One of the top guitar lesson sites is number 1 for the term "Guitar Lessons". However, that's the one of the few terms that it's number 1 for or even on the first page. Word tracker says that 573 people each day are searching for "Guitar Lessons". So I conclude that it can only be getting about 50 to 200 visitors a day via natural (organic) search ( 10 percent to 40 percent). I know that a site on the bottom or lower bottom of the front page can usually only get around 10 percent of visitors each day. Therefore, being at the top for "guitar lessons" looks good but may not pay off in of itself. I know this site is using PPC and maybe word of mouth and other sources to make money. Now other terms for example "Jobs" gets probably around 17,000 searches a day. 10 percent of that would be 1,700 visitors a day which would probably get some buys. So what is your opinion of search engine marketing? Does it make money by itself for keywords with under 1000 searches a day? Of course, some will argue that traffic looking for "guitar lessons" is better than traffic looking for "guitar chords" (Around 2,700 searches a day) because it's more specific. The people are specifically looking for free guitar lessons or guitar courses (which many people are selling).
Long tail is King these days. Create 100 pages, each with a very local theme. Guitar Lessons in Chicago... Guitar Lessons in New York... Also with styles: Rock Guitar Lessons Country Guitar Lessons ....you get the idea.
I agree with Claymation, it is all about going local these days. I know many people who focus on two major markets exclusively and make more money dominating those than trying to beat out worldwide competition.
I have thought about this also but the first few pages of google for local businesses seems to be dominated by directories. Is it possible to displace these established directories to hit front page ?
I think you hit a key aspect in seo which is key word research. When you optimize your page you look through the competition for each key phrase that you want to see if it is even possible to beat out the top sites. Next you decide if the amount of work is worth the amount of visitors searching for that key phrase. Find a good balance and to answer the question in your heading of course search engine marketing is worth it even if you only get a couple hundred organic hits daily remember those hits are targeted as long as you write your meta tags appropriately.
I dont really understand your question. When a site taps into a certain niche, what do you expect? If you have a site about guitar lessons, then your site is about guitar lessons - your only going to get X number of hits a month. When you pick a topic for your site, then you should be fully aware of the number of searches and number of hits the topic may get. So your topic should not be narrow. Pick topics that can have a wide search range, such as what was already mentioned with the cities. And then there is the types of guitars and brand names. I do not try to market my sites to search engines, I market them to people using search engines.
Right but perhaps a lot of beginners are impressed by sites which get to #1 for topics like Guitar Lessons. Despite the fact that being number 1 for that term doesn't get a lot of hits compared to being #1 for jobs.
Yes, but their site will come up for more terms than just "Guitar lessons." Anything related to learning the guitar, if they're in the top 3 they'll get a good amount of hits. Sites don't show up for just one keyword.