It seems we all want to be number one. The Instagram with the most followers, the post with the most likes, or the YouTube channel with the most subscribers, or this, or that, or hey what about that thing. In a society in which our patience as consumers shrinks ever smaller, it is often about the first option for the consumption of content, that includes thorough holistic information, a strong Title and Meta description, and the utilisation of the tools that don’t even cost a cent. Search Engine Optimisation is almost as core as a business component as the physical product or service offering itself.
You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, what good is it?
September 14th, 1995. Phil Knight, Chairman of Nike.
It may or may not be surprising to you, but if your business and it respective website falls to the second page in a Google search result, you are receiving 5% of the possible web traffic. That leaves a resounding, majority, superior 95% to the first page of a Google search, with the number one ranked search result achieving just under 30%, and number 7 achieving a mere 3.5% of that total 95. Staggering that out of 100 users who search for “Grammatical Suicide”, only 3 and a small baby will find this article. Irony huh?
What probably does not surprise you is the shear number of business and organisations founded to be your partner as you strive to tackle the challenge head on, of being a Number One SERPs. But my week full of irony doesn’t stop there. Every Search Engine Optimisation business cannot fall on page one.. and page one is quite often filled with a number of paid for advertisements in the first three slots. So business’ whose sole property is to be the best, fall on Pages two, and three, and so on, for as many pages as 680,000,000 results are worth. All in 0.65 seconds. FLAT.
But by ironing out all the problems of being an SEO help business, who falls beyond page 1, does not mean it is not worth striving to be a top ranked search result.
I thought I would put and idea to the test, and I would greatly appreciate as we go on a dramatical rollercoaster that I may loose some of you on… but none the less here we go!
- Search you name.
- Compare the results from Page Juan, to Page Duos.
My result showcases my current Instagram handle, two Twitter handles I made in my preteens, a redirect to images that are of me and the people I love, as well as some members of this class’ cohort. My LinkedIn, a link to Ancestry.com, and finally the team sheet for my weekend soccer team, but from 2 years ago.
Page 2 barely I barely even recognise but features this blog, which is strange considering the frequency Im here.
But you could say I am search engined optimised, and I did nothing to get here.
What comes up when you type your name into Google? – Any accounts from your younger years, or things you would like to forget? Post a link in the comments and let me know about any experiences you’ve had with SEO? Cheers Cobbas.. 🙂
Riley Puttick: A Direct Perspective 
Great read Riley! I did notice a picture of myself in your Google search, funny how SEO operates. Ensuring you manage, analysis and measure your SEO will hopefully get those 2, 3 or 4th pages some traffic, but it’s not easy!
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Yeah – very strange that you are already ‘related’ to my google search, and we have only crossed paths this semester. Wonder how that comes to be considering the identical involvement of other members in our group?
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Great article Riley! I could not find anything related to me when I conducted a Google Search with my name. Excellent question you’ve raised about having the best product but it being no good if no one is aware of it, “what good is it”.
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Yeah, its that age old saying, but it definitely reigns supreme when it comes to the direction of an online presence for almost all business. Surprised you could not find anything when you conducted a google search of yourself, considering the nature of your business, maybe invest in some SEO professionals ;).
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when i googled myself i was frustrated how irrelevant the results on the first page were. Of course i had the standard facebook, instagram and linkedin pages, but my blog was stuck halfway down the second page as well as my past charity webpages, whilst random domestic basketball statistics from when i was 17 for whatever reason took precedence. it is something i definitely want to rectify before entering the workforce. great read man always take an interesting perspective to great topics.
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Yeah, I had my under 16s soccer results posted in there. Amongst a midst of irrelevant material relating to the origins of my last name.
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Cracking post mate. When I search myself in Google I am reminded of some past tennis results as a junior. Few good ones lol. Have to put in my location (Ballarat) to get an accurate result. Stevens must be a common last name. Look forward to the next post
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I can imagine that you were a bit of a young gun! As i mentioned in class, i wonder if it relates more to location as well. For example if you did the search at home with the location service active, if youd get a different result to the search you did at school for example. Food for thought i guess?
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