Are search engine rankings all that?

So you've taken all the seo company advice, completed the on page work, got the inbound links and can now see your site on the first page of your favorite search engine. You should now be getting plenty of visitors to your site who have actually searched for what you're providing. But what if you're not? As I have seen with one of my sites whose bounce rate remained high while on the first page for a search term I had pursued, search engine optimisation is for nothing if you don't do two important things.

The first is kind of obvious but so important. Provide great content and build a professional looking site.I created a site that had some good content but the site itself lacked the professional sheen that my competitors had and on the internet where your competition is a click away that can be fatal. By monitoring the bounce rate of your site through Google analytics and by looking at competitors sites its easy enough to spot when a sites web design isn't up to par.

The second is research. If you don't do your homework you can end up optimising for a search term that no one is hunting for or that even with a number one position doesn't convert visitors into customers, readers, subscribers or whatever. Finding a search term that has not been optimized heavily for and that gets a lot of searches is one of the most important aspects of an optimizing campaign and should be given the time it deserves. Consider not only geographical alternatives on a theme but also misspellings.

Consider also whether or not your site can deliver for the visitors that your optimizing campaign will bring in. If for example you are optimizing for cheap electronics have a look at who your competitors will be once you're on the front page of results. If they are offering products at a much lower price than you and have a wider range then the research stage is when you should be judging whether or not a search term is worth the hassle.