Do You Deserve To Be #1?

**Will.Spencer** · 1 June, 2009, 13:49 PM

I was complaining about the Google SERPS for the keyword "proxy" the other day, and IProx asked me a question that really made me stop and think. He asked me "Do you deserve to be #1?"

In this particular instance, I am hoping just to get the #3 spot. This will require getting above the Wikipedia pages in the #3 and #4 positions which are non-relevant to most searchers.

But in a larger sense, his question really helped focus me away from Google and back to where I should be focused -- building web sites for people.

The short term actions I took were to work with Nathan to add a stack of new features to The Tech FAQ Proxy List:

An email list
An RSS feed
A Twitter profile
An embeddable JavaScript proxy list
A new set of lists for HTTP proxies

All of these features will increase costs, and the top four will decrease AdSense revenue.

In the long term, my hope is that these features will round out The Tech-FAQ Proxy List and make it more authoritative -- which hopefully will lead to more inbound links and higher SERPS.

What about your sites?

Do you deserve to be #1 for you target SERPs?

**Mr.Bill** · 1 June, 2009, 13:57 PM

I have been thinking on these and I cant see any financial benefit having them for the owner of the list as the users never see your site. Though it might entice more owners to get active with your site and drop various links around which then bring in more users.

I think a holding page should be made on your site so when one of the links are still clicked say on twitter they come through your site and are held up for say 5 seconds then get redirected to the page they wanted. So on twitter it would say new glype proxy: unblocker.com visit tech-faq.com/proxy/35003/ (my fancy rewrite) and somehow give permission to twitter for the click through. What would be cool is if you could give twitter link anchor text then you could have the proxy site as the anchor and then your url for the redirect could do this with the javascript box. Just my wierd thinking as I dont care to lose out on traffic.

**Hellas** · 2 June, 2009, 08:44 AM

Almost all my sites deserve to be number ones.

Maybe few dont, but they are not important enough that I made them deservable.

**Aquarezz** · 2 June, 2009, 16:49 PM

My sites are far too undeveloped to be #1, but I'm doing my best to get them #1 although doing that is a big pain in the ass. I hope I can become #1 by just deserving it, so not by doing tons of link buildings etc...

**bogart** · 5 June, 2009, 06:28 AM

Another consideration is can I monetize #1? I hear so many times people say that they don't have any time. I'm sure that they would find the time if money was involved.

**Mike Dammann** · 5 June, 2009, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by bogart

Another consideration is can I monetize #1? I hear so many times people say that they don't have any time. I'm sure that they would find the time if money was involved.

I think that the monetization and the increase of quality can go hand in hand. Let's say you have a blog about a travel destination and look at your stats seeing which posts are read the most.
You can spend a little more time writing more and better information on the ones hit the most and try adding some amazon ads taking the time to look for the books most related to the post.
Add outgoing links to wiki or other resources which have more information.

Brand your site by making sure those who leave will remember you in a good way.

It's an ongoing process.

Basically make sure people can get what they're looking for and if you don't have it, let it be a click away and if you can monetize on something, make it an affiliate link.

**GameOver** · 5 June, 2009, 14:50 PM

My websites deserve to be number one. I always make my sites #1 for humans and #2 for SEO. If there is something SEO wise that would increase rankings but be bad for humans I would not do it. Similar with my content, I don't try to shove as many keywords in there, instead I just write naturally as if I was explaining a subject to someone and being as informative and helpful as possible.

**Mia** · 5 June, 2009, 16:54 PM

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

Do you deserve to be #1 for you target SERPs?

Number one where though? Google? Yahoo? MSN? where specifically? I've found that sometimes its just as economical to concentrate on getting to "number 1" on a collective number of "non-google" SE's, than focusing on Google itself.

Of course, as you have mentioned its near impossible to be "number 1" in Google given the fact that wiki almost always ranks number one of above all else.

I have often wished google would come up with a "Wiki" result by default for searches where wiki applied, that was not ranked in the serps, and not part of the general top 10 of search results. It stands to reason tha wiki is gonna have just about everything relevant to a wide range of searches, and again, almost always appears in the results.

One has to wonder how many people are diverted from search results because wiki is always showing up?

Ultimately, first page is the best place to be FIRST. More people are likely to click on the results on the first page of a search than venture into the later pages. Of course many will tend to also click on the 1-3 results as the more relevant they appear by rank the more likely someone tends to click on them.

**bogart** · 7 June, 2009, 01:24 AM

Originally Posted by firetown

I think that the monetization and the increase of quality can go hand in hand. It's an ongoing process.

Monetization and the increase of quality should 'go hand and hand'. You need money for design, content, programming etc. Even if you do it yourself, there should be money left over as profit.