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I expected that the target keyword should have been searched 150 to 200 per day. (Estimated number was derived from my research on Wordtracker and Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool)
However, actual number of visitors to my site is as few as 30 per day...I wounder what is causing the difference between estimated number and actual one...
I'd appreciate if you could give me advice on any clue.
Your figures suggest that 15-20% of them click on your link, which sounds quite reasonable.
My business has been setting records this year while out of the Google serps entirely. And what visitors Google could bring you last week has now been cut dramatically by Yahoo.
Google is just one way to bring visitors to your site. Links on other sites, Overture, Adwords, Yahoo, other search engines - all combined (or some alone) can deliver more traffic than Google.
Not to say that getting to the top in Google is not a good plan, or a good thing to accomplish - but it should just be one component of an overall marketing plan for your site.
For example, there is a HUGE difference whether you are positioned at the top of page 1 (#1, #2), or toward the bottom at #8 or #9 on first page - in many cases as much as 50% or more depending on the market.
In addition, a compelling title and description and the credibility of your domain can increase your click rate over your neighbors.
Steve
With the greatest respect. And sincere thanks for your infinite patience.
Commanding Officer: www.ss.titanic.ouch
GoogleGuy said it best.
Some people try to get a top spot for their topical keyphrase. They build their entire site based on one phrase. It is usally better to get near top spots for all of your products or services.
icebergs...that sounds what I have to care about.
As you mentioned, I've just aimed to target one phrase for Google SERPs.
Now I think that I have to search for other key phrases fit to my site.
>GG,
Anyway, I love Google with appreciation a lot!
My biggest keyphrase as far as traffic goes is only 298 referrals, or 0.6%.
My best month ever for a keyphrase was when I hit 1.4% on one where I was an indented #10-11. I'm now #8 and #23 and my traffic on that phrase is way down.
The thing is that overall my traffic keeps going up because I'm adding more content which adds a greater selection of keyphrases. More content also gives me more links coming in.
If you concentrate on only "your keyphrase" instead of growing your content and diversifying to cover all the related terms, you have a much greater chance of joining the lamenting hordes when google changes their algo next time.
You are also limiting your growth to just those that search using that specific keyphrase. Even if that is 200 per day that search on that phrase, you will never be able to go over 200/day even if you attain #1 and write a really catchy title and description.
*)Enhance SERPs in multiple phrases to be targeted
*)Combine pure Google SERPs with Overture or Adwards
I think I'm very a new to those...I have to add pages which contain several related keywords.
If you concentrate on only "your keyphrase" instead of growing your content and diversifying to cover all the related terms, you have a much greater chance of joining the lamenting hordes when google changes their algo next time.
Great advice Big Dave, but what if you have a single focused niche offering and 80% of searchers use a single term?
Steveb said, "I get traffic from hundreds of search terms but a one word term is worth 100 of those."
I'm in this position and some days all of my traffic comes from just three terms. when I look back at my logs 75% of searches have one word in common and this fits with what you see in the Adwords and Overture suggestion tool and in Teoma's refine search lists. However the market that I'm targetting use other terms for things that they are interested in and I guess that I need to find ways to provide that sort of associated content to in effect provide my own referrals. Of course I do this but until now I've done it by developing secondary focused sites which sell nothing but provide useful content in the hope and knowledge that some visitors will click the link to buy product from my main site.
Big question now is should I leave these relatively fallow and concentrate on broadening my main site?
In terms of SERPs for my market only #1 is really good enough for the big money terms.
Best wishes
Sid
Great advice Big Dave, but what if you have a single focused niche offering and 80% of searchers use a single term?
Well, I really doubt that in ANY market that 80% of searchers would use the same term, especially given that a lot of searchers still treat Google like Ask Jeeves "Where can I find a cheap blue widget store". But I will play along.
- you should still go after that 80% term, but not exclusively.
- 80% using one term will still leave you 20% of a market, which is an incredably big chunk.
- the 80% term will be the one that EVERYONE is going after. That means a lot more competition ALL THE TIME.
- Building your site on the variety of keywords will give you a much stronger foundation as you work your way up in that big money term.
So, wouldn't your business be better off with having a steady top ranking on half of the "other 20%" and building up a steady low page one or two on that big keyword, than putting all your eggs in that one basket and having one update decimate your traffic?
I'm in this position and some days all of my traffic comes from just three terms.
Then you either don't get much traffic, or you have incredibly narrow content. You should be getting at least some wacky off topic searches each day just from the way that language works.
Also if you concentrate on selling your "rain coat" and that is all you ever call it, you will miss out on "rain jacket" and "raincoat" searches. Just because you are only seeing referrals from the "rain coat" term doesn't mean that no one is searching on those other terms, it just means that you are not showing up in their searches.
when I look back at my logs 75% of searches have one word in common and this fits with what you see in the Adwords and Overture suggestion tool and in Teoma's refine search lists. However the market that I'm targetting use other terms for things that they are interested in and I guess that I need to find ways to provide that sort of associated content to in effect provide my own referrals.
Bingo! Worst case would be that it would help provide a safety net, best case is you get a nice little increase in your income.
I would also start to think beyond a single keyword or key phrase. Think about variant phrases and all the different words that user might type when searching. Typically, it's like an iceberg: there may be a really visible keyword, but the majority of traffic has different spellings, extra words, etc.
(edited to correct spelling error)
> I thought we were supposed to build sites with good content,
>and Google's semantics algo would handle the rest for us?
>Is Googleguy espousing SEO?
This was one of the thoughts i also had at the first look. But i guess if you are building sites with good content, you automatically (un- or intentionally) use different variants, spellings and such - without SEO in mind. No semantics needed.
But i guess if you are building sites with good content, you automatically (un- or intentionally) use different variants, spellings and such - without SEO in mind. No semantics needed.
That's basically what I was getting at. If Google is able to pick these things up, then what was Googleguy alluding to? I might just be confused, but it sounded to me like he was recommending optimizing pages with additional keywords, etc. Isn't that the opposite of his usual message that good content takes care of itself?
I think he was just trying to give an honest, useful response. I guess the second-guessing and dissecting here will stop him from doing that again.
Interestingly, we're ranked between 22 and 70 on a keyword phrase that gets about the same traffic and we get about 1 click a day from that!
I started my site almost exactly one year ago. I did the same things as you..Overture suggestion tool..etc. And I targeted a bunch of anchor links with my 'keyphrase' in the text. However, when my site made it to the 1st page of Google, the traffic was not there. I was ranked #5 for a couple of months, but I realized that keyphrase was not the $$ phrase. So then I optimized for the 2 main keywords and they are the $$ keywords. Now I am #1 for KW1 and #4 for KW2 and with Google & Yahoo I made some $$ through the holidays.
Of course, now that Yahoo has me at #8 & #9 for those KWs, you can see a definite drop in traffic. Sales are still there, but there is a difference between #9 and #1. Hang in there and 'they will come'.
We've been #6 for at least a week... but ZERO traffic!
I share your pain. For one keyword, my site is #6 and #7 but no traffic. For one day, it had bumped up to #4 and got all the traffic for that kw. Just trying to make it #3 or #4 again. I have a few more positions in the bottom half of first page for very popular searches but thus far almost no traffic.
I think that for hard keywords where the searcher has already found the right site at #1 and #2 (e.g. NASA, Google, Yahoo) unless the site is in the top fold of the front page - with eye-catching title and descriptions - it is just useless. For "cheap widgets" there is some hope that the cheap visitor will go up to say 100th page!
The obvious example:
If you check one of the tools now for expected traffic on a keyphrase, you'll get figures for the past month (or two months...). If the keyphrase is for a product that sells well in the winter, you may get a high count now. But, by the time you get highly ranked in the search engines, it may be summer and not a time when lots of people do searches on that phrase.
[And, if your market is global, then the summer/winter (xx/yy) analogy is going to get more complex.]
Well, there's more to it than this, but I can't get seem to get the right words to explain it.
Beth
The thing is that overall my traffic keeps going up because I'm adding more content which adds a greater selection of keyphrases. More content also gives me more links coming in.
Exactly! Webmasters need to get this point loud and clear. So far this month people have come to my page using 5893 different keyphrases. Most of these searches found a page on my site in the top 10 results.
So why, you might ask, do I pay so much attention to how I do on one highly popular single search word? Vanity, pure vanity. ;)
The point is:
If I launched a site about "movie", I'd get only few conversion rate, for majority who search a phrase "movie" don't always buy such movie goods as DVD.
However, if I had made my site become more comprehensive through adding detailed pages with specific movie works, I'm supposed to get more traffic.
To do so, I have to deal carefully with how to write reliable text on each movie titles/reviews.
That seems to be very reasonable.
Of course you will have a page pretty much optimized.for the title of that movie, but as you add general content about that movie on your non-optimized pages you will find yourself getting all sorts of traffic.
For example "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is the title of a movie. But I had to look it up to get the title exactly. In fact I thought it was "Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail".
So right there you can see how even on your main optimized page there would be some advantage in at least adding some comments that would include some of the more common words related to that movie.
So what else would people search on to find information on that movie? Camelot, Spamalot, swallows and coconuts, black knight, I'll bite your knees off, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Graham Chapman.
If you don't remember the name of a move, a lot of times you will search on a quote or something about that movie, and you are more likely to end up at a fan site than someone selling it. The same is true for almost anything else that is sold. Most commerce sites spend all their time and effort on getting that big money search term that they have to fight with everyone else for, and they have a 10 in a million chance of getting on the front page of Google, when they can have a great chance on easily picking up hundreds of people that type in weird terms.
The great thing is that all that useful content will help you to rank better more consistantly on that big term. It is simply much easier to get links to your site if you have a site that tells people something rather than just going for a quick sale. You can just sit there and watch your site climb in that money SERP while the others scrap over it, and your position will be much more stable.
And something else that is not discussed here very often is the advantage in having a site that a Google hacker would be pleased to see at #1.
Why is this important? Isn't the algo automatic?
Of course it is, but the quality control before, during and after implementing the new algo is done by humans as are manual checks of reported sites.
If you are in an area that they happen to decide to check, don't you think that you will be better off with a site that will please them sitting at the top? Or if you are at #4 and they think you should be at #1, they might suggest tweaks that would put the better site at the top?
