Hissingsid - 8:27 pm on Dec 4, 2005 (gmt 0)

MHes said >>"The other point is that a keyword phrase may be the most popular phrase, but in the grand scheme of things it is a tiny percentage of the overall potential traffic."

We'll have to agree to disagree. What you say sounds great in theory but in practice the 80:20 rule kicks in. 80% of my business comes from the top 20% of search terms.

I buy Adwords and Overture clicks. I know what happens when I let my ranking, in the bidding, in two specific phrases drop below the top 3. Yes I have loads of other variations where the bidding is much lower but by far the majority of people use one two word term or one three word term. I should say that I rank #1 on Google for those terms and #1 or #2 on every other big player search engine for those terms but have found that sponsored listing for the important terms is becoming more and more important.

In practice your site will be more successful if it ranks well for the terms that people in your market use most often than if it ranks well for all of the tertiary terms that odball searchers use.

Thats why folks complain so loudly here when they loose those key rankings. Often people maintain their rankings for the more obscure terms but lose the really critical and most competitive ones. They have often fought long and hard to gain top billing for the top terms and see their business switched off when they lose just two or three.

Best wishes

Sid