I am recommending a new free report by Ryan Deiss for anyone who either buys pay per click ads or who wishes to get their web site or blog ranked higher on Google.  Its called the Perpetual Traffic Report.   It runs some 29 pages and was must reading for me, and perhaps for you as well.

It covered a lot of different topics including a bit of a history on Google and how its ranking algorithm has changed over time.  But what I want to focus on today is just one element of the report.

It used to be that to get the most traffic from Google, it made sense to buy pay per click ads.   That’s no longer true.  Now I have been a cheap s.o.b. for some time, so I have always preferred to do what is called search engine optimization to get as much free traffic as possible.

According to the report it appears that my time is now.

Based on their research, it appears that the top ads, the one that shows up on top of the organic listings get only 2-3% of the people who come to the page to click.  The ads on the side get only 1-2% of people to click.

This is in contrast to the top organic listing.  It typically gets 41-45% of the people who come to the page to click.

The #2 listing gets 11-18%

The #3 listing gets 7-15%

The #4-9 listings get 2% putting them on an even base with the highest paid advertisers, and

The #10 listing gets 3-4% as it appears that some people start at the bottom up, or some other rationale.

What does this mean to you as a home stager, or any type of business online.

Clearly, the place to be is #1 on the organic listings for your keywords.

Number one is 4 times as valuable as the #2 slot.

And the bottom line is that you must start paying serious attention to your search engine rankings.

The report goes on to stress the three major contributing aspects toward getting top search engine rankings. Two of these I have written about in detail and will pick up again in coming posts.

The two old ones are, Getting your page set up right in the first place. Even now, after some 16 months of harping on the topic, most home staging and other small business web sites are not set up properly. This is particularly true of most of the group template websites so many new homestagers use.

The second key to the game is getting backlinks from not only a lot of places but also from highly ranked authority sites.  I will also take up this mantra in the coming weeks.

Finally, the third aspect that I have not given much direct attention to is what Ryan referes to as “Activity.”  By which he means proof in Google’s eyes that a sight is a real site with people rather than robots running things.

This may seem strange to those not familiar with all the people who sell black hat tools and programs to try to fool the search engines.

I will return to this topic again as well. But frankly need to do some additional research of my own.

In the meanwhile I recommend you get your own copy of this excellent free report.  Ryan is one of the Good Guys, who actually does his own research and knows what he is talking about.

Get your copy of Perpetual Traffic Report while it is still available for free.

Technorati Tags: Ryan Deiss, perpetual traffic report, perpetual traffic, Google Rankings, SEO Factors, SEO, how to rank high on Google, Search Engine Optimization

Setting up your web page, and getting your web site to the top of the search engines is a challenging but worthwhile task. The first step is to take stock of your current web site. How does it stack up in terms of its meta tags, on page factors and off page factors. What would need to happen to get to the top of the search engine rankings in your local market? For $99, I will review your existing site, identify its strengths and weaknesses. Suggest any easy changes you or your computer person can make quickly, and evaluate the steps you would need to take to rank in the top organic listings in your market place. This will include a half hour personal consultation with me, after I complete the analysis. To learn more send me and email together with your web site address, and I will do a free quick evaluation of your site to see whether or not my services would do you any good. Then and only then, will I ask you for a commitment, and payment. Send email to enetwal@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: Google Rankings, how to rank high on Google, perpetual traffic, perpetual traffic report, Ryan Deiss, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO Factors