Think Search Engines //

Why is it so important for your website to appear on top the first page of search results in the search engines? Simply – visibility. If you are not in top 6 positions on search results the chances of the web user finding you diminish quite a bit. A search for “digital cameras” on Google returns 75+ million results, which is about  7.5+ million pages of results to go through. That is many.

Today we will examine a study results done by Enquiro (enquiro.com) a company who provides eye tracking software to interested parties. I met them for the first time at Search Engine Strategies conference in Toronto a few years ago. Since, I have seen them multiple times at various conferences and presentations. Enquiro and Did-it produced and published a study where they have discovered Google’s Golden Triangle. The full study is available for purchase on their website. [click image to enlarge]

The colored image, curtesy of Enquiro, shows you a heat map over Google search result page, like this one without the colored heat map. The heat map is produced by the software which tracks where users’ eyes go after they receive the first page of their search results. You will notice a colored triangle composed of colors red thru blue. Red indicates areas on the page where people looked the most. Blue indicates least number of looks. The red lines show how far people scrolled before leaving the page. The purple X indicates click on their mouse.

Bottom line is location, location, location. If your website is not in the top 10 positions in the search result page (SERP) your chances of being found are slim. Search Engine Optimization and Marketing enhances the chances of being on the first page of results tremendously. There are two type of locations where your site can appear. One is “natural” or “organic” results the other sponsored ads. Organic results are free to you as a website owner. Sponsored ads are paid, where you pay the ad network for when a user clicks on your website link. This requires signing up and paying the ad network such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. We will defer more detail discussion on organic vs. paid results till later posts.

We will touch on trackbacks for blog posts at a later time as well. This is a good way to draw traffic to your site. Is builds links to your blog or a site, which in turns indicates to the search engines that your site / blog has something to say on the subject. This adds relevance to your site. We will discuss this in the near future.

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