The Disconnect Between Keywords & Traffic

Where are you in the search engine rankings for your keywords and what are you doing to get closer to the top of them? You might want to do some research on here about first page ranking...I remember seeing some stats that the first site listed on the first page gets like 70-80% of clicks and then that diminishes the further down you go. (Don't quote me on those numbers, just going from memory!)

Also, I'd take a closer look at your numbers you mentioned...are those broad or exact searches? That could make a big difference!

Hmmm, where to begin.....

Okay, a few pointers for starters:

1. Do you know how to use the Google Keyword Tool? Like, are you setting Match Type to "exact?" If it's set to Broad you will basically have the thing lying to you.

2. There's LOTS more to ranking well than what you just described. First of all, you need to evaluate the competition in order to assess whether it's worth trying at all. That does not include using stuff like KEI (which is useless), but evaluating the first few pages that come up on page one. Nowadays I usually mostly use Market Samurai for that, but you can get far just with the SEO for Firefox plug in. Learn how to evaluate the data you're getting (way too much for the scope of this post - it also takes some experience, and - of course - knowing what it takes to get your own pages to rank).

3. Learn how to link and get links. I would say that most people who build websites don't know how to do that, and so they either don't succeed in ranking well, or - worse - they get a good spanking from Google. There's more to this than meets the eye. I NEVER follow the exact same procedure twice, but always vary what I do. I know that some successful people have a system and pretty much do the same thing over and over again, following a specified timeline to a T etc, but I don't do that. It does work for them, but I'm too paranoid. Instead, I mix things up constantly in order to not only get the right links from the right places, but also the right number of them (and the right number of anchored links proportional to the total number of links etc), and the right number of links at about the right time and so on and so on. Google have gotten pretty good at sussing out what natural, organic linking looks like, so I make an effort to have my backlinks look like that. A BIG effort, but it works. Getting ranked is about getting links, and while you will get tons of links from others you really do have to take matters into your own hands. Don't let people tell you otherwise. While quality content really IS important now, you still CAN rank well with a fairly crap article. SEO is NOT speculation, it's calculation (and slyness). Writing kick ass content and expecting a large number of people online - most of whom don't even know how to link properly - to help you rank truly is, however.

Oh, and have you assessed whether your keywords are worth making the effort for in the first place? Are they 'money' keywords? Because you can rank tremendously well for 'funny cats' but still end up disappointed with the money you're making.

Also, even if you're at first spot you're still going to see less than 50% of the total searchers ending up at your place most of the time. Fall down five or six spots and you're probably at one tenth of that. So just getting to the first page probably isn't really going to be enough most of the time.


Before I ramble on (too much coffee today).... the point is that there's a WHOLE lot more to the process than what you're describing here. I'd suggest you find someone who's succesful and learn from them. That's probably the best course of action you could take. There's a lot to learn in this game, and then you have to pretty much do it over and over and over and over and over again, day after day. It does pay in the end, though.

bla bla bla etc

From my experience being #10, or even #11 these days probably gets you more traffic then being #8 because people sometimes scroll to the bottom.

It's a long process for competitive keywords to end up on the first page. You're usually better off optimizing your individual site pages for smaller search terms and adding a bunch of smaller traffic together at the beginning

Also, there is anywhere from 8% to 11% that do not continue their search so you can subtract roughly 10% from those reported numbers from Google.

Then, there is another 12% that always scan the first page then go onto the second page. They never stop at the front page.

So more to subtract from the reported monthly totals.

To be safe, I always subtract 25% from the reported.

Then looking at the numbers above supplied by KateD (Which are about right. Those numbers change from month to month and by niche but they are close enough to make a rough estimate.) look at the spot that you thought you could take on the front page and do the math.

If you were expecting to end up somewhere around position 8 or 9 then you need to think about getting around 2% - 3% of the leftover 75% of the reported.

So 1000 reported searches subtract the 25% = 750 then 2% of that = 15.

To compete for the 8th or 9th spot on the front page of Google means that you would roughly expect around 15 people a month for every 1000.

As KateD said, even if you are on page 1, most likely you'll only get a small percentage of the traffic numbers shown in your keyword tool.

I'd suggest take a closer look at what your competition in page 1 are doing. Remember it's not only the URLs but also the descriptions (per page) and the meta tags (per page as well), they all have to be targeted. Also, more backlinking from trusted authority sites wouldn't hurt.

Also, if I may suggest a book to help you out with this, it'd be SEO Fast Start by Dan Thies. It's free to download and updated about yearly, so you know it's got fresh content. The guy's a top expert in SEM and also runs forums from where you could also get advice on this issue.

All the best