search results

Before I do something silly and completely reasonable and explain the meaning of the post title, I want to impart to you some of my infinite (and often misguided) wisdom. Getting to number one in the search results (SERPS) of any search engine is easy. Getting to number one in the SERPS for a word or a phrase that people are actually searching for is hard, extremely hard. Unless you're working a particular niche, results can be unexpected.


Expected and Unexpected Search Results

I was going to spend some time and give you a sampling of search queries, search results and on which search engines I found them on, but it would be incredibly time consuming and it wouldn't make any points. Search engine results can change from hour to hour and can be completely different depending on where the people are searching from.

The last time I mentioned my traffic numbers, in "My Bumpy Road To Success", I mentioned that I was getting 300 unique visitors and 500 page views per day. What I didn't mention is that those numbers were comprised of both social and search traffic. In less than a month, the numbers have changed enough to where I get more than 300 unique visitors per day from search traffic alone.

I attribute the increase in search traffic to several factors, the most important being the use of meta tags and meta descriptions in effective ways. Almost all of my search traffic used to come from Google in the US. Now it comes from all kinds of search engines in all kinds of places. I find my posts on the first page of the SERPS and quite often at number 1.

You Can Do It

Voiced by Rob Schneider when starring in movies alongside Adam Sandler, and sometimes in reverse, it's a phrase that I can use as well and with complete confidence. Here are some articles which explain how I did it in less than a month:

Those aren't all of them, of course, but I think they're the most important ones right now.

Number One with or without a Bullet

The phrase, "number one with a bullet", hearkens back to the days when media companies only published lists in various magazines and not in or on other platforms. Being number one with a bullet meant exactly that — at the top of the list with a bullet (a dot or an image) in front of the list item. Someone uttered the phrase somewhere and the entertainment industries ran with it. Here's a sample:

  • In 1978 and 1979, it was used as the title of a 2-part episode of "Hawaii Five-O", a television crime drama.
  • In 1987, it was used as the title for "Number One with a Bullet", a crime/thriller/action movie.
  • In 1990, it was used as the title of an episode of "21 Jump Street", another television crime drama.
  • In 2006, it was used as the title of an episode of "Kidnapped", yet another television crime drama.

The funny part about it is that the phrase originally had nothing to do with weaponry. Since it was invented, it's been used thousands of times and in all kinds of industries. You don't believe me? Search for it on Google and you'll bring yourself to my next point.

"Number one without a bullet" is what you see on the first page of the SERPS, for whichever search engine you're looking at. Hence, the title of this post was formulated within the confines of my thick skull.