The Myth of First Page Search Engine Rankings

Is your Web site listed of the first page of Google’s search results? Good for you.

Now you get to figure out if that ranking has a prayer of translating into any sales leads.

Ever been approached by an Internet consultant making this promise?: “I’ll get your Web site listed on the first page of Google!”

A listing on the first page means that Google displays a link to your Web site on the first page of its search results. First page rankings are important because most searchers never look beyond the first page of their search results when deciding what links they’ll click on. That means that the Web sites Google lists on the first page of its search results get the substantial majority of traffic.

The objective of achieving a first page ranking is therefore a worthy one. And your Internet consultant may indeed be able to fulfill his promise and achieve such a ranking for your Web site. But the real question to ask is: “How many homeowners will see it?”

You need to ask because all first page rankings are not created equal. Lots of homeowners, for instance, search Google on the term “patio enclosures”; very few, on the other hand, search on a term like “patio enclosures tampa bay.” So a page one ranking for the keyword “patio enclosures” means a lot more to you than one for the term “patio enclosures tampa bay.”

To prove my point, I entered these and related keywords into a search term estimator to determine how many people search on those terms in Google each month. Here’s what I found out:

“patio enclosures”: 40,500 searches/month
“patio enclosure”: 27,100
“patio enclosures massachusetts”: less than 10
“patio enclosures mass”: less than 10
“patio enclosures MA”: 22
“patio enclosures florida”: 480
“patio enclosures FL”: 140
“patio enclosures tampa”: 46
“patio enclosures tampa bay”: less than 10

Wow, there’s a lot of difference in search volume among those keywords. Generic, national terms like “patio enclosures” get lots of traffic. On the other hand, a more-specific, local term like “patio enclosures tampa” gets much, much less.

It’s no surprise, then, that it’s much harder (read: expensive and time-consuming) to get your Web site ranked on page one of Google for high-volume, national terms…than lower-volume, local terms.

So, next time you’re pitched on a search engine marketing project, just remember: buyer beware.