Why your website needs to rank page 1 for as MANY relevant search terms as possible
People often ask why they need 100+ first page rankings when they only offer a few products or services. It's a great question and often shows that the person has missed the biggest advantage of online marketing and fallen into the trap that most online businesses find themselves in.
Let's say for example that your business sells original pop art paintings from an online gallery or shop.
You might therefore think that ranking on Google first page for "Pop Art" would be the your main goal but this is not the case - in fact this is the reason why most people lose money fast on pay-per-click or by using Google ad-words. It's also the reason why they still rank on page 21 for that search term despite doing everything right in terms of SEO and why spending a lot of hard earned cash on ad-words brought them lots of clicks but very few buyers.
What's the solution? You must target your customers!
If you are currently paying for AdWords or any pay-per-click campaign for a broad, generic search term such as 'pop art', I strongly suggest that you read further. You may want to consider putting a stop to it as it almost always results in a poor return on investment.
Let me explain, continuing with the 'pop art' example.....
1. It's very difficult to compete for a term as broad as "Pop Art"
You will have some stiff competition that you're unlikely to surpass with a term as generic as "pop art". For example, the first results in almost any country will be swamped by lots of official and institutional websites (National museums and art galleries and foundations such as the "Andy Warhol Foundation") and every search engine knows to rank them above practically all other websites. Next you will be competing with many larger private galleries selling high value items. Their average sale price is usually thousands, whereas let's say the average price point for a self representing artist is just 199.99, meaning that these big galleries can spend a LOT more money on getting a sale than you can, sometimes as much as £20/$30 a click in ad-words!
These large corporations usually employ a team of full-time SEO's (Search Engine Optimizers) who constantly monitor their rankings and work to achieve first page rankings for these generic terms, which means you won't fair better in the natural or generic search results. Basically, you are fighting the government, publicly funded institutions and companies with multi-million or even multi-billion pound/dollar turnovers.
2. Broad terms such as "Pop Art" bring plenty but poor quality traffic which rarely results in sales.
There are literally thousands of reasons why a person might type in the search term "Pop Art" and most of them will not be interested in your niche product. For example, some people may want posters but can't afford a painting, or they are simply browsing for images to use on their website. Perhaps it is someone looking to take the kids to an art gallery, or a student researching a homework project, and so on.
If you are a small to medium sized business on the web, money and time spent on competing for such things is fruitless.
The good news is hundreds or thousands of first page rankings for the CORRECT terms brings lots of traffic and actual buyers!
Remaining with the "pop art" example, we know that we want to sell lots of paintings, and not just have people steal our images or get ideas for a school project. Imagine if instead of wasting our energy on broad terms we instead aimed to rank page 1 on Google for the search phrase...
"Affordable pop art painting"
Do you see the difference here? Let's break it down by thinking of the psychology of this web surfer one word at a time...
"Affordable" - This person is in our target market because he's not planning on buying an original Andy Warhol painting, he wants something he can afford! Secondly and MOST importantly, a person only looks for "affordable" pop art paintings if they actually intend to buy - this surfer is an actual potential customer - and that is a very HOT lead! This person has one hand on their credit card.
"Pop art"- This person is being specific about the type of art he wants. He wants what you're selling.
"Paintings" - This indicates his budget and his specific want - everybody knows paintings cost more than posters so this surfer has a budget that matches your product.
Pop art paintings are usually of famous people such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and even contemporary actors, rock stars, or movies. For the most part, it's art collected by fans who 'just have to have' everything related to their favorite star. Now do you see the potential thousands of specific search terms we want to rank for? For example...
"James dean painting"
"Elvis vegas pop art"
"Pulp Fiction large canvas"
.... we could list thousands but I suspect you get the idea already!
Do you see how powerful and ultimately profitable it is to rank page 1 on the major search engines for pin-pointed search terms like this? It means you are attracting your target buyers to an exact science. You will be in the top 3 natural results for these search terms without having to pay for ad-words or pay for every click. Not only do your sales go up, but so does your profit because you're not paying Google, Yahoo or eBay a chunk of every sale that you make.
Here's a question you might be asking right now: 'Yes, but millions of people search for the term 'pop art', and only a few hundred would type in something as specific as 'Elvis Vegas Pop Art'. You're right, but remember...
1. You don't want a large quantity of useless traffic, you want quality traffic that results in actual buyers or clients.
2. Specific search terms may only get you a hundred or a dozen visitors to your site each month, but this does add up to thousands when you rank on page 1 for these terms. Let's do the math...
100 first page rankings, each bringing an average of just 10 specifically targeted buyers to your website equals 1,000 visitors to your site - and that's 1,000 people of the exact type you want because these people turn in to buyers, clients, members, calls to your mobile - whatever you want them to do!
200 first page rankings - average 10 visitors per search term = 2,000 target visitors
300 first page rankings - average 10 visitors per search term = 3,000 target visitors
1,000 first page rankings - average 10 visitors per search term = 10,000 target visitors
Of course the number of searches performed for each term all depends on the type of business you are in - it could mean an average of just 1 visitor per search term or even hundreds, which would result in millions of visitors to your site. The point is, each visitor want exactly what you have to offer - this kind of quality traffic results in actual buyers, trust me on that one!
Another common question you may have:
I run a small business; I don't have hundreds of products, so why do I need hundreds of first page rankings?
You'd be surprised. Hundreds of first page rankings means you need hundreds of different search terms or key phrases related to your business. People don't use everyday conversational English when typing something into a search engine. Think about it. Do you?
Let's take the example of the plumber...
Darrell Smith is a plumber based in Manchester looking for work in his local area. As you can imagine, he doesn't want jobs all over the country, so therefore him ranking first page for something like 'UK Plumber' could be frustrating, since he may receive calls from people on the other end of the country. Likewise, anyone looking for a plumber by simply typing 'plumber' into a search engine will soon realize they need to be more specific.
As a scenario, let's say someone in Manchester has an emergency plumbing situation which needs attention right away. If they started by simply typing 'plumber' into Google, they would get plumbers from all over the world. They then refine it to 'Plumber Manchester' and see results from an American city called Manchester in Connecticut. You get the idea. Pretty soon this person is typing something much more specific like 'Emergency plumbers in Manchester UK' and getting our friend Darrell Smith's website on the first page. He's going to call Darrell right away, and Darrell's got a job, just like that.
Keep in mind that most people don't know the technical terms associated with your business or product, so they may type some pretty strange things into a search engine. They may be nonsensical, but these terms could bring you a lot of business.
Ex:
"cheap fast plumber Manchester" "Manchester plumber open weekends" "emergency leaking tap repair" and so on.
I'm sure you get the picture, but it's important to understand that the things people will potentially type into a search engine can run into the thousands. The key is whether your website is the first one they see which makes sense; that means they will want to visit it. Even if you are a business which offers only one service or product, you will benefit greatly from ranking for hundreds of different key words and phrases. Statistics show that people who type in specific phrases are far more likely to turn into buyers.
For more info on this subject, visit [http://www.beatgoogle.com]
Stephanie John
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stephanie_John
