Taking statistics found in a multi-study search engine interaction report and another report on search engine usage provides a useful portrait of how search engine users behave. Considering 74% of people use search engines to find businesses and view the top ranked businesses in search results as the most reliable, you definitely need to start building a genuine and effective online presence.

The Importance of the First Page

No matter the search engine, over half (62%) of users click a link within the first page of results for a keyword phrase and 90% within the first three pages. If you cannot get ranked on the first page for a search term, you will automatically lose over half of your potential visitors!

Bottom line: Get on the first page for your keywords!

The Importance of Relevance and Clarity

Almost half (42%) of people will rephrase their search if they do not find a useful link on the first page and 88% within the first three pages. If your content and title do not fit in well with the keywords you use, you will miss almost half of your potential visitors!

Bottom line: Use very specific, highly targeted, and relevant keywords that match your content.

The Importance of the Top Three Spots

In a study of the AOL search engine, which I am liberally applying to the other engines, the very first page listed in the results receives 42% of all click thrus, with the second almost 12%, the third 8%, and the fourth 6%. If you do not rank within the first three spots in the results, you miss well over half of your potential visitors! On top of that, if you rank below the first four spots, you only have a 5% chance of someone still clicking on your page. So even though 90% still “might” browse the first 3 pages, the chance that someone will click your page after the user moves half way down the first page of results is almost zero. People also trust the websites in the top positions the most.

Bottom line: You need to rank within the top four spots for a keyword and aim for the first spot.

The Importance of Getting on Google

By the end of May 2009, almost 74% of all users used Google to search for websites, 15% used Yahoo!, and 6% used Bing (formally Live, formally MSN). This means that Google is definitely the most important search engine to be listed in volume-wise. It also means that Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool provides the most representative statistics on keywords and user searches.

Bottom line: You need to get ranked on Google and optimize your keywords for Google.

Taking into account how people use search engines, definitely aim for keywords where you can rank for the number one spot for the term in Google, period. Otherwise, you’ll just be stuck in the 5% club, a very lonesome place indeed, and a death trap for your business.

Additional Search Engine Ranking Research

While doing your own inqueries on search engine optimization, you will surely come across a plethora of tips, tricks, and strategies to optimize your pages. Taking into account the signifigance of the before mentioned information, I began conducting my own research examining which SEO factors actually matter to get into the top spots and which do not. Spanning from inbound links and keyword placement in titles to placing keywords in heading tags and domain age, my preliminary findings might surprise you.

Top Tips for Optimizaing Your Pages for Search Engines

Inbound Link Volume

In almost every instance, the number one website would receive the most inbound links of the the first four websites in a listing for a given keyword, and the inbound link volume for the following sites would decrease accordingly. This stayed true whether using Google or Yahoo! to test the amount of incoming links. You can get an estimate of inbound links to a page by typing “link:www.thewebsiteurl.com” into either the Google or Yahoo! search engine.

Bottom Line: Your pages must build links from other relevant websites to continue to rank well.

Placing the Targeted Keyword in Titles

72% of the top four ranked sites in listings contained the exact keyword in the page title (<title>Keyword</title>). Page titles can clearly be seen in search engine rankings as well as on the top of the browser when visiting the page.

Bottom Line: Place your keywords in your page titles, preferably in their entirety and near the front.

Code to Text Ratio

Like inbound links, code to text ratio usually decreased along with a decrease in listing rank, with the pages with higher text then code ranking better. You can test a page’s code to text ratio by using SEO Chat’s Code to Text Ratio tool.

Bottom Line: Write plenty of content for your pages and try to keep your code to text ratio above 50%.

Page and Domain Age

Most pages in the top 4 rested on domains 6 years or older, usually with the oldest domains ranking higher than the newer ones. You can test a domain’s age by using the WHOIS Lookup or using SEO Log’s Domain Age Check tool.

Bottom Line: Place your pages on older domains and give your domain type to build the trust of search engines. I also believe that older pages do better, so stick with current file names and try to avoid redirects.

Relevancy

A majority of pages existed on domains that could be considered an authority on the topic related to the targeted keyword and contained the keyword at least once in the body of the content.

Bottom Line: Host your pages on websites related to your content and keep your content related to your targeted keywords.

I conducted my study using random keywords from clients that ranked high for them and then using any random keyword. I only examined the top four listings. While my study still remains in the early stages and does not produce any revolutionary results so far, it can serve as a reminder of the more important elements in web page optimization and suggests that people focus less on rather insignificant SEO practices, like placing keywords in heading tags, using meta tags, focusing on Google’s PageRank, or worrying about keywords places in anchor text.

Half of the top SEO factors, depressingly, cannot really be controlled by you. While you can create some inbound links, it will be up to the greater web community to share your information. Domain and page age you just need to be patient and wait for. So make sure you do well with what you can control, create excellent content with plenty of insight and value for your targeted audience and/or possible clients, and the rest should come.

I will most likely update this article while I complete my research. Until then, good hunting, and please post any comments or questions you may have! Feel free to pass this information along to others as well so they may benefit

Some of the alleged top Google listing tips, tricks, and services are just flat out wrong, misleading, and can be harmful to your online business. If you really want to increase targeted traffic to your website, you should ignore the following SEO advice…

What to Avoid and Ignore When Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines

1. Hiding lists of links on your page to be picked up by web crawlers.

Google looks for keywords in specific areas on the page. Mainly in the title and within the content itself. Listing a bunch of keywords somewhere outside the content, especially in a way that cannot be seen by visitors, won’t help you and might even get your website penalized. Tags being an exception.

If it doesn’t read like a decently formatted narrative, then the web crawlers probably won’t think it is either. That’s what they’re designed to do - decipher which webpages contain the information to help people typing in queries in their search engine to get to what they’re looking for.

2. Believing that filling your meta tags with keywords will help you.

Don’t be naive enough to think that you can tell the search engines what your webpage is about, which is what many meta tags do. Google and the other engines don’t even use them to determine page ranking anymore (Google never did), and so it’s already an obsolete method. Google also uses the text around keywords in the content to determine the page descriptions, so its not necessary to include. However, if you want a more standard description for search engines, you can still use the description meta tag and Google will pick it up to be displayed in listings.

3. Using link exchanges to create backlinks.

It’s true that inbound links from other webpages greatly enhance your high page rank probability, but only if they’re from related sources. Google won’t consider a link back from a website about hiking as reliable if your website is about role-playing games.

The web crawlers have gotten good at cross-referencing content and they know the difference between an apple and an orange.

People will usually only go to related links as well, so most people visiting the site giving you the link will not visit you anyway.

4. Trying to rank for keywords that are not related to the content on your page.

Just because you use the keywords, doesn’t mean you’re going to get ranked for them, especially if your page talks about something completely different. Just like the engines cross-reference between websites, they also cross-reference within topics. If you tried to place keywords for “American literature during World War II” to be picked up and the page really discusses “How YouTube became popular,” your page will probably just get buried in the depths of cyberspace.

Again, even by chance you do rank for the term, once people see your site does not match their search, they will either not click on it, or immediately leave the website once the land on the first page.

5. Falling for schemes that will submit your website to “thousands” of search engines and directories.

There are only a handful of search engines out there and anything else is most likely already controlled by Google, Yahoo!, Bing, or Ask. The first three comprise of almost 100% of the searches on the Internet. The web crawlers for these search engines are also very efficient at what they do, so as long as you’re already linked in to the Internet (have at least one inbound link) and made your pages accessible to visitors, your website will get indexed (listed) anyway. You don’t need to submit to anyone, let alone pay for it.

6. Falling for schemes that guarantee or promise number 1 spots on search engines.

There’s much you can control to get ranked - keywords, optimizing your website for crawlers, content, and some inbound links. There’s much you cannot control as well  - inbound links of competing websites and pages, the strength and popularity of the competitor’s domain, and the age of pages to name a few. In the end, the only people who know exactly how the web crawlers operate are the web crawling programmers. There’s countless variables used to determine page rankings that we just don’t know about, so no one can guarantee or promise high rankings. At the very least, a good SEO specialist can give your pages a higher probability of being ranked on the first page, but not much more.

Start thinking organic and natural.

If you come across anything that sounds like it’s a cheat, a work-around, like it’s trying to pull one over the web crawlers and trick them into getting your page ranked, then it’s probably a bad idea. It won’t work and the search engines might even punish your page for the attempt to fool them.

You need to start thinking organically, thinking how your page would succeed naturally.

Make sure you always…

• Write content on pages that bring real value and useful information to your visitors.
• Use keywords that relate directly to your subject matter.
• Get links from websites in your own market or field and hope that others will also find your information worthy for them to share with others.
• Stay away from SEO specialists and consultants that tell you to use any of the methods to avoid mentioned here. Trust your gut on their advice and don’t be afraid to get a second opinion.

The search engines want to find your useful information and pages to share with the world. Start writing about what you know best and format it the best and most accessible way you can and you’ll already be ahead of most of the game ]]> http://warrensamu.com/google-listing-tips/feed/ 9 http://warrensamu.com/duplicate-articles-internet-marketing-suicide/ http://warrensamu.com/duplicate-articles-internet-marketing-suicide/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:40:06 +0000 Warren Samu http://www.warrensamu.com/?p=16 So you’ve decided to give article marketing a shot and you’ve already written a handful of articles in your niche market to distribute to high traffic publication sites. But then after you submitted them, you noticed many did not rank in Google and other search engines, even though you optimized them for keywords, and found the articles listed in the engine.

Now ask yourself….

How many websites did you submit each individual article to?

You’ve probably fallen victim to the duplicate articles dilemma.

Rewind to a few years ago when “Internet marketing gurus” were pushing their viral marketing strategies and encouraging people to submit the same article to every known article directory they could get their hands on. Well, guess what? They were encouraging countless people to essentially spam the search engines with their writings and trick a system big on copyrights and original content. Everybody knows how huge a taboo spam is. Eventually, Google and the other guys caught on and implemented algorithms in their web crawlers to weed out and bury the duplicates.

And who can blame them? How reliable would users consider an engine that listed the same exact information in the top ten spots for a search, just on different websites? That’s like a library only offering different editions of the same book when someone was looking for research on a particular topic. What if someone turned in a paper with a works cited for 10 sources all essentially the same piece of information? Intelligent people would find a new library and the guy who wrote a paper would probably fail the assignment.

Google wants to bring value to their users and offer a service second-to-none, that’s how they climbed to the top in the first place. So, if you’re trapped in the habit of creating duplicate content, you should ask yourself the same question - are you creating any real value for people?

The Reality of Article Submission

Most of the article databases receive very little relative traffic to begin with and return a low residual effect. Their traffic rankings cannot compete with more prominent sites like universities and news sources, or high traffic directories and blogs. If you’ve spent several hours on a top notch article, why publish it on www.most-awesome-articles.com (not really a website) where it won’t get ranked, it won’t be found by the website users, and when other sites like WordPress, HubPages, Squidoo, and EzineArticles are around? If you wanted to include a guest piece in your magazine or paper, which source would you rely on… one from a prominent editor at CNN or a random letter received from spikeymikey@nowheremail.com?

Google thinks in a similar fashion on their end. Why list an article from www.most-awesome-articles.com when they already have a version from HubPages?

You might be thinking to yourself - what about Reuters? What about authorized syndication? It’s true that Google and the other engines allow some room for syndication from common news sources, but most of us do not operate in those circles or have access to that content to freely use, so why take the chance?  Probability dictates that Google will pick up one of your articles, but the rest will get lost in the engine and with them all the time spent submitting to dozens of useless directories.

Truth betold, no one can guess why Google keeps one version of web copy over another. It could be related to the age of the page (how long it’s been live online), the reliability of the source, the code to text ratio compared to the other versions… and sometimes, the engine will list more than one copy. It’s all guess work, but you can bet that more often than not, only one version will be viable.

The Solutions That Almost Saved You

But then there came in the works a hybrid solution to try and trick the engines again! Re-write the article so the web crawlers think it’s something new, so one can submit almost the same article to at least the top publication sites without needing to create something fresh. And so began the age of www.dupecop.com and similar services to check the percentage difference between docs.

Here too though, writers beware, Google’s web crawlers are more sophisticated than people give them credit for, and even an article that appears to be 50% different can be picked up as a dupe. To safeguard this technique, a service like QuoteFinder http://blogoscoped.com/quotefinder/ is recommended. Just change the sentences that show more than one online source in your new article.

The Best Solution for Duplicate Content… Doh!

I however, have an even better solution! Stop creating duplicate articles completely and start writing original and unique content that really offers value to your readers and hopefully potential clients. Nobody likes a fraud, a hack, or a two-timer – and that’s what you’ll look like if the smarter-than-you-think readers find out you’re duplicating content out there, or worse, simply rehashing someone else’s. Don’t destroy your potential credibility, visibility, and profitability because of laziness. Make each article you write count and make sure it’s one-of-a-kind.

The following benefits of article marketing can be yours…

• Increased page rankings (with inbound links)
• Increased webpage traffic
• Increased credibility
• Increased visibility
• Increased clients and customers
• Increased profits

But if you duplicate content all you’ll do is lose the above benefits plus…

• Waste time
• Waste money
• Become discouraged

What to do with your now unwasted time?

Search engines also like pages to stay fresh! Update your articles from time-to-time. Add in new information, take out parts now obsolete, add in some graphics, optimize the keywords, and keep editing until you get ranked on the first page for your targeted keywords. A well maintained and fully tweaked article can bring in more traffic and more business than 15 hurried and forgotten pieces any day!

So do continue with your article marketing, and do submit your awesome work so people can find it at EzineArticles, your blog, or other sites, but steer clear from tendencies to submit duplicates – in the end, you’re just committing internet marketing suicide. And like spam, we know how deadly that can be.

You can read more from the source over at Google and their warnings and guidleines about duplicate content.