Understanding SEO: What really matters?

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff

This isn’t going to be another one of those “develop great content and build quality links” type of posts. There’s more than enough of that regurgitated drivel on the Internet already. No, this post is about what sort of data you should be looking at to determine if your campaign is successful.

So, when it comes to SEO, what really matters? The short answer is results, but as we all know, nothing is ever quite that simple. Former President Bill Clinton artfully illustrated this in his statement to a grand jury when he stated, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” The same is true in this case; It depends on what the meaning of the word “results” is.

For most, the tried and true standard metric of SEO success is ranking. After all, if your website ranks #1 for a particular keyword phrase, then you’ve achieved your goal and will reap the bountiful organic traffic that you’ve worked so hard to earn, right? Not quite, but the myth still persists. We’ll get into more detail about why ranking doesn’t mean much in just a minute, but for now, I want to emphasize that the goal should be generating conversions, which relies on, among a litany of other factors, targeted traffic, and producing that traffic should be the main focus of your campaign – not a #1 ranking.

I tried explaining this to a client last week, who was adamant about having his website rank #1 for certain keyword phrase. I explained that the ranking wasn’t nearly as relevant as the traffic. Despite my best efforts to explain the rational, his response was:

I don’t care about the traffic, I just want to rank #1

His mindset, which is fairly common comes from a basic misunderstanding of SEO, as well as myths (and sometimes lies) perpetuated by some of the shadier or less astute practitioners in our industry.

Ranking #1 for a particular keyword phrase is never a bad thing, but it’s not always what it seems. Search engines serve different results based on geography, browsing history, and many other factors that we’re not even aware of. That means two people in the same office could see completely different results – even from the same computer! Often the order of the results will change throughout the day due to algorithm or data center updates, or even experiments on user activity by the search engines. At the end of the day, this means that your glorious #1 ranking may not, in fact, be a #1 ranking at all.

Another factor to consider is the keywords you choose to target. Some of the less than ethical SEO firms have taken the underhanded approach of suggesting keyword phrases that they know they can quickly get high rankings for, and may even sound like legitimate and valuable keyword phrases, but in the end, they don’t produce any traffic. They may be able to get your website ranked #1 for the keyword phrase “tampa bay dell computer repair” but if you don’t receive any traffic, or more importantly, sales from it, is there any value to it? This sort of thinking doesn’t occur with any other type of marketing. You would never run full-page newspaper ads just to say you had a full-page newspaper ad. Then why is it so common with SEO? Probably because people still don’t understand it. Most people really didn’t understand it five or ten years ago, and today it’s exponentially more complicate and competitive, so it’s no wonder.

The bottom line is that you need to look at, well, the bottom line. Your SEO campaign should be generating more money than you’re investing into it. If you focus on traffic that converts into sales instead of worrying about exactly where you rank on any given day, you should do just fine.

If you’re hiring a firm to handle your SEO, take your time and do your homework. If you’re handling it on your own, be sure to learn from a reputable source, such as SEO Book or SEOmoz, since following incorrect or outdated information can cause your website to be banned from the search engines.

2 Comments »