Most of my Internet Marketing clients always ask the same questions: Where is my site? My keywords are easy, why am I not ranked? Why am I always outranked by site X? Here are the answers to all of these questions and more.

What makes a site rank higher than another one

Google uses over 200 metrics to rank your site. They use a combination of your sites authority, links, and several other metrics. Google adds up all of these items and gives you an overall score for each individual keyword or phrase. If you have a million poor quality links, your site probably won’t be ranked high.

Keywords

For example, take a guy that sells watches. Of course, most watch store owners want to rank high for the word “watches”. It is always difficult to explain to the client that their site is simply not going to be #1 for this keyword. It is simply too much time and too much money to go after such a competitive keyword.

It is always much better to target more specific keywords. Perhaps targeting a specific manufacturer or even model number is a much better plan. Indeed, if the client really feels that the keyword watches is the only way to go, this plan will put us on that path. The only difference is we will get quality traffic while we climb the steep hill.

One more quick thought on keyword selection. It does you no good to be ranked at the top of a keyword that nobody is searching for. Stats don’t lie, always trust the statistics not your idea of the keywords that people are searching for. It is not uncommon to find zero searches for any given keyword in Google. All the optimization in the world will not make you a nickel!

Why bother with Search Engine Marketing

Many people think of the Internet in an extremely negative light. They say things like, well I can take an ad out in the paper or I’m going to go door to door. People that are really not with it still advertise in the phone book. They really think that people still look in the massive phone book to find local businesses. The customer you want is a customer that has already made up his mind on which product to buy. When you go to the grocery store to buy a can of soup, you ARE going to buy a can of soup. You will always buy, no matter what. The same can be said for a customer that is searching for a very specific product. If a customer does a search for Seiko model #SPC011, he knows exactly what he wants. If he clicks on your link and you have the product, the sale is totally up to your price, terms and delivery options. This man is not shopping for a “watch” he is shopping for SPC011.

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