Re: Great S/E Positioning - Poor Traffic

From: Jennifer Laycock <jlaycock_at_marketfundamentals.net>
Date: Wed 22 Oct 2003 08:28:41 -0500

Terri Arnold wrote:

"I am wondering if my website is invisible to searchers! Positioning is
not at all a problem - in fact, we are among the top 10 listings in
Google and Yahoo - which is something most sites never achieve. My
website is http://www.spicy-senior-singles.com with keywords senior
singles, senior personals, senior dating. [snip] My average traffic is
between 40 to 50 hits per day which is pathetic."

Your Web site is not invisible to searchers, if the site ranks in the
top 10 for you, it will rank in the top ten for other searchers as well.
(In fact, I find you ranking in the top five for each of those three
phrases.)

When looking to search engine optimization to help drive traffic to your
site, it's important to remember that people will only find you if they
are looking for the phrases that you are ranking for. A number one
ranking does not guarantee that you will receive traffic. In fact, it's
quite possible for a #30 ranking on a highly searched for phrase to send
more traffic than a number one ranking on a less popular term.

According to WordTracker, the industry standard in keyword research, the
phrase "senior singles" will only get about 25 searches a day on Google.
Now, not all of those people are going to choose your site when they
look at the listing. But since you are currently ranked #1 for that
phrase, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say that half of
those searchers click on your site. That's 12 visitors a day. For the
phrase "senior personals," WordTracker predicts about 19 searches a day.
Here, you rank lower, so we'll give you a four of those visitors, which
is 4 visitors. For your last phrase, "senior dating," WordTracker
predicts about 40 searches a day. You rank well here, so let's say half
of the visitors again. That's 20, for a total of 36 visitors a day from
Google.

You mentioned only Google and Yahoo (Yahoo receives results from
Google). I wonder if you rank well on other engines? Keep in mind that
while Google is the largest engine out there, there are other engines
that you need to rank on as well.

A few things that I would suggest you consider:

1.) Do a bit of research on your target audience. My gut tells me that
senior Web users don't head to Google for their searching. Most seniors
that I know that are online are still pretty timid about venturing out
into the Web. Likely, they are conducting their searches from their
ISP's portal page. That means you'll want to rank well on AOL, MSN, and
other portal sites.

2.) Consider testing pay-per-click advertising. On some sites, like MSN,
the pay-per-click results are not clearly separated from the traditional
search results. An audience that is new to the Web may click on these
results without realizing they are advertisements. This means that even
a #1 ranking on MSN may appear to be a #4 ranking behind the PPC ads.

3.) Work on your link building. By this I don't simply mean exchanging
links with other sites. Seek out Web sites that are of interest to
seniors, especially to senior lifestyles and see if you can get some
articles or information published on them with a link credit back to
your site. Write an article that serves as a guide to "dating" online,
something informative that establishes your credibility that other sites
might want to link to.

4.) Expand the list of phrases that you are targeting, conduct research
to see what phrases are being searched on and expand your site to rank
well for more of them.

Best of luck to you!
Jennifer Laycock

Online Marketing Specialist - http://www.marketfundamentals.net
About.com's Guide to Web Search - http://websearch.about.com




Received on Wed Oct 22 2003 - 08:28:41 CDT