Advice from an SEO Expert: If You’re Not First, You’re Last

Big Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly fans will instantly recognize the saying “If you’re not first, you’re last” — a silly quote from the racing movie Talladega Nights. But as it turns out, this seemingly nonsensical phrase may perfectly sum up search engine optimization (SEO).

There are two types of links that show up on Google: paid aids and organic search results. The latter are typically considered to be more important since most users will head straight for the organic links.

What people don’t do, however, is click to the next page of the search results. According to a recent Forbes article, the vast majority of users will click one of the links on the first page:

“Some business owners forgo any formal SEO efforts because they believe that being in the search results (anywhere in the results) is “good enough”. However, research by Moz shows that 71.33% of clicks happen on page one of the search results. Properly optimizing your site and content are key to achieving top rankings; and therefore any degree of search visibility.”

So while it’s invaluable to have your website come up on the first page, the other alternatives don’t really matter. There’s a slight difference between coming up on the 2nd and 42nd page, but it requires a ton of effort and doesn’t bring much in the way of results.

As such, if you’re going to optimize your website, then it’s important that you shoot for the very top of Google’s search rankings. If you just focus on a few SEO elements, then you’ll just be wasting your time since it won’t be enough to take your site to the top of the rankings.

“If you’re not first, you’re last” might be a bit too harsh to describe SEO competition. But if we modify the phrase to “If you’re not on the first page, you may as well be on the last one,” then it would be shockingly accurate. To talk more about SEO or social media marketing, contact RWD SEO today.