In this day and age of instant gratification the internet has become a source of happiness for many. The instantaneous shopping, research, and entertainment has become a very large reality in most peoples daily lives. It is no real surprise to find that internet retailers and marketers are scrambling to make the top of the rankings list when it comes to search engine results pages (SERPs) and here’s why.
The statistical facts:
- 62% of search engine users never go past the first page of the search results.
- 42% of users selected the top ranked website on the SERP. Only 8% used the second.
- If the results reversed the two top positions of the ranking the ratio went from 42%:8% to 34%:12%.
- 23% of users went to the second page in the SERP, the remaining 15% of users either gave up the search or refined their search terms.
- 77% of users would select from links from the organic (unpaid) listings, and 67% chose unpaid listings when purchasing.
- 40% of the advertising campaigns that are aware of the return on investment (ROI) achieved a 500% return. Only 22% could achieve this with pay-per-click (PPC.)
- 60 million people used a search engine on a daily basis in 2005, almost 66% of searches were done through Google in Dec. 2009, with Yahoo!, and Bing coming in second and third.
There are the facts, and if you look closely at them you will find that people want a good looking website, on the front page.
Here’s what to do to get the “prime real estate” keyword positions:
- Define your targets – If you are selling boats, you want traffic from camping, hiking, and fishing enthusiasts. It does no good for your site to be no. 1 for the snow skiing groups.
- Select your keywords well – This is the most important part. Google and Yahoo has excellent keyword tools that can help you in this.
- Write the pages – Keeping the keywords and targets in mind. Studies have shown also that if the pages are over 400-500 words, people tend lose interest. Keep the keyword density at around 2%-3%, more is too much and the search engines will rate it lower.
- Good meta-tags and title tags – Meta-tags are the description displayed in the SERP’s, and title tags are the title that shows. If these are compelling, the people will come. Use the main keywords in the meta-tags also, but make the description make sense.
The above tips are only a small portion of the SEO process, If this seems confusing, hire a professional search engine optimisation company. This method will alleviate some of the discomfort of obtaining the highly coveted “Prime Real Estate.”
