Page 1 Rankings, but not increase in traffic, contact form requests or calls

[WebbyNabler]

I am very frustrated. I have achieved page one rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo for highly relevant keywords and phrases. The keywords I am ranking on page one for are the same ones competitors are targeting and working well for them. I am interested in any feedback as to what could possibly be the cause for not receiving much traffic? I mean I am getting page 1, everyone I talk to says the sites are beautiful....Very confused. Now in the various keyword tools the do show that the various keywords receive anywhere from 25-250 searches per month, but those tools i find highly innacurate when performing a local campaign...oh yeah, these are all local campaigns i am talking about. Do I need to pursue paid marketing, PPC, or something. I always thought organic rankings were the way to go. Also, unfortunatly i am not able to divulge the URLs or concern due to client confidentiality issues. Thank you very much in advance for any insight:) I will send the URL's privately to anyone that is willing to take a look at things

[WebbyNabler]

Thanks everybody for all the great feedback. You guys rock!

[Boodreaux]

Long tail keywords on next level sub pages may have a big influence.  Also work on optimizing conversions. Page one is okay but #1 and #2 are huge for traffic and #3 is okay.  4-6 not that great.

[jasarrow]

It may be that the keyword tools you are using aren't accurate enough to be relied upon - I see this happen a lot with location based terms.

If you're using the Google AdWords keyword tool, have you ensured that 'exact' is selected for the match type and not the defualt 'broad' (that's caught me out in the past when I've forgotten to change it).

Aside from that, you could run a small-scale PPC campaign, allow it to run for a few weeks and then look the search terms report to see what variants of your terms people are searching for, then target them oragnically. PPC and SEO can work really well together too - there is always something to be learnt from either side.

[TomRayner]

If the traffic itself has not increased since you've reached page 1, then it's likely to be a matter concerning search volume and SERP positioning.

Now, if we take one of your keywords and say it's 250 searches per month - what sort of traffic can you expect from page 1? Well, it can be a wide range.  A combination of this case study and this case study shows that even if you rank on page 1, people in position 5 may only get between 4-15% of the click through rate. Even at the top estimate, that would mean an increase of roughly 37 extra clicks and visitors per month. I have no idea what your industry is, but even a very high conversion rate would struggle to show any significant increase in conversions there.

Then there's the whole matter of local search.  As you'll know doubt be aware, an increasing amount of local search terms start to list Google Map/Local listings above the fold, of which there could be up to 8-10 listings.  This could affect click-through rate even further.

I feel for you because in many ways local campaigns are even tougher than national ones.  If you still don't see any marked improvements in your traffic and conversions, I'd start keyword research again and look at some other product related terms.  When doing this, however, I would Google the search term itself and see what the SERPs look like - is there a lot of PPC competition for the term? Are there Google+ listings? A lack of PPC competition might open up an opportunity there, while no Google map listings would probably mean a higher click-through rate for getting on page 1 (and perhaps an opportunity to get your company listed there yourself).

Hope this helps in some way, might not be exactly what you want to hear, but hopefully provides you with a decent point of view.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Usability can play a big part in any site design, as can the page title and description for drawing people in.

However, if you wish to e-mail me, I would be more than happy to cast an eye over this for you. info@inetseo.co.uk

Andy

[Solvari]

You are saying that your number 1 position doesn't lead to a lot of traffic. This can be because there simply aren't that many people searches for those keywords (25 - 250 a month isn't much) and/or that for some reason people don't click on your site. This last thing is something you can have quite some influence on. Have a good look at how your site shows up on the SERP and make sure both the title and description are optimised for this keyword and that they ensure the users that your site will provide what they are looking for. Maybe try some USPs in the description text.

Since you don't really have an influence on the search volumes, you might want to look into targeting broader keyword to get more impressions on the SERPs and then apply the same trick as described above.

Good luck.