Does Search Engine Traffic Matter?

These trends will continue. And many have been aware ofthis for years. My own site provides a good example of theresults.

A Question Overlooked

A fellow called a while back asking about the services Ioffer. When he asked how my web pages ranked on the searchengines, I said I didn't know, that I had never checked. Iguess that wasn't what he wanted to hear, for he hung up.

But it is fact. Why would I care what positions I have?My log files show I'm getting less than 20% of hits from thesearch engines. Given the competition for keyword phrasessuch as "site promotion," it is no surprise I don't get more.

Answering The Question

Still, the call triggered action of sorts. I ran WebPosition on my major keywords. The results were startling.

I asked the program to go 99 listings deep. It found only4 pages of over 700 on my site listed for the keywords entered,and none at all above the 50th position. So how am I'm gettinghits?

The Mystery Of Search Engines Unanswered

All the above report means is that I am not getting manyhits on keywords I felt were appropriated for a particular page.For example, site promotion brought up my Tips page as #86 atAltaVista. And this in itself is startling, for the pagechanges every week! (It's also entirely in size 1, somethingsome experts believe AltaVista considers spam.)

Web Editorial Service was #73 at Lyris, but the page is notan article I wrote. Web Site Promotion Services was #52 atGoogle. Site Promotion Services was #6 at Overture.com, butI paid for this position.

In opening STAT, I followed advice that proved to be badinfo. I developed a massive set of targeted keywords for thesite. Most of the terms I began with have disappeared sinceexploring with them. And with but few exceptions, I now haveonly clues as to the keywords on a given page that actuallybring a visitor.

Still, the site initially brought pretty good free trafficfrom search engines. It peaked about the end of 1998 at about40% of total traffic, and has steadily been declining since.

More Non-Answers From The Horse's Mouth

Given such "spectacular" results as noted above, I was stillpuzzled, for I was getting hits. Where were they coming from?So I checked out a couple of search engines and, off the top ofmy head, did some searches.

Things like "site services," "website performance," "siteimprovement," and so forth. Oddly enough, a few of my pagescame up in the first 30. And since I know the content of mostpages at the end of the links offered, I could see there was atleast some degree of relevancy.

My Conclusion

The search engines algorithms are smarter than we generallyacknowledge. They do a pretty good job of sorting out pagecontent. And they're getting better every day.

So I will continue as I have been doing. That is, submitnew pages as they are completed. And I'll continue to try toinclude keywords as possible. But essentially I'm content tolet the search engines do whatever.

For one thing, my page views continue to increase. Slowly,that's true. But the key lies in the increase. Thus I'm notdrawing too much off-target traffic.

The Best Strategy For You

For some sites, position on the search engines is criticalto success. In such a case, my forget-it approach would betotally inadequate. In fact if your site is seriously dependantupon traffic generated by search engines, it may be best to hirea professional service and make sure this task is done right.

This aside, the power of search engines to draw freetargeted traffic is weakening. Which means that in settingpriorities, most should spend less time in obtaining goodpositions.

As with my site, the better plan may be to focus promotionalefforts on other strategies to generate the targeted traffic youneed.

Sure. Submit new pages as completed. Possibly take thetime to create search engine friendly content pages. But lookelsewhere for traffic.

The ability of search engines to deliver free targetedtraffic to your site is diminishing. Some may find the emergingpay-for-submission models profitable. But most will find otheravenues more rewarding. And soon enough, you won't be able tocount on free search engine traffic to any significant degree.