In another thread a poster shared some very relevant information. That is, well over half of the people surfing Google have their preferences set to show only the first ten results (I have mine set to show 100). That means that most people are probably interested only in Google's #1-#10. Yes, by all legitimate means aim get onto the first page to increase your Google traffic.
Yes, I've never changed mine from 10 and I don't personally know anyone who has. I'm expecting traffic to surge when I hit the first page, just wanted to confirm it.
People always think that just because they are in the top 10 they will get more traffic. It's all based on how the user uses search engines. I personally will look at the top 5 and if they are no help I will change my search term. So if you're ranked number 6-10 you wont get my traffic. I also see a lot of people look at the first couple links and then just skip to page two and look at the first couple. I've personally found it better to be in the #1 spot on page 2 then the number 10 spot on page 1.
seoblackhat.com calulated the below stats from the AOL search data that was mistakely posted to the web last year. Ranking Number 1 receives 42.1 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 2 receives 11.9 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 3 receives 8.5 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 4 receives 6.1 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 5 receives 4.9 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 6 receives 4.1 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 7 receives 3.4 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 8 receives 3.0 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 9 receives 2.8 percent of click throughs. Ranking Number 10 receives 3.0 percent of click throughs.
I have some pretty popular keywords that I am rank 3rd - 8th for and I only get from 30-80 per day from them while some keyword volume tools say I should be getting 4 times as many
With some keywords I get more traffic being ranked #1 or 2 on Yahoo than number 12 on google - but I get much more traffic being ranked #8 on Google than 1 or 2 on yahoo. Just thought I would throw that out there too. Yahoo is much more consistant. I always work on yahoo first then google.