By targeting highly relevant (although possibly not as popular) terms it makes the “click” that much easier, because the user has already been qualified to some extent. There is a company in Jacksonville, FL – Marketing Experiments (MECLABS) – that makes available a ton of data and formulas for on page marketing optimization (meaning treatments, not seo). The tactics and formulas are both interesting and helpful in getting that ROI once you have drawn the user to your site.

I am not affiliated with MECLABS but they do have some good stuff, worth checking out. http://meclabs.com

There are many other ways to use Google search though, formats the ordinary users are not even aware of. Take a look at this link: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861

When you do a search for a particular term in Google, the results will bring back any of the words in the search, not just the phrase. I was told to use “search term” with the quotes to find a more accurate number on the competition. What are your thoughts on that?

Fact is they rarely even know.

So often it comes down to ego vs bank account. Like Dan said above, ranking high does not equal traffic. And as the article pointed out, traffic doesn’t necessarily convert. I’ll take my bank account over my ego (most) every time. ;)