What's funny is that some offers still are focused on selling me one top 10 rank for one keyphrase, which is crazy of course because to get volumes of traffic, you need to score high on many more keyphrases.
Scoring high on one phrase is already good but you definitely need to consider the search volume and the actual clicks that this top position generates.
Fore many of my keyphrases, that could be not much...
For instance the keyphrase "dealing with jealousy" generated 11'000 impressions in 2 years (that's US and western world market - I can imagine that worldwide, these numbers would probably double)
With a 1% click through rate for that specific phrase, I got a 100 visits from that specific keyphrase.
At 1% conversion rate, that's 1 sale in 2 years from that specific phrase.
So, for this to be profitable you need to have dozens or even thousands of keypharses to drive traffic.
At the peak of my adwords activity, I had 100'000 keyphrases in my campaigns.
So, back to that one keyphrase, dealing with jealousy.
If you are in the top 3 in the ogranic search, the click through rate will be way higher. Let's say that it's 20%.
This means that for 100 people seeing your link in the organic search results, 20 will click on the link.
If that phrase gets searched 20'000 times in 2 years (worldwide), we get now, 4000 visitors to my page in 2 years for that specific keyphrase.
because visitors are less targeted now, the conversion rate is lower, let's say 0.5% this means that you make 1 sale for 200 visits to your page (that's realistic expectations by the way - the conversion rate could be even way lower... I'll explain why another time)
So 4000 visitors, that's 20 sales from traffic driven by that specific key phrase.
with my product at $19, that's grossly $400 in 2 years
If you have just one keyphrase, that's not much right?
Now, if you have 100 similar targeted keyphrases, you end up with
- 2'000'000 impressions
- 400'000 visitors
- 2'000 sales
- 40'000 in revenue in 2 years from that specific campaign with 100 keyphrases.
Now, there are various reasons why these number could go up or down a lot.
These are only estimations to put in perspective the search and conversion dynamics + the numbers needed to be successful.
See the picture?
If you target just 1 key phrase, the numbers stay too small!
In my estimation, you need to ideally work with 50-200 key phrases to have an impact.
Smaller efforts will of course already pay off but if you want a real break through, you want more than that.
That's unless, you score in the top 10 for a single word like "jealous" or "jealousy"
Then of course, the search volume for these words is way higher... But the conversion and click through rate rate will be way lower too.
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Here is another factor: it's not just about reaching the top 10 results! It is about keeping your page there for an extended period of time! that's 2 years for instance!
Another point: being in the top 1, top 3 or top 10 makes a huge difference in search volume!
If you are top 1, I guess click through rate 20%-40%
Top 3 - 10%-20%
Top 10 - 2%-10%
These are just rough guesses simply to put this into perspective.
Now, suppose that you hire a SEO firm to position you in the top 10 for 100 keyphrases.
If they charge you $100/keyphrase to get you there, thats' $10'000
If you achieve the results I mentioned above (40'000 in revenues) that's worth it, right?
Now, imagine that instead of 20% clickthrough rate, you get 10% on your link in the organic search results...
This means that your income drops by half and you end up with half your profit, so $20'000.
Now suppose, that they put you in the top 10 only for a year instead of 2 years for that price.
Again, your profit is cut by half!
You end up with $10'000 income.
You just spent $10'000 on SEO
In other words, you make ZERO profit on that one!
See? It's just a number's game!
The edge between profit and no profit is VERY thin.
A simple drop in your ranking can easily cut your income by half!
You need to be super smart with that and understand the dynamics to succeed!
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Again, this is just one campaign example with 100 key phrases
You could have for instance 200 key phrases or 50!
You can have multiple products as well, which is what I have.
You can have an upsell structure as well and double your profit when people sign up for an upgrade.
All these choices and possibilities, right?
Whats' essential is that it's a HIGHLY competitive game and probably 95% of those who try to play, FAIL!
They might fail because their running costs, SEO fees or overall strategy is not solid enough.
Their conversion rate on their sales page might be low, or the pricing could be too high, or in the middle of their campaign, google changes on line of code in their algorithm and your top ranking efforts are annihilated overnight!
These are all REALISTIC scenarios!
You need to be super smart to succeed!
They key success element is: How much you will pay for SEO!!!
That's the place where you can go broke or be a total success.
Yes, that's the EXACT spot where you can fail or succeed!
BE SMART! YOU WILL NEED IT!