Most people including entrepreneurs and business owners would agree that showing up on the first page of Google is extremely important. It is rare that a potential customer or client will go to page 9 to try and find a local pizza parlor. Similar to sports, business is becoming a game of inches and showing up on the top of the first page instead of the second page can make the difference between having a successful business and going out of business. The way to show up higher on Google (or other search engines) is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
“The popular buzzword SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a web site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand. (via SEO MOZ)”
Here some facts and statistics across the web related to showing up on page one:
- It is now known to be absolutely critical as research shows that 93% of all buying decisions start with an online search. (via Jeff Bullas)
Courtesy Gravitate Online - A sample of over 8 million clicks shows that over 94% of users clicked on a first page result and less than 6% actually clicking to the second page and selecting a result displayed there. (via Gravitate Online)
- The first ranking position in the search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic (via Jeff Bullas)
- The second position receives 11.94% (via Jeff Bullas)
- Third position on the first page obtains 8.47% (via Jeff Bullas)
- The fourth placed position on page one receives 6.05% (via Jeff Bullas)
- The others on the first page are under 5% of click through traffic (via Jeff Bullas)
- The first ten results (page one ) received 89.71% of all click-through traffic, (via Jeff Bullas)
- The next 10 results (normally listed on the second page of results) received 4.37% (via Jeff Bullas)
- Third page receives a total of 2.42 % (via Jeff Bullas)
- The fifth page receives a total of only 1.07% (via Jeff Bullas)
- All other pages of results received less than 1% of total search traffic clicks. (via Jeff Bullas)
- http://teach.ceoblognation.com/2011/07/07/google-is-the-new-yellow-book-how-you-can-insert-seo-to-show-up-in-search-results/
- http://www.gravitateonline.com/google-search/2nd-place-1st-place-loser-seriously
- http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2191663/7-Habits-of-Highly-Effective-SEO
- http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/14/10-facts-reveal-the-importance-of-ranking-high-in-google/