is getting ranked in google first page necessary?

[condorx]

Hi all,

Getting ranked in google first page sometimes could be extremely difficult if your competitors ranking score is good.So getting traffic to your web site may become a nightmare.(What happens to me)

My question is ;what could be the other ways to get traffic?

which strategy works fine for u?and how?

article marketting?
forum posting?
social media?
etc..

Please write your experience for newbies like me.

[myob]

All of my websites are in some of the most highly competitive niches I can find, only because that's where the big money is at. And none of them have ever ranked in the SERPs above several thousands of others. But almost all of my traffic results from siphoning off of the sites that do rank on pages 1-3 for my targeted keywords or otherwise relevant to my targeted markets. This is done through articles and/or advertising.

[rekerlolz]

To be honest most of my traffic comes from the search engines.

My best advice to you if you do decide to get ranked highly in the search engines is to always provide UNIQUE content. Especially after the Google Panda update ...if you have any content that is identical or similar to someone else's you will get down ranked pretty fat. Trust me on that one. It is all about having a ton of unique and useful content.

[rotten72]

Originally Posted by rekerlolz

To be honest most of my traffic comes from the search engines.

My best advice to you if you do decide to get ranked highly in the search engines is to always provide UNIQUE content. Especially after the Google Panda update ...if you have any content that is identical or similar to someone else's you will get down ranked pretty fat. Trust me on that one. It is all about having a ton of unique and useful content.

Content is King!

[Andyhenry]

You seem to be forgetting something important.

Traffic = People.

Who cares about Google rankings - most of the traffic in most niches does not come from Google.

If you really want to help those people you need to find out who they are, where they are and what they want/need.

For example if you're selling golf clubs and find all the search positions are filled with established golf sites that you can't compete with, you just start looking at who you're after - where they hang out - what makes you different (why should they care about you when they can buy golf stuff from 1000 other places?).

In this case maybe you have personalised golf gear, or you brand golf merchandise. Maybe you have a unique golf software package or tutorial videos. Maybe you've interviewed a ton of golf pros and have lessons that have a new and interesting way of teaching golf. Maybe you sell golf stuff with humourous quotes on.

You could advertise in Golf magazines.

You could contact golf clubs (there are thousands of them all over the world) and work out a way to get advertising, or sponser golf events etc.

Maybe you do some press releases related to current golf events and the types of shots and equipment being used by the winners.

The list is endless - all nothing to do with Google.

Just use your brain. Most of your competitors are lazy and don't know what they're doing.

Andy

[lerxtjr]

Pointing out the obvious here for most of us, but the dude said he was a nube, so my suggestion is to not try to get positioning for one-word keywords or even two-word keywords at first. Get really good at finding the 3, 4, or 5-word keyword phrases people are searching for and get favorable search positioning for those. For every one or two-word phrase out there, you will find probably 50-100 or more keyword phrases with the same person searching that you can easily write a blog post for and have top 5 positioning within a few hours.

[JoshTara]

You either get ranked high in google or you pay for advertising. There isnt to many other options to get large amounts of traffic. even writing an article doesnt end up in a lot of traffic unless your article ranks high in the search engines.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by JoshTara

You either get ranked high in google or you pay for advertising. There isnt to many other options to get large amounts of traffic.

You didn't read post #2 above, perhaps?

Originally Posted by JoshTara

even writing an article doesnt end up in a lot of traffic unless your article ranks high in the search engines.

So if I write a high-quality article that gets circulated by email to thousands of people in some highly targeted niche ezines whose publishers are continually looking for syndicable content in exchange for links, that isn't going to bring me a flood of highly targeted traffic, opt-ins, and sales? I hope you won't mind my mentioning that my bank manager and I think differently from you about this.

There's a lot more to article marketing than "search engines".

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by JoshTara

You either get ranked high in google or you pay for advertising. There isnt to many other options to get large amounts of traffic. even writing an article doesnt end up in a lot of traffic unless your article ranks high in the search engines.

Josh, that's only true if you see Google as the only source of traffic.

Using articles as an example, since you mentioned it, just getting ranked isn't going to do you any good. You need to get those articles read by human beings interested in your subject. You need to whet their appetite, enough to get them to click your link. You then need to get them to want to do whatever it is you want them to do.

Contrary to popular opinion, most people aren't looking for an article. They're looking for a result, an experience. They're looking for a source they can trust.

So they ask their friends. And their friends' friends. They look for authority resources, both online and off. A referral to your article from one of these sources is much more powerful than a SERP. Placing your articles on trusted blogs and authority sites, getting them added to ezines, autoresponders, and even print publications puts them in front of targeted eyeballs, with the implied endorsement and authority of the source.

One of my goals is to get better at social networking. I believe that people are rapidly getting accustmed to playing 'six degrees of separation' to find things they want, in part because the SERPs aren't giving them what they want.

I'm not knocking search traffic. I'll take it when I can get it. But it's a big world out there beyond the Big G and their fiddle-farting with the algorithm.

[Ben Armstrong]

One thing I've learned in my short time in IM is that sometimes choosing a smaller niche can be a disadvantage, as outside of the SERPS there may not be many avenues of traffic.

If you choose a larger niche, there may be a lot more competition on google and it will be harder to rank for your main keywords, but....

You'll also find there are many other ways to get traffic for these sites:

Forums where people discuss your niche

A ton of long tail keywords that you can rank for

Various social media groups to contribute to (or start your own)

A lot of related blogs to guest post on

Many other sites to advertise on

Social bookmarking will be more effective

[Ken Durham]

There's a lot more to marketing than search engines...
So many people get the notion of being "on page one" as being the magic trick.
In reality, most successful site's traffic does not come from the search engines.
Traffic from the searches is usually around 8% to 20%, and not a 100% as so many mistakenly believe. Unless you are Wikipedia or a similar site, which is still only at about 50% for their traffic.
Amazon.com's traffic is only 18% via searches. CNN is 7%, Godaddy is 7%, AddictingGames.com is around 20%.

Myob, Andy, and Alexa, all know their stuff, very well. I would suggest listening to them.

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by condorx

Hi all,

Getting ranked in google first page sometimes could be extremely difficult if your competitors ranking score is good.So getting traffic to your web site may become a nightmare.(What happens to me)

My question is ;what could be the other ways to get traffic?

which strategy works fine for u?and how?

article marketting?
forum posting?
social media?
etc..

Please write your experience for newbies like me.

In my opinion, page one of Google is necessary! But things like forum posting, social media, etc can be other great ways for direct traffic.

It's often good to concentrate on both organic (google) traffic and direct traffic.

Each traffic source has its own quality of traffic depending on where they come from and what their intent is.

Forum traffic is a big one for me, but search engine traffic is the most important source in my opinion.

[bhuff85]

Originally Posted by condorx

Hi all,

Getting ranked in google first page sometimes could be extremely difficult if your competitors ranking score is good.So getting traffic to your web site may become a nightmare.(What happens to me)

My question is ;what could be the other ways to get traffic?

which strategy works fine for u?and how?

article marketting?
forum posting?
social media?
etc..

Please write your experience for newbies like me.

The only way it's necessary is if your ONLY goal is to get SEARCH ENGINE traffic and that alone. If that is you're only desire then yeah - it's absolutely necessary (if you want any search engine traffic, that is)

However, there is more than one way to prepare an amazing chicken dinner. When it comes to traffic, the same rules apply. Traffic is everywhere - the question is, will you do the work to get it? Your only limited to what you ultimately decide to do, as the potential for generating traffic nearly has no boundaries.

[Jill Carpenter]

For me personally? No.

It is nice to have that extra push, and you can test a campaign initially to see if it converts by trying an adwords campaign (to get you to the front page) but ultimately driving qualified traffic to your offer is what will make you money no matter what your ranking is.

[praxis]

Originally Posted by Ben Armstrong

One thing I've learned in my short time in IM is that sometimes choosing a smaller niche can be a disadvantage, as outside of the SERPS there may not be many avenues of traffic.

If you choose a larger niche, there may be a lot more competition on google and it will be harder to rank for your main keywords, but....

You'll also find there are many other ways to get traffic for these sites:

Forums where people discuss your niche

A ton of long tail keywords that you can rank for

Various social media groups to contribute to (or start your own)

A lot of related blogs to guest post on

Many other sites to advertise on

Social bookmarking will be more effective

Awesome points... thanks for bringing this up. I agree, the field is much more wide open in the larger niches, so there is often a lot more room to play with!

[mikkosant]

Google is a tempermental beast...Just ask any of the frustrated seo consultants at this moment in time. Algo shifts galore. Best advice= focus on building your business in a way that doesn't rely on one platform. Is it necessary?- well, if you are an seo consultant doing offline marketing, then your clients will probably want to see some proof and then, it will be important. But aside from building an seo consulting business, no it's not necessary, but can definitely be helpful if it's apart of several traffic-getting strategies.

Cheers

[JoshTara]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

So if I write a high-quality article that gets circulated by email to thousands of people in some highly targeted niche ezines whose publishers are continually looking for syndicable content in exchange for links, that isn't going to bring me a flood of highly targeted traffic, opt-ins, and sales? I hope you won't mind my mentioning that my bank manager and I think differently from you about this.

I am fairly new at this and as far as I knew for large amounts of traffic you ranked high or you paid for it. I am sure you know by experience otherwise. Is getting articles to be circulated like this something that the majority of people can end up doing? Or is this something that only a handfull of people will be able to use successfully. I assume it would take a lot of expertise on a topic to write an article that a lot of publishers are interested it.

[collegeboy]

you can,t get lots of traffic without getting first position on Google because people only search from first page not 6o pge.
I do
Bookmarking
forum posting
directories submission
for increasing traffic and get better position in Google.

[markowe]

If your main source of traffic is probably going to remain search engines then one thing that helps is to stop trying to "rank keywords" all the time with boring fluff articles and instead write interesting, engaging articles in a conversational, first-person style in your niche that answer real questions people have. Heck, write them as a FAQ, write 10 Ways to XYZ, How to Avoid ABC, the Pitfalls of ... Etc. You will be amazed at how much long-tail search traffic you start getting for keywords you never thought of.

[kaedus]

The nice thing about ranking in the SERPs is the amount of sustained traffic it will bring. Sure getting an article published in a big golfing blog, for example, will bring a flood of traffic. But that traffic will taper off quickly. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a number one ranking for keywords will bring in a consistent volume every month for you.

[mika45]

If you are on top then the visitors com on your site