How people use search engines has changed but the basic need has not.
The process can be described as: 1) Person needs information, an answer or a solution. 2) Person tries to best describe their need with words (This is the search query). 3) Query is given to the search engine. 4) Person browses the results for a match. 5) Person clicks on a result, scans for a solution, or a link to a possible solution. 6) If the person is unsatisfied, they either browse the results for another link or start a new search with different words.
When doing research on how to optimize your webpage or how to increase your website’s ranking, you need to understand your target audience. Who are they? What do they need or want? what is their age, gender, & race? & Don’t forget… Why? Once you find out what your target market is looking for, you can develop more effective ways to reach & keep them.
Statistics on SEO:
- Google is responsible for about 91% of traffic., yahoo & Bing each send about 4% traffics. (major Search Engine Companies Study)
- A first spot ranking on Google’s search results gets about 18% of all click through traffic (Google Study).
- Since most language are written from left to right, & top to bottom. Majority of people’s eyes are going to spend a large amount of time in the upper left hand corner of their screens, therefore to get higher visibility for your company, page, documents, you need to score higher in Google’s ranking system because you get closer to the top left hand side of the screen.