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.

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Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

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