What are the REAL Chances of Getting a #1 Ranking in Google

One of our readers left this comment on one of our recent blog posts :

“With an estimated 2 Billion websites now what is the real chance of SEO marketing companies really ranking anyone on page 1 of Google consistently with organic marketing?”

That’s a great question…

(But I think when the reader said “2 billion websites,” he was actually providing a ballpark estimate of the number of web pages on the ‘Net. The most recent stats we found said the number of websites was just over 182 million. But one website can have hundreds or even thousands of different pages to it.)

Despite the huge number of web pages out there, the answer is, yes — you CAN get a top ranking with Google through purely organic SEO. But your success at hitting the top position depends on which keywords you’re trying to rank for.

For example, say you want to build a site selling natural health products… If you’re just starting out, how easy do you think it would be to get top ranking for the term, “natural health products?” Well, with 705 million web pages competing for that term, your chances aren’t so hot.

… But if you drill down into your area of interest and find more specific keywords such as,
“herbal remedies sinus,” which has 198,000 competing results — or “psoriasis herbal remedies,” which has 165,000 competing results, your chances of getting a decent ranking just got a whole lot better.

But how do you discover the best keywords to rank for?

That one’s easy: keyword research.

(Yes, we’re going on about keywords again! But they really are the “key” to a successful business.)

Our inaugural issue of StartUp, our new online business guide, has a number of articles that explain exactly how to do proper keyword research to uncover hidden streams of traffic for your site. It’s even got some hot new niche ideas for your business that we uncovered using the exact method we talk about.

If you need a refresher course on how to find the keywords that are best for your business, check out this month’s free issue.

Even if you plan on outsourcing your SEO work, we strongly urge you to become familiar with the principles of keyword research.

That way you’ll have the basic knowledge you need to discover whether the SEO company you’re thinking about hiring actually knows what they’re doing — or whether they’re just out to drain your bank account and leave you with nothing to show for it.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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This Article has 7 Comments

Hank

September 30th, 2009

Thanks for the free issue I will be sure to check it out.

Nalliah sivanathan

October 1st, 2009

Great to get valuable tips from free issues and no one would else dare to divulge the secrets.Thanks

Weymouth

October 3rd, 2009

Hi there, Sorry to sound stupid.

SEO? What does this stand for?

Kind regards

Weymouth

IMC team

October 5th, 2009

Hi Weymouth;
Actually it’s a smart question to ask — and we should have explained it in the article.

SEO means search engine optimization. It’s a collection of different strategies for earning top rankings in the search results when someone enters one of your keywords into a search engine like Google or Yahoo. These are called “organic” or “natural” listings.

You can actually direct the way your site is listed — and improve your ranking — by giving the search engines what they’re looking for.

The goal is to show the search engines that your site is relevant to searches for your top keywords.

SEO has two main parts:
On-site optimization — including placing keywords strategically throughout your website’s content and code, creating an XML sitemap that the search engines can read, focusing your content so it’s highly relevant to the keywords you’re using, and constantly adding new content.

Off-site optimization — mostly getting high-quality sites that would be relevant to your audience to link back to you.

It takes work to do SEO effectively, but it doesn’t cost anything but your efforts.

If you use the search box at the top right of this page and enter SEO, you’ll get a whole bunch of articles on the subject.

Hope this helps

EG Online Marketing

October 10th, 2009

Good read! I just had a client that wanted top ten ranking for “weight loss”. I explained that his expectations where to high. He explained that well known internet marketing company is promising him a top ten ranking for whatever keyword he wants. I am tired of these high volume companies giving people who do it right a bad name. Keyword research takes hours and days. You can always use what I call niche keywords like how you explained above.

Thanks for the read!