1st page on Google but traffic stinks!!

Are there ppc ads for that term? Also you have to look at the 1st term for that particular keyword, if it solves what the visitor is asking for why would they need to come to your site?

People are always more likely to go to the first term, I'd reccommend building backlinks to beat it.

You should know that the keyword suggestions tool are not always right. I hade something like this before two years. I tried so much to get to the #1 result and I got a crowd that don't buy nothing. That's sad

Have you tried to improve the meta description snippet that is underneath your link on Google and make it more appealing to attract traffic? Maybe make it more similar or exactly the same as the top PPC ads if it isn't already?

As well as the title itself, as much as you are able to with the keywords present in it also?

How much time have you been in that position and received poor traffic?

Why not set up a PPC campaign on that exact keyword.

Then you can tell by the impressions what is actually going on.

Beside the fact that the estimated traffic numbers are not correct, there could be another common problem: how well is your title and description (that shows up in the search results) converting the searches into visitors?

If you have a lame title or description that doesn't quite match up with the keyword search term you may just also have a very low conversion. In other words, the keyword may get 1,000 visitors a months but when the people see your result in the search engine listings then they just don't click on it because they don't find it interesting or relevant.

Gunter

I'd say go ahead and change the description to something more motivating for traffic as a test since at this point you have nothing to lose.

How does your site compare to your #1 competitor in terms of Alexa traffic ranking?

You may want to link from all your online profiles to your site. This will definitely increase rankings

Have you tried to think like a customer. I mean when they try to search about problem on gardening, what keyword would they type? Maybe this could help

Hello All,

I'm with dburk. Showing up or being there is one thing (used to be enough) but providing a reason to take that action, to click through to your website is another thing and PPC may be the best way to split test "compelling sets of words". PPC is the fastest way to test different ideas and groups of words.

For you target audience, it's not what they tell you they want but what they show you they want. Find a way to get them to take the actions you are seeking. If they are not clicking on books, auctions, videos, articles and websites for that keyword then that is not what they are looking for. They may tell you that's what they are looking for but they are showing you otherwise.

Good luck!

Google webmasters tools can help you locate the problem.

You might be ranked #1 for the keyword but probably your description doesn't appear very enticing to the user so they just moved to the next link on the list.

Google webmaster tools has a 'top 20 searched query' feature which tells you the keywords in which your site has appeared and also which keywords actually brought the user to your site.

Analyzing these statistics will let you know the if the #1 rank keywords actually brings you the traffic or not.

This reminds me of a problem I came across. Is your website a blog? My sites were recieving good traffic from the SE's then one day it just dropped off. Took me a week to realise what had happened.

I still had multiple top rankings and my site still worked perfectly. The problem was, a very clever hacker had got into my hosting account and had inserted a weird search engine redirect into the htaccess file of my main domain. This inturn, redirected all my 30+ addon domains to the same dodgy website that was dressed up, looking like a spyware removal tool.

Their website would have been getting 1000's of visitors from my domains alone. So you could imagine how much traffic they would have been getting if they had hacked 1000's of websites.

The easy way to see if this is your problem is to click through to your site from the search results. I always just type my website addresses in, this is why it appeared that my site was working fine. If you are redirected then simply delete the redirect from your htaccess file. It will look like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*google.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*aol.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*msn.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*altavista.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*ask.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*yahoo.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://dodgysite.com/ [R,L]

Wouldnt it be great if hakers could put their tallent to good use rather than evil.

To guage a more accurate number of competing websites, search your keyphrase in quotes. Remember that without quotes, Google displays the total number of websites that contain those keywords randomly within their content. When you search with quotes, Google displays only the websites with that keyphrase.

e.g.
How to pot a plant = 28,500,000 results
"How to pot a plant" = 1,010 results

Your keyphrase might not be as popular a you think.

To increase your CTR, shorten your title. Dont go over 65 characters. Shorter titles actually stand out more than long ones. They also look neater and not so spammy.

Both of Googles keyword traffic tools found at Search-based keyword tool and http://www.adwords.google.com/select...rdToolExternal give vastly different search volumes. Like others have said, run your keyphrases in ppc for a day to gain accurate search volumes.

If there appears to be plenty of traffc then your problem could also be due to the 50+ Google data centers never displaying the same search results to more than 1 IP address. This is the biggest pain in the ass that I have with local SEO. E.g. one of my clients websites rank at number 2 on my computer but doesnt even appear in the top 20 on his computer. Each PC ip address connects to a different Google data center. There use to be only 3 Google data centers so rankings were the same everywhere but now there are 50+. Get one of your friends to do a search for your keyphrase and see where you rank on their computer.

Great advice there Bob Monie. I should learn how to spot those type of things cause sometimes my traffic is erratic. i mean some days its more than 500 and some days it goes to 1100. so probably something is going on... I hope not though for my sake.

Thanks again,
Oling

I have a question for emarketingtips.

You wrote, "You may want to link from all your online profiles to your site. This will definitely increase rankings"

Can you be more specific for dummies like me.

Maybe give an example.

Thanks,
Jim

Jim

You would be better by having your keywords towards the start of your title tag. They will hold more weight there. ie -

Your keywords - Find Books, Auctions, Videos, Articles, Websites On Your Keywords

Capitalise the first letter of each word and try and leave out stop words where you can. Also, I have cut down the amount of words. The more words you have, the weaker each of your keywords become.

Also, by having your keywords at the start, your potential visitors will see those words first. If they can't see them initially when scanning your title, they will likely move onto another site. Just my two pence worth.

Andy

This is really the only way to know if the keyword tool is giving you good numbers - you don't have to spend a lot of money to do it and it could save you a lot of time trying to optimize a page that will never bring in visitors.

Actually you might not even have to spend anything. Aim to be in slot #8 on page 1 and write a crappy ad that no one will click on. Let it run for a day and see how many impressions you actually get.

I have done this many times without having to pay more than $1 (and sometimes nothing at all) but found it to be invaluable for showing the real traffic.

I have found several terms that were supposed to have 3500 searches or more per month but when tested this way it turns out that they actually don't. It saves you a lot of time chasing after keywords that really don't get traffic. It sure is worth a $1 to me!

Lee

Thanks Lee that is great advice.

You wrote, "Aim to be in slot #8 on page 1 "

I have 1 question about that placement and two more about buying the sponsored ads on the organic side.

1. How do you aim to be #8?

2. How does one get in the #1, 2, or 3 sponsored spot on organic side for a term like "Garage Doors Kansas City"?

Currently, home depot is #1 and probably pays a lot per click.

To aim for the #8 spot you just bid low - start off with 10 cents or 20 cents and then see where that gets you - you might have to adjust one way or the other. The goal is to get enough exposure on the 1st page without generating any clicks. Once you've seen enough traffic to get a feel for how many people are searching you can just delete the campaign. keep a close eye on it just to be on the safe side though!

I actually don't know how you get those slots on the organic side - maybe they are reserved for high rollers or something?

I am having the exact issue but day-to-day, I am refining my keywords and the result is getting better...

key is to work on your keyword and 'niche' market.Then tailor the results to on-site optimization efforts and work on backlinks with achored text as keywords..preferably long tail keywords in 60-30-10 combination.