If you have a small business, would you be interested in hearing about a way to multiply the visitors to your store by 50? By 100? How about 900 times your current visitor level?
If you run a small business and have a web site you may think that all this stuff about rankings and SEO does not apply to you. The reality is that everyone who has a web site and would like traffic to that site needs to know the basics or else it’s a bit like opening a fast-food place in the middle of a desert.
You may well have the best-looking site, but if no one manages to find you, unless specifically directed to the location, then it’s a total waste.
What are Rankings?
When someone types in a phrase to search for in a search engine, your ranking is the position in the results that your web site appears at. Rankings are always stated with a given key phrase. SEO revolves around selecting key phrases that have the following characteristics:
- Phrases that your customers type in to search engines
- Phrases that have a lot of searches
- Phrases that do not have an insurmountable amount of competition
Having identified the key phrases that you want to compete for, you can then start to measure your web site’s progress. Your web site’s ranking affects your bottom line as a business owner because:
- Higher Ranking means more Traffic.
- More Traffic means more Customers.
- More Customers means more Sales.
- More Sales means a healthier bottom line.
Small Changes in Rankings Give Huge Changes in Traffic
Even a small change in your rankings can translate into a big change in the traffic you will receive because the relationship between ranking position and visitors is not linear.
Research indicate that on a page of listings on Google:
- 42.1% click on the number 1 result
- 11.9% click on the number 2 result
- 8.5% click on the number 3 result
- 6.1% click on the number 4 result
- 4.9% click on the number 5 result
- 4.1% click on the number 6 result
- 3.4% click on the number 7 result
If you manage to get on the first page of results and if you improve your ranking from position 6 to position 1 then this means a 927% increase in visitors. This is a phenomenal leap in visitors and is well worth spending some time on to improve.
If you have a business web site but either have a very low ranking or have no idea of your ranking then chances are you will be receiving almost no free traffic from search engines. However as soon as you spend some time and effort in this area and your rankings start climbing, and especially once you make it onto the first page, you will see phenomenal growth in your free traffic.
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