Are you #1?

When someone goes to Google and searches for “scuba your geographic area“, are you number 1 in the results?

Did you realize that the number 1 result gets over 56% of the clicks? Number 2 only gets roughly 13%, number 3 gets less than 10% and it just goes down from there. (source)

According to Google, local search volume for the search query I suggested above receives about 1,140 searches. So number 1 gets over 638 clicks, number 2 gets 148 and number 3 gets less than 114. If you can pull in a very optimistic 10% of those search visitors, we’re talking the difference between 68 potential students and 11, all in the range of 3 spots in the search engine results.

I mentioned in my 2010 year in review that I had setup a dummy site early last year that ranked in the top 2 within the first month of being active. After setting up the site, I spent at most 2 hours per month updating the site. I averaged over 30 inquiries via a web form on the site from potential students. Note: by “averaged over 30”, I mean the number rounded to 30 and change, but not over 30.5, otherwise I would say “almost 31”.

I did this for a geographic area I was unfamiliar with and talked only about training. I only discussed training because I wanted it to be applicable to independent instructors as well. For those of you who own or run a dive center, your numbers would go up with the inclusion of travel, equipment and everything else you offer.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking for some people. People who are in the SCUBA industry and want to get more out of their web presence. You must meet this criteria:

• You don’t want to spend a dime on some new internet marketing technique.
• You can invest 10-20 hours to learn a new (to some of you) system. This isn’t timed or a set schedule, but ideally you could do it in about a month.
• You can invest 2-4 hours per week for the next 6 months into your business.
• You are active in the SCUBA industry. An active instructor, dive charter, equipment manufacturer, dive center or any other aspect is fine, but you must be active. Active is defined as “doing your form of business (teaching, running a dive center, taking divers on tours, etc) at least 2 days per month”.
• You must have reliable internet access. It doesn’t need to be blazing fast, you don’t need to be an expert at using the web, you just need to be able to get online.
• You can deal with the occasional bug, freeze or outage and don’t mind providing feedback to make the system better for everyone.

If that describes you, be sure you’re on the weekly email newsletter. There’s going to be a special issue I’ll be sending in the next few weeks with details about a new service I’ve been fortunate enough to be a bug tester for. I used this service to create my successful dummy site, so I know it works.

Are you number 1? Want to be?