Wordtracker

[Malaga]

I’m new here and have a problem regarding to the figures provided by tools such as Wordtracker.

Our homepage has been optimised for our main keyword which was chosen using Wordtracker and other tools.

We have reached top 5 rankings for this keyword but we do only get about 10% of the total searches for this keyword – according to Wordtracker estimates.

On the other hand we have a sub section which has been optimised for a less important keyword. We also have top 5 rankings but in this case we get about 80% of the estimated traffic by Wordtracker.

I know the figures provided by Wordtracker and other tools like this are not 100% accurate but I will still think that only 10% of the total estimated traffic is very low with the ranking we have.

I have even tried to change the title and description tags which are used in the SERPs but the results don’t change.

[seomike]

The traffic predictions are a combined number. If the prediction is 250 that means atleast 1000 visitors will click the results. Which results get clicked?

Lets say all the page 1 results get the same amount of traffic. Now it's just simple math.

x = 10 (results on page 1)
y = 1000 (predicted traffic)

y/x = 100 (visitors per result)

This is perfect world senario though so I'm sure the numbers skew higher, the higher up the page you are on.

Hope this helps

[Malaga]

Thanks but I still think it is a bit strange that if the predicted traffic is 1000 for a keyword that I in one case only get 100 visitors and in another case with the same predicted traffic get 800 when my rankings for both keywords are the same.

[jsmm]

Personally, I'd recommend examining other keywords and further optimizing your entire website. Many people search for variations of a word or phrase.

By optimizing for a single keyword, you're effectively only calling out to people who use that one particular word.

For example, imagine a meat company (we'll call it MeatCo) has a website. MeatCo's website is optimized for "meat." In every search engine, when a person types in "meat," MeatCo comes up as #1.

But what happens if someone searches for "steak?" Or "ground beef?" Or "lamb chops?" MeatCo doesn't rank as highly for other keywords, because they only optimized for "meat," so they're losing significant amounts of good traffic - of potentiel customers.

While my example may not directly relate to your situation, search engines do seem to aim for a more hollistic, organic approach for page indexing. So, if you research multiple keywords and optimize your entire website for a wider variety of searches, your site will be more likely to achieve higher rankings in a larger number of searches.

Also, you could examine your titles and the text excerpts displayed during a Google search. Do they sound appealing to the average person, not just to people in your office?

Personally, when I perform a search on Google or on other search engines, I don't always go for result #1 - if the title and blurb from results 3-8 read as if they're closer to what I actually want, I'll pass over #1 entirely, even if Google thinks it's my best option.

Just a few things to think about. My company is heavily into white-hat SEO techniques, so I've seen the benefits of overall site SEO - increased traffic & sales, increased company identification and knowledge among the general public, etc. The less limiting you are with your SEO, the more easily people will find you.