Our MyST Blogsite generates highly qualified leads compared to other venues of online lead generation. One of the primary reasons is we have a trust factor, which we built (and continue to build) by providing dependable and accurate information through the blogsite. As a result, actions are more meaningful for business and the customer."
Consumers are adapting to the changing Internet topology by using search queries that are more discrete and browsing well beyond the first three search page results to find what they're looking for.
Assumption:
It's a well known fact that if your website doesn't show up on the first three pages of a search query you won't be getting any traffic or business from that search.
Truth:
Actually, it's a common misunderstanding, not a well known fact. I won't bore you with someone else's server stats - take a look at the long tail of referrers and the search phrases that trigger those click-throughs. Then look at the search engine result page these referrals came from. Not all server stats products tell you the page a referral phrase ranks in Google, but with a little research, you can easily find lots of clicks that come from pages 4 (i.e., ranked 40-49) to 100.
So, it’s a mischaracterization to assume that you won’t be getting any traffic for things that rank from 30 to say 100 for any given search phrase. It would be more accurate to say that the bulk of your organically-generated ebusiness traffic depends on highly ranged content -- preferably pages ranked in the first three results pages.
Why is this true?
It’s important to note that as keyword query lengths rise, and the size of the Google index increases, consumers are now engaging increasingly in three easily understood behaviors.
Increasingly, consumers are using lengthy query strings to find exactly what they want on the first search. This has the affect of hopping over short tail terms that have been optimized through traditional SEO efforts. And it also means that the definition of a page one ranking has changed from targeted [predictable] terms, to terms that are unpredictable such as this one –
strategies and techniques for promoting an internet commerce website (page 1)
... which fetched two visitors to a client's blogsite last month.
Increasingly, consumers are browsing far beyond page one in search of what they want because the index is so large. The larger a content set becomes, the more likely there is a greater flood of ambiguous results – indeed, increased sparseness of meaningful results from any query. The only way to find the things that are truly meaningful to your search quest is to forage further into a larger landscape of widely spaced results. This is exactly the behavior animals follow when localized food sources dwindle – they must migrate to find sustenance.
Increasingly, consumers are using new search engine preferences to see a larger result set. Google (for example) supports up to 100 results in a single search result page and users like this feature because it saves time. Using this setting essentially redefines the nature of "page one" rankings. Consumers that use this setting are fundamentally declaring their indifference to content ranked in the top ten versus content ranked in the top 100; to these users items ranked #8 and #48 are almost equally interesting.
While few companies have recognized the subtle changes in consumer search engine use, Expansion+ is a leader in thoughtful understanding of how the topology of the Internet and search engine marketing is changing. If you'd like to learn more about these ideas, make sure you take in a conference session with Sally Falkow, or give the folks at Expansion+ a shout.
I spoke with a group of bloggers in Phoenix recently. What I found is that very few had any business from their blogs despite a lot of effort. I have 5 closings and 7 active buyers directly from [our MyST blogsite] in 2008. I know because I ask. One person told me they have been reading my blog for almost a year before they called me to buy a property."
