Every day, an estimated 5.8 billion searches are made on Google. Talk about a lot of queries! Indeed, search engines are how prospective customers discover and visit your website. When a topic is searched, the search engine will sift through the millions of pages it has indexed about and present you with results that match your topic. The searched matches are also ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first. This complex process happens almost instantly.

Since 75 percent of prospective customers only look at the first page of search results, where your website appears in the search engine ranking is crucial for reaching customers. Indeed, users want to find what they are looking for quickly, so the top 2 to 3 search results tend to get the most traffic.

Additionally, prospective customers all use one of the top 6 to 7 search engines. Indeed, these search engines attract more visitors to websites more than anything else. Thus, it all depends on which search engines the customers use and how they rank your site.

Indeed, keywords play a more important role than any expensive online or offline advertising for your website.

Surveys show that when customers want to find a website for information or to buy a product or service, they find their site in one of the following ways.

  • Customers find their site through a search engine.
  • They find their site by clicking on a link from another website or page that relates to the topic that they are interested in.
  • Occasionally, they find a site by hearing about it from a friend or reading an article.

Indeed, over 90 percent of online users find a site from a search engine. Only 10 percent of people looking for a website will use methods other than search engines.

All search engines employ a ranking algorithm and one of the main rules in a ranking algorithm is to check the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Don’t forget that algorithms also give weight to link population (the number of web pages linking to your site). When performed by a search engine optimization expert, your site can rank high for search engine rankings. With better knowledge of search engines and how they work, you can also do it on your own.

I hope you found this article helpful as you start or continue to optimize your site not only for search engines, but for your target audience too. When you provide useful, high-quality content for users, your site will rank higher on major search engines, which is key for your site’s success.