Being number one is not always the best

Success can be more dangerous than failure

[minnapple]

Google gave my client what I thought was a gift.
The client now ranks number one on his top target phrases.
Before he was listed somewhat in the middle of page one.
Sales have actually decreased even though traffic has gone up.
The change happened February 6th, so we have 5 weeks of data to look at for comparisions.

[LongView]

If his traffic is going up and sales have gone down, that has nothing to do with Google. Its totally unrelated. Unless the new traffic is causing his site to move irritatingly slow.

[Rachel]

I've always thought this might be the case. I know for myself, it seems I rarely wind up buying from the company in the #1 position, for whatever reason. Realizing this has made me happy with my #4 and #11 positions for my two most important keywords.

I think most people wind up looking at several sites, and probably forget about the first one, unless it makes a great impression.

[Ledfish]

Longview, it is very understand that being in the #1 spot could bring less sales. The logical is very simple in fact. The #1 spot will bring a site a huge amount of traffic, however many times the serious buyer/customer will click on several listings until they find a site that appeals to their impulse to buy. Just because a site is in #1 place doesn't mean that it has the great buyer impulse.

So a site may be in the #4 spot and have more impulse appeal, so it's sales are actual beeter than that of the site in the #1 spot. The site in #1 will get lots of traffic simply because almost everyone clicks on at least the first listing, whether they are serious about buying or not.

There is not a direct correlation between traffic and sales. The conversion percentage can be influenced by many factors. Some here would probably even say that being in the #11 spot is better for sales that being in the #10 spot or #1 spot.

[LearningNow]

Having more traffic allows you more opportunity to figure out what isn't working. I follow each visitor through the site. If they are leaving from the page they are entering then I work on the message. Sometimes that means changing the content, other times that means adding images, whatever I can do to move them through my site until I get the sale.

If you are getting the traffic but not the results then take a close look at your message. I often have friends who have no knowledge of my work offer a fresh eye view and give me feedback. You simply have to make a huge impression if you are number 1, either keeping them there because your message is clear and your content is impressive or getting them to return for the very same reason.

I would not discount the importance of visiting the following 20 sites below me, to see what they are doing that may be converting their visitors better than I.

[HughMungus]

Another factor could be that if the top 10 or so websites all have the same product at roughly the same price and if a shopper is comparison shopping and they click on the firstt listing, check it out, click on the next listing, check it out, etc. until they get to a point where they know enough about the product and the price, that they will buy on the most-recent page in front of them.

[petra]

WHen I shop I usually buy from the site with the first listing, even if I checked out all the other listings, the site with the first listing gives me the imoression of better quality. Now I know this is naive especially as many sites are able to manipulate the serps to become #1 but that number one has considerable quality value for me and I'm sure for many others (including the Mrs.)

[minnapple]

I found out that part of this could be caused my an outside party.

The site uses cookies to capture shopping cart data.

Apparently a major broadband provider is
upgrading/installing a version of their firewall software, that causes cookies to be disabled. It is within the firewall option.

I work with clients on several platforms, and these clients have received numerous reports from clients saying that cannot put multiple items in their cart.

Aargh! Poor implementation of product that can bite into a serious amount of sales globally.

Well, the best thing I can do is change this situation from a problem to an opportunity.