SEOPEN FOR BUSINESS

Nathan Hollow

13th December 2012
comments, Digital

As 2012 draws to a close, this week has seen one of the world’s biggest websites publish their yearly trending list.

Search behemoth Google released their Zeitgeist report which charts the UK’s fastest growing search terms throughout the year.

Surprisingly, given its dominance of all media sources throughout the summer and the debacle over empty seats, the Olympics was not the number one trend, rather it was Euro 2012. Other trending terms were Whitney Houston’s surprise death at 48, Kate Middleton, and missing 5yr old April Jones. The full list can be found below.

However for some, topics trending on Google aren’t necessarily the best indicators of success or public interest. The same could be applied to trends on Twitter.

Google clearly leads the search market, running over two thirds of all internet searches, but what is most surprising is how few people search through Google’s results. Or maybe it’s how much trust we put in Google’s accuracy? Whichever way you look at it, on average people use the first result a staggering 36 per cent of the time. This decreases rapidly, with 12.5 per cent using the second result and nine and a half per cent the third. By the sixth result, less than five per cent of people will click on it, and you can forget about languishing on page two, as only one and a half per cent of searchers ever make it that far.

As these stats show, it doesn’t matter what the top trending search of the year is, if a website only appeared on the fifth page of Google results.

At this point some readers might wonder whether you can improve positioning on Google – the good news is you can! PLMR offer dedicated SEO services where we use industry leading techniques to enhance the profile of a client’s website and content. But if paid services are beyond your reach, there are a number of easy actions you can take to see some improvement in your Google ranking:

Write high quality material – it helps as readers will share your content with their friends, which leads to more readers and more referrals
Title your content with a key word that isn’t heavily contested – try Google’s keyword tool to assess how contested a phrase is.
Promote your material on social networks and other websites – unless you run a well-known website, visitors are unlikely to stumble across your content

Good luck and maybe you’ll be topping the trending lists next year.

Trending Searches UK 2012