Several recent studies examined the links users followed on the search engine results page. A study conducted in 2005 found that 42% of users clicked the top result, and 8% of users clicked the second result. This confirms previous studies that the number one natural search result gets many more clicks than all other results.
In this study, the researchers did a second test where they swapped the order of the top two search results. This change was unknown to the users in the test. The result was the same. Even though the search results were different, users still clicked on the top entry 34% of the time and on the second result 12% of the time.
The natural search, also known as organic search, study confirms the importance of being listed on the first result page. If your website doesn't appear on the first result page (which typically only holds 10 websites as results), people are unlikely to see your site.
A previous study by the Georgia Institute of Technology found that 75% of web searchers never look further than the first results page. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen found that: "Users almost never look beyond the second page of search results."
There are several things that you can do to help get your site on the first search engine result page.
Keywords
Begin by selecting the right keywords for each page of your website. General keywords will be ineffective because they are widely used on the web. For example, if you have a site that sells gourmet cat food, "cat" would be too general of a keyword for your site.
Your best bet would be to choose highly targeted keywords that are related to your business and that attract online shoppers who are interested in what you're selling. Examples could be "X brand cat food" or "gourmet cat food."
If you're not sure what keywords to use, you can search on Google, Yahoo!, and/or MSN for keywords you think might be effective. See what companies are showing up on the first page of results and check out the keywords they're using. You don't necessarily want to copy them, just get a feel for other keyword options. This will also show you some of your competition for your best keywords.
Content
Your second step is to create a content-rich website that can be optimized for many different keywords. For example, you may want to include helpful articles on your site that feature your keywords. In the gourmet cat food website example, one article could be about how to select the best cat food for your pet (optimized for "choose cat food" and "best cat food") and others could provide detailed information about the various brands you sell. Focus on one brand per webpage and you can then optimize the pages for each brand.
Coding
There are many legitimate things you can do in the coding of your website that will help your site rank for your keyword terms. Some quick, easy changes you can make include:
1 - Page titles: A page title is displayed in the blue bar at the top of your web browsing window. It's also used by some search engines as the title of the search result and some browsers use it as the default bookmark title. Use unique keyword-rich descriptions in the page titles for each of your webpages.
2 - Headers: A header is a title on your webpage. Your headers should include your most important keywords. Make sure that the title still makes sense for the reader. For example, if your webpage content is about how to select the best cat food for your pet, you could use "How to Select the Best Cat Food for Your Pet" as your header text.
3 - Alt tags: Alt tags are the alternative text that displays in place of an image when a user has images turned off on their browser. They also display when you hover your mouse over an image. Some search engines have devalued these due to abuse over the years. But, a few still use them and they make your website more user-friendly, so I recommend using them. You basically just want to describe what the image is in words and use that as your alt tag. It helps to include keywords as appropriate for the image. For example, if your image is of a bag of a certain brand of cat food, an appropriate alt tag would be "X brand cat food."
4 - Sitemap: A sitemap is like a table of contents for your website. It lists all the major categories/pages of your site with links to easily navigate to any of the pages. It's best to place a link to your sitemap on every page of your site. This is great not only for search engine optimization, but also for users who may want to quickly navigate to a page on your site.
Incoming Links
Lastly, it's important to have links from other relevant sites to your website. In the gourmet cat food website example, it would be valuable to have links from pet-related sites going to your website.
Making these changes to your website can help get your site listed in the top results on search engines. The higher your website's placement in search engine results, the more likely people will be aware of your presence on the web. If more people know about your site, you're more likely to get higher traffic, and potentially, more orders. Happy optimizing!