SEO 101 – Part 4: Are Rankings Really That Important?

It’s been said that the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google’s search results.

That should tell you how important rankings are.

Think about yourself for a moment. How often, when googling a subject, do you get through all the results on the first page and click through to the second page?

If you’re like the majority of the population the answer is never.

In fact, it’s not even enough to be on the first page of Google search results.

A study by Chitka shows that from the very first link shown right to number 15 the number of clicks received diminishes greatly.

http://cms.searchenginewatch.com/IMG/542/261542/percentage-of-traffic-by-google-results-position-chitika.png?1371678743

This graph tells us that:

• The first results shown get 33% of all browsers clicking on it. This means that if 100 people search with a keyword you match for, you will get 33 people clicking through to your site. Not bad when you consider some keywords have thousands of searches run on them a day!
• The second result shown gets just 18% of Google traffic. Still not too bad if you’re ranking for a popular keyword. Unfortunately, this is where the real traffic results start to stop.
• Third, Fourth and Fifth position get less than 10 in every 100 searches clicking on their link. After the 10th link, you might as well not even be on the front page.

What does this tell you about search engine optimisation?

Because we don’t actually know exactly what gets a page ranked, many people new to SEO will jump in and spend a lot of money attempting to get ‘on the first page’ of Google for specific keywords. In fact, many search engine optimisation consultants ‘guarantee’ first page results! But what good is being on the first page if you’re not in the top five? In fact, if it took thousands of dollars to get there, it may not even be worth being in the top five!

The key to effective search engine marketing efforts, is to balance the amount of money you need to spend with your estimated return. It’s true that you don’t have to pay every time a customer clicks on your link, but you will definitely be paying money to get content built, to change your website around and to define what keywords you should be targeting.

Again, this is why the right search engine optimisation specialist can be the best thing to ever happen to you. The wrong one can be a huge waste of money! Make sure you get the right search engine optimisation consultant with Complete Cloud Services.

It’s now time to bust some myths on what gets a page ranked highly in Google!

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