This post might not teach you what you were hoping to learn about making money on the internet, but it certainly will help you to see why I say that #1 rankings bring home the bacon.

Just like many of you, I have plenty of sites that are not ranked 1st for certain terms. On the other hand, I have quite a few sites that rank number one for the main term I was striving to reach. This past week it really helped me to see why many of you are discouraged about not bringing home the big bucks when I compared the stats of 2 sites which are shown a little further down in this post.

A lot has to do with ranking first in Google to earn money online. I’m going to paint a scenario, and then I want you to tell me if I am right or not.

You build a site, give it some time to get its age and ranking to 3rd or 4th page for your main term(s). You then begin to give it some links to move you up even closer to the first page of Google. After making it to the 1st page you just stop working the site, and feel content with the current rankings.

When you look at your traffic stats you begin to realize that being on the first page for your main keywords is not yielding you much traffic. You then get discouraged, or move on to another niche to work, and just get the occasional $1 or $2 dollars a day on your site because you feel there is no money to be made.

Do you see anything wrong here? I will tell you that the answer is quite simple. You do not hold the first position for your main targeted terms. Getting good rankings in Google is the name of the game.

Getting search traffic to make money is why you built the site right? Then why are you stopping when you have come so close to achieving the top spot? I have heard people tell me, “achieving number one spot is too tough. I’m satisfied with being on page one”.

If that’s your mentality then fine. Keep on making your small change on websites everyday. It works just fine if you have a bunch of them, unless you have some sites with big money clicks in which case its hit or miss.

If you have not started today, I suggest you look back on your sites which are position #3 through 10 in Google and dominate what you set out to dominate.

Here is a final example of why I wrote this post. I have 2 sites which I am targeting the same keyword. One of the sites hold position 1 for the term, and the second site holds position #9 on the first page for the same keyword. Both sites generate 99% of their traffic from this one keyword, but look at the difference in traffic for this month.

I can tell you the second site doesn’t even make close to what the first one holding position 1 does. But when I the the #2 spot then I will have a nice chunk of traffic on the second site as well. Look at the difference below, and don’t give up on those number one rankings.

Below is the stats on traffic for this month. Looks like we still have 5 days to go, so I should be around 14k in unique visitors for the first site by the end of the month.

I would say its time to get some more links wouldn’t you?