The Role of Search Engine Rank in Driving Traffic to Your Website

Having a desirable search engine rank is ideal for driving
traffic to your website. Generally, the majority of a website’s
traffic comes through internet users’ use of the search engines.
A good search engine rank is really important considering that
over 80% of traffic for most websites is directed via search
engines and most users of search engines only click through to
websites that have a search engine rank within the first three
pages of the search engine results.

There are a number of search engines today. Each search engine
has its own algorithms which are rules that determine how
websites are placed in their search engine rank. Thus, a search
engine optimization strategy that provides a desirable search
engine rank in one engine may not produce good results in another
search engine. So, when trying to achieve a beneficial search
engine rank, you really need to focus on one, or maybe two search
engines for search engine rank purposes. If your website gets a
good search engine rank in the other search engines, you can
consider that a blessing.

Since your optimization strategy does need to be focused to be
successful, you may wonder which search engine or engines you
should focus on to achieve a search engine rank within the first
three pages of results. I recommend focusing your search engine
rank attempts on Google first, and Yahoo! second.

Getting a good search engine rank with Google will undoubtedly
drive loads of traffic to your website. Statistics have
repeatedly shown that Google is the most used search engine with
Yahoo! coming in second. These two major search engines also
power some of the smaller search engines, meaning that the
results generated by small search engines draw their results from
the major search engines. So, if you get a good search engine
rank in Google or Yahoo!, you will likely get a decent search
engine rank in some of the search engines they power such as MSN,
AOL, Ask Jeeves, and Alta Vista.

Another reason to strive for a top search engine rank in Google
is that it is an organic search engine, thus the results the
search engine displays are based on the quality and relevance of
the information on a website to the key terms searchers use
rather than being based on paid advertising and who can pay the
most to reach the top in search engine rank.

When you do a search using Google, you will notice that sponsored
links that appear at the top and at the right of the screen are
clearly marked so the searcher knows they are paid ads. All other
results generated are generated based on algorithms, not paid
advertisements. With Yahoo!, you can also tell which results are
generated as a result of sponsored links. If you cannot achieve a
search engine rank in the first three pages of Google or Yahoo!,
you can always opt for paid advertising that will get you listed
in the sponsored links.

Google’s pay-per-click advertising program is called AdWords.
Yahoo!’s cost-per-click advertising program is offered
throughYahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture). With both of
these programs, you can get your website advertised as sponsored
links in search engine results even if you cannot organically
achieve a search engine rank. Both programs have budgeting
features which enable you to control the amount of money spent
through your pay-per-click/cost-per-click advertising campaign.

The difference between organic search engine rank listings and
pay-per-click/cost-per-click search engine rank is that organic
listings don’t cost you anything while with per-click listings
you are charged the amount of your keyword bid for every click-
through to your website. Whether you get a search engine rank in
the search results naturally or through paid advertising, the
search engine rank is vital for driving traffic to your website.