value. Your pages are unlikely to appear in the top 20 results without optimisation.
Is it worth it?
Search engine traffic is very targeted. Potential customers who find your site using a search engine are actively looking for your products and services. Search engine optimisation delivers highly qualified traffic right into your website. With advertising and promotion, you hope to attract people to your site and interest them in your products and services. In contrast, when people query search engines they have already decided they are interested in your products and services but they just don't know where to find them.
You can do your own optimisation but a search engine consultant can get better rankings faster. SEO is a complex process with a steep learning curve that continuously moves as the search engines change their algorithms. SEO professionals are aware of the latest changes and can amortise their research costs over a number of clients. Also, every search engine has different ranking criteria.
To maximize your success from search engine and directory listings requires substantial time commitments plus an in depth knowledge of:
- Internet marketing - what is working and what isn't
- submission rules
- ranking criteria - algorithms
- the most common search terms and phrases people are currently using to find sites like yours
- spider friendly HTML (as distinct to normal HTML)
- your main competitors' websites and their optimisation
- your page rankings compared to your competitors
If you don't have this SEO knowledge, or could spend your time more profitably on other management tasks, then contact our search engine consultants who can help maximize the number of new customers referred from search engines and directories. Check our resources page for additional information.
