12/01: Keywords and Getting On The First Page Of Google - A Reality Check

This subject is something I've held my peace on for a long time but I received an ad today that made me think it was time for a reality check.

For those of you who don't know much about Google, or any major search engine, and keywords, let me first say that I'm no expert but I know a little about the subject, much of which I've learned from those more experienced than I.

The ad I received went something like this......

"Suppose you want to make money generating leads for credit card companies. Discover, for example, pays 40 bucks for every new card member you send their way.Sounds good, until you do a Google search for "credit card" and realize there are 56 MILLION sites in the results. Kind of hard to compete, wouldn't you say? But Discover gives a 5% cashback bonus on gas purchases. And when you do a search for "credit card gas rewards" you get 56 results. Now you can not only compete, you can make money. No matter what kind of marketing you do, it stands to reason that if you target overlooked, under-the-radar keyword phrases, you'll divert more traffic and convert more of that traffic into profits".

Now, none of that sounds unreasonable and if someone promises to sell you something based on these words of advice, you might well be tempted right?

Well, here's the reality check. There is nothing untrue about what this marketer is saying, it actually makes perfect sense. Let's give him/her the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just picked a bad example. Why is it bad?

Well, do your own keyword research and you will soon see the flaws in the reasoning. A search for "credit card" actually returns 213M results and without the quotes 30.6M. OK, these numbers are always fluid, the point is still that these are huge numbers.

So let's look at the example given "credit card gas rewards" and sure enough, the numbers follow the pattern with only 5000 or 259,000 without the quotes. Certainly better odds though still not great. BUT, and it is a big but, and I keep trying to tell people this, ranking for a keyword is all well and good if people are searching for the term or phrase in the first place.

The estimated search total for the term "credit card"  is around 1200 per day on Google, rising to around 2400 for "credit cards".

Want to guess how many searches there are for the keywords you are going to make all that money on? The answer is....zero! (Go to the front of the class if you got the answer right) Yep, nobody seems to be searching for that exact phrase - even if you mix the words around a little Google estimates that there are around 3 or 4 searches per day.

So.....now that product is perhaps not looking so promising. All I'm saying is, don't believe all the hype about front page Google rankings either. Here's an example of how easy it is to get on the first page of Google - I know of lots of little methods that work.

Here's just one little experiment to reinforce my point. I recently launched a free toolbar for those interested in hosting and marketing. Obviously I wanted to get the word out and get some organic rankings in Google and elsewhere. Since the launch I've checked a few of the keywords I would expect and hope to be ranking for so let's take a look at a few of them:

Marketing Toolbar - Position 9 on the front page out of 11.9M results returned.

Hosting Toolbar - Position 13 on second page out of 7.1M results returned

Free Hosting Toolbar - Position 3 and 7 on first page out of 548,00 results returned.

Hosting and Marketing Toolbar - All but two of the front page results on Google including the number one spot out of 253,000 results returned.

I should also add that the same searches on Google video will see me on the front page every time. But I also know that searches for these phrases are probably very thin on the ground. Virtually zero in actual fact. That's why it's a good example of what I'm talking about. If all this is new to you, before you read this post you might have thought I was some kind of Google genius but as you now know, you have to read between the lines when dealing with many marketers or those who would relieve you of cash! 

Now obviously, the tighter the focus, the better the results as you can see when our search becomes more specific. Long tail keywords is a term you have probably heard before. What annoys me is that so many "experts" will try to feed you this fluff as proof of their SEO prowess and potency of their software or ebook and so much of it is just BS.

I will also go on to say that being on the front page of Google does not guarantee you anything at all, and certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just being there does not mean that people are going to buy whatever it is you are selling. That involves so many variables it would take me all night to even think of some of them. Let's just say that even if I'm on the front page for some s*** hot product that everyone wants - they just read my page, look at the price, and head off to shop around and soon find someone selling it for less or offering a better deal in other ways. No sale for me, but hey, I'm on the front page of Google so whoopee doo for me, I can expect to be a millionaire tomorrow perhaps or at least by the end of the week ;-)

Here's the deal - I bet that you can rank on the first page of Google within 24 hours whenever you feel like it. Don't believe me? I know of a top secret keyword for which there is zero, yep, zero competition just waiting for someone to grab it. As you've read this far I'm going to give it to you for FREE! Just write your blog post on "Hoofaloofadoofa" and be amazed! I guarantee results or your money back.

Finishing on a serious note though, I will talk about how to increase your chances of a high SERPS result as the year goes on. I'm not going to be selling any secrets, just passing on some methods that I have found to work during my efforts online. Do your own keyword research. Use SEO Book's Free Keyword Tool and Keyword Buzz Elite (free download from the toolbar with no opt-in if you prefer) use Google's keyword tools here and their search based keyword tool here and you won't go far wrong and you won't have wasted any money. You can also download and use the excellent SEOQuake Firefox plugin and free tools like PPCWebSpy and SpyFu to further enhance your keyword research and targeting.

Since writing this I came across an excellent article entitled Celebrating Useless Keyword Victories which is well worth reading too.

TCH