[John Scott]

Anybody ever get disappointed with top ranking traffic?

A friend has a website in the top of the SERPs for a very very competitve keyword. With Overture reporting 150,000+ searches per month for it, you'd think a top position would drive traffic.

But what I've found is, it never does drive anywhere near as many referrals as Overture would suggest. In his case, it only delivers 50 referrals a day.

What I've found is, paid placement always gets better click throughs than organic SERPs.

And just because they search for something doesn't mean they are going to click through on any SERP, especially on the ultra conpetitive terms which are so broad as to be less meaningful.

Let's say, somebody searches for computers.

That's a very, very competitive search term, almost impossible to rank for, considering the competition.

But it's also a horrible search term. Is he wanting to buy a computer? Does he want to learn about computers? Does he want to know how to fix a computer? Does he want to see reviews of computers?

And what kind of computer are we talking about? Laptop, desktop? And what brand?

It's such a broad term, that it is next to useless as a search term to target.

My guess is, over half the people who search for "computer" will not click through. If they do, they will not buy. It's not a keyword that buyers use. A buyer would search for "laptop" or "notebook", or more likely he would search for "Dell notebook".

When I bought my notebooks, I didn't even search for "Toshiba notebooks". I searched for "Toshiba Satellite". That is a buyer's search term. "Computer" isn't.

Long story short, I suspect that most people who use these ultra competitive search terms in the first place end up refining their search terms, without clicking through. Thus, Top Ranking Disappointment for the webmaster/SEO.