I have just analysed the performance on 17 of my Thirty Day Challenge-style microniche sites to see how the actual traffic stacks up against the estimated traffic that I got from Market Samurai or the Google keyword tool (it’s all Google data anyway). I had read that often the actual traffic is less than the estimates, and from my analysis, it seems so.
Before looking at the results, I want to clarify that I calculated MY traffic estimates by starting with the actual number of unique visitors now, taking into account the site’s current ranking for its keyword, and thereby estimating how much traffic the site would get at the ranking that I reckon I could achieve (usually no. 1). This adjustment is made by using the well-known table that I believe came from AOL in 2006 (it seems we still have nothing better!) that shows what percentage of traffic a site is likely to get in each of the top 10 slots in Google:
| Position | % of clicks |
| 1 | 42.1 |
| 2 | 11.9 |
| 3 | 8.5 |
| 4 | 6.1 |
| 5 | 4.9 |
| 6 | 4.1 |
| 7 | 3.4 |
| 8 | 3.0 |
| 9 | 2.8 |
| 10 | 3.0 |
This means for example that if I have a site that’s getting 50 unique visitors at no. 2, I can hope for, say, 175 when it gets to no. 1.
So, based on the numbers, adjusted using this table, I reached the following rather interesting conclusion:
On average, these 17 sites, ONCE THEY ARE RANKED AS PREDICTED, are estimated to get unique visitors for the main keyword equating to ONE THIRD of the exact match SEOT and ONE SIXTH of the phrase-matched SEOT shown in Market Samurai (whose numbers are in turn based on the Google Adwords tool).
Of course, 17 sites don’t make an in-depth study. However, it’s based on real evidence and I will definitely be using this when it comes to estimating return on investment as part of the keyword research phase. I’ll also recalculate the numbers each month to see how they change.
