Monthly Archives: July 2012

How much traffic is a website getting?

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The first thing to understand is that all traffic to a website is not equal.

I realise you may already know that, but how many people pick a high traffic keyword, get it ranked and find none of it converts?

So before we start, here is the fastest route to picking a keyword that will do you some good:

  1. Use Google’s keyword tool and enter in a few keywords you think may do you some good
  2. Now enter those into Google search
  3. How many ads show up?

If no ads show up, there isn’t a market. That’s the number one rule. Of course if you are just providing a free information service, then brilliant, but we are here to do business.

Look at the screenshots below. I am going to share with you some important data and proof of numbers very rarely shared by any online marketers.

traffic estimation of a website

At the time of writing (July 2012), one of the keywords this site is successful with is: “How many backlinks do I have?”. In fact we are number #1 for this keyword on Google.

Look at the figures. Google estimates that there are 320 monthly global searches for it.

And it is 100% accurate as the screenshot shows. Google brought up the relevant page on my site precisely 320 times.

Now here’s the best bit that you can take away and have some confidence about. Of the 320 times it was shown, 150 people clicked on the link. That’s a CTR for a #1 position of 46.88%

I have just checked another keyword, that is at #2 and it has a CTR of 22.73%

So you can now see the sort of traffic you can get based on your position in the search engines and the amount of traffic the search engines are sending for that keyword.

Let’s take a look at some numbers here:

  • If the monthly traffic was 100,000 and you were at #1 on Google, you could expect to get 46,880 clicks. Not bad eh!
  • If you were at #2 then it would be around 22,730. Still great.
  • I just checked another keyword that is at #4 and it gets 10% of the traffic. So that would return 10,000 clicks.
  • One more check here was for a kw at #7. It got 2.5% of the market. That’s 2,500 clicks.

Now, getting to #1 for a keyword with 100,000 impressions is a very tall order indeed (unless you are lucky enough to find that magic keyword that no one else has thought of).

The reality for 99.9% of us is that we manage to rank for a keyword with, say, 1,000 impressions. That means you can expect around 468 clicks  for the month, or around 15 a day (and that’s if you get to #1).

And if we now return to the beginning, about the value of traffic, you can see that unless the keyword you are ranking for has buying intent, then all you are is an information service.

So always check if other people are willing to pay for adverts in the search engines if you want to convert not only the impressions into clicks, but also the clicks into sales.

What is the Meaning of Life?

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what life's path are you taking?One of the things that has always perplexed me (and a few billion others!) is the meaning of life, and having just discovered it last night I thought I would share it with you :)

When I was growing up I quickly discovered that unless someone told me why I should do something, I had no motivation to actually do it.

It was why I left school at 16 with 2 ‘O’ levels and had around 10 different jobs before I strode out on my own at 23 (and never looked back).

The first inspirational book I read was Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach (“You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way”).

But incredibly it wasn’t until very recently that I figured out what that really meant: Control.

That word is often used in a derogative fashion (‘you are so controlling’), which is a real shame as it is the key to life.

Control = Freedom, and that is ultimately what we all want.

Tony Robins describes success as being able to do what you want, when you want, with who you want. That sounds remarkably like freedom to me.

And the best bit about it is that it is all down to control. But it’s only when you realise that control equals choice that the penny drops.

Everything is about choice.

Will Smith quotes a saying in the video (below) that sums up what happens when you choose to do or be something: “he who says he can and he who says he can’t are both right”.

But what do you think? Do you know what the purpose of your life is?

Well here’s some pure magic from Brendon Burchard, who has been a real mentor for me.

He simply asks you to finish this sentence:

“The purpose of my life is to…”

Now that’s a really tough question. Is it to ‘make a million’, ‘become a celebrity’,'pay off the mortgage’,'start my own business’ etc?

No. They are just goals. The real meaning is when you add the following little word to it: BE.

The purpose of my life is to be… happy (or whatever). If you make it about ‘things’ it becomes vacuous and meaningless.

But, and this is the big moment for me, you can then follow this up with ‘so I can…’ and that’s where you insert the todo list.

So think about this. What is it that will really make you understand what life is for?

Is it to own a desert island (one of my pet wants a few decades ago) or is it to be energised and enthusiastic about your life and the people in it.

Now we’re talking right!

One last thing. Whilst going through a tricky patch I took some traning from a wonderful lady called Kay Weijers. She enabled me to trust my instincts again, for which I will forever remain thankful.

If you are still on the fence about trusting your ‘gut feelings’, know this: there is a cord that runs the length of your digestive tract from your oesophagus to your colon that is your second brain. It contains more neurons that a cat’s brain!

There is a presentation on TED explaining it.

And having figured out your own meaning, please do join my Inner Circle so I can help you with the todo list part. The forms on the top right of this page.

The Truth About Backlinking After Penguin

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Backlinking after the Google Penguin updates has probably had more written about it than any previous update, except perhaps Panda.

But obviously the real issue is how the logic is affecting your ranking positions.

I have been trying a series of experiments on old and new domains to see what is actually working today, and you know what? it is pretty surprising.

I know a lot of people have complained bitterly about losing not just ranking position, but worse their entire livelihood after both Panda (spammy content) and Penguin (spammy backlinks).

And obviously, if you have a site that was doing very well with Adsense or some other affiliate deal, that has got to be really annoying.

But the changes are making ranking for long tail keywords a lot easier.

And I think the changes can be a game changer if you do it right.

 

Ranking Theory

It’s important you ‘get’ this next bit.

Google (and any decent search engine) wants to return results that solve a problem. I know you understand that already, but think about why it is important.

After Alta-Vista and earlier search engines, the only reason we all changed to Google was because firstly the results were far more relevant, and secondly they were returned far quicker than anything previously.

On a dial-up modem this was really important. Nowadays with broadband you would think it hardly matters, but the number of indexed URL’s was already past a trillion 4 years ago (according to Google’s Jesse Alpert), so speed matters still.

 

Ranking on Page 1?

Now here’s the thing. If you look for any long tail keyword (that is, a keyword with very low traffic) and build a page for it, it is the easiest thing in the world to get it ranking very high.

Where it ranks and for how long, post Panda, depends on just two factors:

  1. Relevancy
  2. Bounce rate

Yes, I know many have said this before, but it holds true even more so after the algorithm updates. And it makes sense too.

If a search engine matches your page with a search query it does the following things:

  1. It ranks it (on what page and what position to show it) depending on…
  2. It checks its relevancy compared to all the other pages and…
  3. It checks what the visitor does should the page get clicked

That means if you have a title that closely matches (or answers) what somebody is searching for (myth explosion coming in a second…) the visitor is more likely to click on the link (it has very little if anything to do with whether Google sees the Title as being relevant – to look at it that way misses the point entirely).

The same goes for the meta description. You can keyword stuff it and do what you like, but to do so again misses the point (another myth busted here – it’s all about the visitor NOT the search engine).

It is a well known fact that search engines like Google don’t rely on the meta description. This was talked about back in 2002 on Sitepoint.

All we have to do is look at what the visitor does. If the information on the page is what the user wants, or solves the problem, they will stay and read it all. The bounce rate shoots down. Google sees that it has delivered something useful. That fact is recorded against the URL for that page.

If the user clicks away, that of course is recorded too.

Either result will determine where it gets displayed next time for the same keyword.

And remember we are talking about long tail here, not hard to rank for keywords.

CTR (click through rate) is also vital. If a page appears at position #8, is shown 1,000 times and is clicked on 10 times, we have another vital metric. It has nothing to do with what Google ‘thinks’ about the title. It has everything to do with what the searcher thinks about it.

If the page at #7 was shown 1,100 times and is clicked on 10 times, then there is a chance that it will be pushed to #8 and your page pushed up to #7 shortly.

And that depends on what the searchers do when landing on the page. If they stay there longer for your page than the page above you, then again there is a good reason to move your page higher up the rankings.

 

So how do I rank post Panda and Penguin?

Relevant content. Make sure the page title promises to solve the problem. Make sure the content solves the problem. Make sure the visitor stays on the page long enough to chalk it up as relevant – simply by staying there longer than the page that is ranking one position higher.

That’s really all you need to know. But understanding the logic as explained above means that you really will ‘get’ it and also see why this is actually a very good thing for the web.

The playing field is being levelled again. You have just as much chance as anyone else provided you stick to ranking long tail keywords.

If you want to learn simple logic about internet marketing and get your business ranking, just fill in the form (top right) and join my inner circle. I welcome you.

Quentin Pain
Cambridgeshire, UK

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