I am having some difficulty understanding something regarding my web-site traffic, and hope someone here can shed some light . . . In a nutshell, I’m wondering why my site is receiving so little traffic when it has been consistently ranking at or near the top spot of the first page of the search results for my key phrase. The site is basically a sales page for a Clickbank product I am promoting. The Google keyword tool shows that my key phrase is searched approximately 2,400 times (‘Exact’ searches) per month in the U.S. Meanwhile, my site has been at or near the top spot in Google.com for most of the past month. The global search results are somewhere around 8,100 per month, but I also understand that my Google search results will vary depending on whether you’re using Google.com, Google Canada, Google U.K., etc. Anyway, if even 25% of those 2,400 searches result in a visit to my page, I should be seeing an average of about 20 visits per day. However I’m only seeing a trickle, usually no more than 1-3 visits per day. The most visits I’ve received in one day is 8. What am I missing? Am I just misinterpreting the analytics somehow?? If not, the only thing I can think of is that maybe my Meta description is turning people away . . . I don’t know. Other than that, I haven’t got a clue. I should mention I’m an internet marketing / SEO newbie, so if you have any ideas or insights, don’t be afraid to ‘dumb it down’ a notch – I won’t be offended Thanks!
Landing on the first page of the search results isn't the only thing. The description/snippet displayed is also crucial in getting the person who searched for that keyword to click the URL going to your website. I suggest you make your meta tag description more catchy.
Long tails searches will usually end converting better then "keyword" it seems the main topic "keyword is usually a research keyword like buy "keyword" find "keyword" red "keyword" .
I think you misunderstand the Google search results. Of course, Google is showing 2400 search results for your keyword phrase, but not telling you something about the competition. It seems that other people are using the same keywords. Google is showing the total search results of 2400 hits, but you get only 1-8 visitors from this keyword.
First off, the google keyword tool is only an estimate. I have seen it very wrong in both directions. Second, about 40% or so of all your searchers will click on the ads, especially since its about a clickbank product, probably a lot of ads. Third, if you are not number 1, and the number 1 spot solves the problem, then you will see nothing, or a trickle as your seeing now. Get the number 1 spot, maintain the number 1 spot, and solve the problem. Thats the magic formula for making money online.
Get and hold the number 1 spot. That's great, but can anyone suggest a good resource where I can study (find out) how to do that?
Can you expect a lot of traffic from that great ranking? No. Why not? That phrase is a very specific, non-competitive search term that very few people would ever search on. If no one searches on a page's targeted key phrase no one will find the page, hence no traffic from the top Google ranking. Now, if you target the phrase grow squash, a top Google ranking will result in considerably more traffic, yet still nothing to write home about. While a bit more competitive than the first phrase, grow squash on a balcony, the shorter phrase is still rather non-competitive. But if you decide to target the keyword squash, a top Google ranking will net you the most traffic possible for a search dealing with your squash page. In short, there are a several things that determine how much traffic you can expect to receive from a top Google ranking for any given search term: 1. How much drawing power does the page title and description have? Do they entice the searchers to click on your listing or are they likely to move on to the next one? 2. How often is the search term actually searched for? If the answer is rarely, you won't receive much traffic from it even if you're ranked #1 for it. 3. How competitive is the search term? If you do a Google search on a phrase that returns just a few thousand results (paltry by Google standards), this is a non-competitive search term that is likely to result in very low traffic levels. 4. How specific is the phrase you're targeting? As in our squash example, the more specific the phrase the fewer searches there will be for that phrase, resulting in low traffic flow from the ranking. Does this mean you shouldn't target less competitive, less searched for search terms? Not at all! While a high ranking for a more specific search term will result in fewer searches (and less traffic) than a more general one, the quality of that traffic will be higher. This usually results in a higher conversion rate and more sales! It also means you don't have to pay for the bandwidth that's wasted by a high level of untargeted traffic (visitors who aren't really interested in your offer). In a nutshell, we're dealing with a simple trade-off here: specific, non-competitive search terms result in fewer, but better targeted visitors to you web pages. Whether this is good or bad depends on what you hope to accomplish after the visitors hit your landing page. The bottom line: if you want to get the most traffic possible from a top Google ranking, you have to target a search term that lots of people do searches on! It really is that simple!