The more refined search engine algorithms become, naturally the better the search engine results will also get. With Matt Cutts and his team of spam killers doing such a good job at devaluing ‘Page Rank‘ to any site that adopts black hat SEO techniques, the search results are becoming more aligned to the searchers needs. We can see in the below image where internet users are clicking when they arrive on the 1st page of Google.

From position 1 to 5 the click volume decreases gradually. There is a slight showing of clicks on the right – hand column, which is Google’s Adwords (paid advertising). From positions 6 to 10 very little clicks have been detected by the heat map. The heatmap is producing the typical ‘F’ formation, which top designers implement when creating a website.

This visual heatmap explains graphically how important it is to be in the top 5 or more importantly to be #1 in Google otherwise your website is losing out in significant traffic.

Location, location, location… As in property, location is also very important in search engine optimisation. Depending what services the website offers and where/who the target market is, targeting the immediate geographic surroundings is very important. A good example of this would be a SEO consultant who can target international markets (all internet based) compared to a plumber who would just target the city/town in which he/she services.

Once the optimum keywords have been chosen then it is a matter of placing them into the correct positions within each web page. Title Tags and Meta descriptions are the best places to start, keyword density in content does not in any way affect search engine optimisation anymore.