A good while back, I ran across some quoted stats about this very thing. And today, I ran across an even more thorough discussion at Lilengine.com so let me share it with you.

But first, let me point out that the study was some years ago and it dealt with AOL search data. But I’ve not seen any similar study done for Google or any other search engine, so that makes this information the best and latest data that I am aware of – and I see no reason why it would not be relevant to Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc since this seems to be about human behavior, not the particularities of one search engine over another.

***

“In 2006, some AOL search engine ranking data was leaked, and SEO researchers pounced. The analysis showed that the number one position brings with it a 47% average click through rate. Positions two, three, and four have click through rates of 13%, 9%, and 7%. Clearly, bringing your ranking up from third or fourth to first makes an enormous difference in a site’s traffic and its bottom line if it is a commercial site.

Of course, these figures are only approximations, but they do seem to hold water. People notice great differences between their statistics between the top rankings. Anecdotal evidence suggests that going from the #2 to the #1 spot can increase traffic by 100% or better. Dropping from #1 to #2 corresponds to a 30% to 50% drop in search volume.

As you move downward through the first SERP, the rate of decline of click throughs falls, and one interesting quirk that could be an artifact is that the number 10 position gets a slightly higher rate of click throughs than the number 9 position. Some speculate that users will be more likely to glance at the last listing while scrolling down to suggest searches or page navigation buttons. Once you move off the first SERP you’re close to being invisible.”

***

[source]

In case you’re not familiar with the abbreviation, SERP = search engine results page.

Highlighting is mine.

- Gary Harvey, PageOneWithGary.com

How Much Better Google Page One Is Over Page 2 is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

January 31st:

“I’m delighted to see that I am first on the hypnotherapy in Kalamunda page and also for Perth Hills.  Business is picking up and I will let you know once I am a member of the Aus. Hypno. Assoc.

You can be assured that I will sing your praises whenever I can.

Have a fab weekend

Sarah”

***

March 6th:

“Wow!! I’m on page one for Perth, as well as Kalamunda and Perth Hills. That’s fantastic. Don’t know how you managed that but I ‘m delighted.

Cheers
Sarah

p.s. I’ve told several people about your services, who are in the process of getting websites designed, so I will remind them that they need to be on page one and you can do it!”

***

Sarah can be found under the following search terms…

Clinical hypnotherapist Perth

Clinical hypnotherapy Perth

…as well as for her local area (Kalamunda) and other terms. Perth is the capital city of Western Australia.

Wow!! I’m on page one is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

THE CAUSE & THE REMEDY

It turns out that one of the plugins was slowing things down to a crawl so here’s how to firstly identify the culprit.

1. Deactivate all your plugins and see how much faster the site loads. Hopefully it’s nice and quick. If not, maybe the theme is a problem and you should look for another one.

2. Re-activate your plugins a few a time. I reactivated 3, then I checked the page loading speed by clicking on the link to a post I hadnt opened in a while. The reason for doing that is so it didnt load from the cache on my computer.

If I had wanted to be totally thorough, I could have emptied my cache first but I didnt bother and this method worked just fine for me.

3. Keep re-activating a few plugins at a time and checking page load speed each time. If it’s a problem with one of your plugins, when you turn on the offending plugin, your site will once again load slowly. Delete that slow-working plugin.

In my case here, the offending plugin came from FollowSite so I visited that site to see if anybody had found any way to speed things up.

Well, it turns out that the website at FollowSite.com would not even load.

NOT AT ALL.

No wonder my blog was so slow !!

***

Now that plugin has been deleted, we are back to regular loading times. And I’m very happy with that.

You see, when I started PageOneWithGary.com, I chose this particular WordPress theme because it looks striking and the picture tells a story of the exuberance you’ll feel when your site gets onto Google page one, but… page loading times have been atrocious lately.

Not anymore. Normal service has been resumed.

***

Footnote: If ever they get things sorted out at FollowSite, I’d be happy to reintroduce their plugin and update this post. The FollowSite plugin helps visitors follow changes on your site.

How To Fix Slow Loading WordPress Blogs is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

Here’s a list of the search terms where you will already find her on the first page of Google, and the screenshots.

– Written by Gary Harvey, http://PageOneWithGary.com

PS: Holler if I can help!

Hypnotherapist Kalamunda

Hypnotherapy Kalamunda

Clinical hypnotherapist Kalamunda

Clinical hypnotherapy Kalamunda

Hypnotherapist Perth Hills

Hypnotherapy Perth Hills

Clinical hypnotherapist Perth Hills

Clinical hypnotherapy Perth Hills

SEO Client Now Solidly On Google Page One (Screenshots) is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

1) making sure that the client’s website is giving the search engines what they want. And that includes page titles, H1 tags, selecting relevant keywords with significant search volume and acceptable levels of competition, appropriate use of keywords throughout the site, the correct use of alt tags, sufficient quality content on each page, clear internal navigation, and more. These are the so-called on page SEO factors because they are on the page or pages that you are dealing with.

and more importantly these days…

2)  we have to pay attention to off page optimization. Off page SEO is all about BACKLINKS, that is, how many sites out there are linking in to your site. In simple terms, the more links, the better. That’s because search engines take each link as a vote for the value and popularity of your site. And there are lots of ways to get backlinks, many of them either difficult or time consuming. You certainly need to be focused, organized and experienced to get off page SEO working right.

With my most recent success story, I had to work on both on page and off page SEO factors.

The result?

A PAGE ONE LISTING IN TWO WEEKS… without using PPC (pay per click advertising).

Here’s what the client had to say. Sarah’s testimonial (thanks Sarah!) arrived by email yesterday.

I would say to anyone wanting to be on page one of google, Gary is the guy who will get it done.  Not only did he achieve this within 2 weeks, he also improved my website greatly to ensure that it would be more accessible and user friendly. Gary kept me informed of every stage of progress daily and took time to explain what he was doing and why.  At all times I felt I could trust his judgement.  I am more than satisfied with his service, I am highly impressed.

Sarah Joy, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Kalamunda, Perth, WA

Would you like to see Sarah’s site? Here ya go… Clinical Hypnotherapist Kalamunda

Would you like my help to get your site on page one? Click here for a FREE quote.

Two Things Your SEO Service Should Do To Get You On Page One is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

Kris Jackman certainly did. He owns RacingSecretsExposed.com which is targeted to the sizable (and quite competitive) UK market for horse racing systems.

When I say competitive, I mean that there are a lot of other webmasters striving to be on page one of Google. To get Kris onto page 1, I had to beat most of them. I had to get into the TOP TEN on the Google hit parade.

And that’s what we did.

Here’s what the DELIGHTED customer himself had to say…

“Gary is a genius. And I don’t say this lightly. Before I hired him I spoke with another SEO team who said my project was not possible and wanted $5,000 up-front just to try.

Then I contacted Gary, and 3 weeks later I’m on the front page of Google for my search term for a fraction of the cost.

Saying “I highly recommend him” doesn’t even come close.”

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON STEROIDS

Talk about customer satisfaction. Imagine how chuffed I was, firstly to get that page one result so soon, and then to receive Kris’s email. What a buzz. I love the feeling of victory that comes from applying sound principles to a problem like Maria. That reminds me of a song…  but I mustn’t digress.

There’s one thing I might add to what Kris wrote. It was a TINY fraction of the 5 grand the other guys wanted, whoever they were.

DO SEO RESULTS LAST ?

Here’s where Kris is today, 3 months later. His site bounces around a little at times, but today it’s #7 for laying horses – as this screengrab shows…

MORE CASE STUDIES COMING

Stay tuned (or subscribe to the Update Service in the form at the top right hand corner of the site) because I’ve decided to showcase some of my clients and tell their SEO success story to show what’s possible when you combine SEO (search engine optimisation) with other PROVEN methods to build a website’s search engine ranking.

We’ll also talk about HOW TO  GET ONTO GOOGLE PAGE ONE. Valuable stuff.

– Written by Gary Harvey, http://PageOneWithGary.com

Delighted SEO Client Gets Top Search Engine Position is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service

I just checked – and found that it has worked BETTER than I expected. Oh ye of little faith, some might say.

Well, let me tell you the story here… through a series of questions. Ready?

What’s the free promotional tool that got you onto page 1 of Google?

www.FreeTrafficSystem.com – it delivers free targeted traffic to wherever you want.

Is it really free?

Yes, I’ve never paid them a bean.

How does this Free Traffic System work?

You login to FTS and submit your articles with your links in them. They distribute the articles out through their internet-wide network of associated sites (blogs, actually).

Blog owners who are also members of FTS are incentivized to allow FreeTrafficSystem.com to publish articles to their blogs because by doing so the blog owner gets more of their links added to OTHER PEOPLE’S blogs. It’s an affiliate program that pays its affiliates in free backlinks rather than in cash. JOIN HERE

So as a free member, it pays you to tell others because as they join through you and then use the FTS system, you get rewarded with more FREE BACKLINKS of your choosing.

So I get to choose the text and the URL of the free backlinks that FTS will generate for me, right?

Absolutely. In fact you can nominate as many alternative keyphrases for any link you want promoted.

Now, you say it’s got you onto page one for your search terms. We’re you also promoting via other methods too?

Yes, it’s true that for many of my promotions, I am using other publishing methods as well. And my tracking is not brilliant. Well, it’s hardly existent to tell the truth. BUT this I know…

1) I’m on PAGE ONE for almost all of the terms being promoted through FTS

2) To the best of my memory, I’m not promoting those terms anywhere else. Certainly not in any substantial way.

3) BIG POINT: I’ve actively promoted FTS since its early days (over a year ago, from memory) and as a result hundreds have joined through me and every time FTS posts an article of theirs, one of my links gets added to the bottom of their article. And here are the stats on how active my group has been:

• 45 members have published less than 100 articles (ie, 2 figures in their article count)

• 29 members have published 100-999 articles (ie, 3 figures in their article count)

• 6 members have published over 1000 articles (ie, 4 figures in their article count) – these range from 1007 articles to 2564 articles… which is an awful lot of articles and an awful lot of backlinks pointing to my sites… YIPPEE.

What about the duplicate content problem? If FTS is publishing hundreds of copies of the same article, isn’t that half useless?

Here’s how they avoid that. You can spin the article title, the article body, the keywords you use, the link to which the keywords are linked, and the resource box. In other words, you can provide an unlimited number of variations (which is what article spinning is about) for EVERY PART of your article. This produces potentially thousands of unique articles.

How do I know that my articles have been published?

You could set up Google alerts if you wish. They are free at google.com/alerts.

You can also watch the Stats page at FTS. It is a giant table that shows the name of the blog that published your article, the category in which it was published, the spun article title, the publishing date and time… 30 articles per page, for as many pages as your publishing record needs, which in my case is 45 pages… which means they’ve published 30 x 45 = 1350 articles for me over the last year or so. All for the grand total of $0.00

CLICK HERE TO JOIN FREE TRAFFIC SYSTEM, THE FREE TOOL THAT GOT ME ONTO PAGE ONE OF GOOGLE

– Written by Gary Harvey, PageOneWithGary.com

The Free Tool That Got Me Onto Google Page One is a post from: Page One with Gary. Reprinting is welcomed. Please include these end notes. Make More Sales | Affordable SEO Service