Authority of the first place

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Hello again, fellow Steemians! I have a deep secret that I’m finally ready to share with the world. I have been in denial for a long time.

After a lot of self-reflection and catching myself doing it over and over again I decided to just come clean and admit that I’m a Google-First-Page-Search-Result-Clicker. It’s a symptom which gives me a major bias in favor of the first google result I find after searching for something. By my definition, if you’re the first result on Google you’re the authority figure I’ve been looking for. Your wisdom automatically becomes my wisdom.

I’ve been looking for a support group for the last couple of months but, to my despair, I haven’t found my community yet.

Please do raise your hand if you’ve experienced similar symptoms. I want you to know that you’re not alone! As a support group, we will help each other grow high in the search engines. So your wisdom can one day flow into other random people on this planet.

The number one spot

Even though I can’t check if you really raised your hand I know that you most likely felt inclined to do so.

This because according to Moz, the first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic clicks and has been reported to be as high as 92% in recent years. Second-page results are far from a close second coming in at below 6% of all website clicks.1 If you didn’t do it before, I think it’s about time for you to start raising your hand.

Reaching on the first page of Google for a keyword with any amount of search volume can help bring (a lot of) traffic to your website/app

The SE-no

I think it’s really valuable to always put in the effort to find counterarguments to any good idea or argument you might have. Don’t be that person that willfully lives in their bubble thinking you’re correct about everything you think you know. Challenge yourself. It would be of no use the anyone to blindly join or follow something that will be worthless by the time you finally get it.

I’ve read some interesting articles where they talked about a decline of Google searches. There’s an article about how the Value of a #1 position on Google is Down 37% in Two Years or an article about The Shift from Organic Clicks to Paid. These articles serve a great purpose of widening your scope of view. They share some eye-opening points!

Also, don’t forget to read the comments underneath. Sometimes you find chunks of gold in there. It’s great to keep this information in the back of your mind to (sub)consciously remember/remind yourself to keep on looking for the next big thing.

Why SEO?

Having the best burger joint of the world in the middle of the Sahara desert is as useful as airing a new Kevin Spacey movie after his downfall last year.

In most cases to have any form of success, you need a lot of eyes to see you. If nobody sees you, you’re as good as non-existent.

We’ve been sharing content for thousands of years. I can see no foreseeable future where we don’t share or look for information. As long as humans stay curious, information will always be in high demand.

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the art of ranking high in Search Engines by increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.2

After reading myself to death and watching a lot of courses on Linkedin Learning, Udemy and other platforms I’m of the opinion that SEO should be a major component for everybody that wants to implement a long-term strategy to acquire people that are actively searching for the thing you have to offer. While the world is forever changing you can be certain that even in the future people will be searching for something. The first question you should ask yourself is: are you findable at the place where people search?
While finding counterarguments is useful I’m of the opinion that in this case, you should not let the numbers fool you. Google searches might be on a decline but a couple of million searches per month less in total is nothing compared to the 3.5 billion searches we conduct every day. Trust me, Google will do everything it can to keep it that way.

My conclusion…

Never forget that the search traffic clicks from any search volume are real human beings looking for something. It’s more than numbers, statistics and data points. All those things point back to us. We are the search traffic clicks. It’s we as humans that browse the web to find the things we’re looking for. Eyes on your platform give you the ability to change any person, a business or even the world. That’s why I’m of the opinion that it is very valuable to at least take a look at SEO to see if it’s worthwhile for you to implement.

…and your journey

Don’t worry if you don’t understand all the terminologies yet. Try out this journey as you go from dipping your toes to diving head first into the sea of SEO. Nowadays there’s an endless amount of places to learn everything you need to know about SEO. The best part is that the knowledge is already scattered all around the internet for free. “All” it takes to master SEO is self-discipline and patience.

To start off I would highly recommend you start with the free online book called SEO in Practice. When it comes to fundamentals and well thought out ways to explain SEO, they simply get it.

From there on out you can keep your knowledge up to date by reading more on these websites:

Moz Blog
Link-Assistant
Nichehacks
SmartBlogger
Quicksprout

Don’t worry about the tools you need to conduct proper research. I’m still writing that story but by the time I’m done, you’ll have so many tools that people will call you Bob the Builder.

Recommended Book for this post:

This…
“And though I like to think that nothing can shock me, I was shocked aplenty by what the internet reveals about human sexuality – including the discovery that every month a certain number of women search for “humping stuffed animals”.”

This…
“People searching for information is, in itself, information.”

…and more in this mind enhancing book by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.

What will you learn about yourself?

Feel free to share your discoveries :)