Brent Hodgson, Copywriter

I’m a subscriber to James Brausch’s printed newsletter - the James D. Brausch Letter.

It often has some great tips - some issues you really pick up a few gold nuggets, some issues are fairly simple and common-sense - but overall it’s been worth the money.

(I’m using one of the more controversial tips from the January 2007 newsletter right now to test a salesletter)

If you want to find out more, or subscribe, check out:

http://www.jamesbrausch.com/letter/

(Note: not an affiliate link)

In the August 2007 edition, one of the 3 articles in James Brausch’s newsletter was about Traffic as a search engine ranking factor - during a statistical test on SEO factors, he found a correlation between Alexa rankings and Google rankings.

I found this particularly interesting - and it’s something I’ve been noticing myself in the past few months.

I disagree with his assertion that Google must have a back-door deal with Alexa (even though he showed why he didn’t believe it was simply a correlation between traffic and rankings) - I think there’s a much simpler explanation.

Google has their own toolbar they use for gathering data, plus they monitor clicks from their search results. In all likelihood, the same types of people who install the Google Toolbar are also the same types of people who install the Alexa Toolbar (webmasters, SEO’ers etc). This would create a correlation between Alexa rankings and Google rankings.

But I don’t want to get bogged down in the detail. Whether it’s caused by the Alexa Toolbar or the Google Toolbar - this doesn’t worry me.

Traffic is an important ranking factor for SEO - and Google does seem to monitor click-through rates from Search Results, and web-site visitor traffic in general, as weighting factors to affect rankings. This is something I’m noticing in my clients’ sites increasingly.

One client I have has 8 of the top 10 sites in Google for a particular keyword. One of the 2 sites here that he doesn’t own gets a huge Click-Through-Rate - because that site has a title tag which reads “such-and-such product is a scam”. Of course this gets a HUGE click-through rate. Just have a look at Rich Jerk’s ads - he uses this type of hook too - because it gets clicks!

What’s most interesting is traffic (as an SEO factor) can be self-ratcheting.

You SEO a site to increase traffic… Then the increased traffic is a positive SEO factor… which increases traffic… which is a positive SEO factor… which increases traffic… which is a positive SEO factor… Which.. ahh… I think you get the message…

Interesting, isn’t it?

Anyway - if you want James Brausch’s newsletter “The James D. Brausch Letter“, it’s currently $25 per month, and to date I feel my subscription has been money well spent.

Brent

P.S. -  James Brausch just launched a second newsletter - Testing - and he’s offering one issue for free in exchange for honest reviews. This newsletter is different from the James D. Brausch letter in that it focusses solely on split test data from James Brausch’s sites. Find out how to claim your copy here. I’m interested in having a look for myself (and have made sure my WHOIS data is up-to-date ).

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