5 Reasons Why Rankings Are A Poor Measure Of Success

Yup, Yup, and Yup.

I give this two bananas.

Good read. Whats the point of ranking well if you drive in no customers?

Originally Posted by andrei155

Good read. Whats the point of ranking well if you drive in no customers?

There are a few of us here been saying the same thing for ever!

But by having good SERP and maintain it (although you are fluctuating, you just drop down by 5), you'll surely have POTENTIAL customer as they search for your KWs.

Originally Posted by francis84

But by having good SERP and maintain it (although you are fluctuating, you just drop down by 5), you'll surely have POTENTIAL customer as they search for your KWs.

Read 4 & 5 again...

But by having good SERP and maintain it

Umm....if your saying this, I question whether you know anything about SEO. You can't do anything about SERP unless your generating hundreds/thousands/tens-of-thousands of pages with UNIQUE content.

SERP means search engine results page.

So, if I type in 'viagra'. I'll get 80 million. That 80 million is SERP, or 'other pages that have the term 'viagra' in it one way or another. (This is by Google)

SEO's shouldn't care about SERP (which it IS a factor, but a poor one). An SEO needs to know KEI (keyword effectiveness index)

Just because their are 80 million web pages for 'viagra' doesn't necessarily mean your company is going to generate revenue (the purpose/product of good SEO). SEO is really about research the most effective words for a particular company. Without this effort SEO is useless and is like blind folding a sharp shooter.

Again, SERP is valuable but not in the top 20 factors (for me) in finding out whether I need to target a certain keyword. KEI is probably my #1. I hope this helps.

Point's of the article are true, but I more than inclined to say...

2. Search results are sometimes geotargeted.

This has some good and bad sides but does it really mean ranking's don't matter? Most of the time the geo targeted results of this are to small to notice?

4. Rankings don't equal targeted traffic.

Hence why you target terms that will bring you targeted traffic ? This isn't to hard for any semi decent SEO to figure and fix.

5. Rankings don't equal conversions or sales.

Yes they do, if you get good rankings with well targeted terms then you get traffic which converts into A LOT of sales. Ask any company that hires any half decent firm to do there SEO.

Just because some people target stupid keywords and get poor results doesn't mean everyone does. People make millions through having well positioned search results and a lot of companies get a huge return on investment for investing in them. Search Rankings Matter

4. Rankings don't equal targeted traffic.
5. Rankings don't equal conversions or sales.

OK. I read it. But for me, even ranking dont equal traffics nor sales, it still have FACTORS on gaining TRAFFICS and SALES.

Originally Posted by dave9713

Yes they do, if you get good rankings with well targeted terms then you get traffic which converts into A LOT of sales. Ask any company that hires any half decent firm to do there SEO.

Just because some people target stupid keywords and get poor results doesn't mean everyone does. People make millions through having well positioned search results and a lot of companies get a huge return on investment for investing in them. Search Rankings Matter

David. It seems thats your assuming an SEO does research their keywords but reality (which why the author wrote that article) is that a lot of SEO's (mainly new ones) DONT research.

So, the point of the article is QUALITY SEO, not just 'close your eyes and get #1' (which is some SEO's methods.....the ones not getting money)

So, David. We are all agreeing on the same point.

Rankings, in and of themselves, don't matter but rankings DO matter when the keywords have been researched.

P.S. And hey if people are kicking your profession, you can laugh at them all the way to the bank. (Good SEO's make 6 figures......)

(Good SEO's make 6 figures......)

And at the very least, 5 of them are to the left of the decimal point

Originally Posted by chrishirst

And at the very least, 5 of them are to the left of the decimal point

Haha. How do you like them bananas.....

Maybe I should've added, 'good SEO's have a team to assist'.

Hey Flying Monkeys-

Good posts, thanks for that info. Can you elaborate on the other 19 items out of the top 20 that you look at? (#1 being KEI)

Hmm, I don't even have 20 factors.

My point was basically SERP's is close to last on my list. (But it is on my list...)

Some good indicators is looking at your competition:
1. Inlinks on top 10 websites for the researched keywords is a good factor.
2. Quality of those inlinks (pagerank is a good indicator, but not 'only' indicator)
3. Those 10 and their on-site optimization.
4. The top 10 website's pagerank.

That's just to name a few. I'm sure you can find an online tool to do this for you and more for you.

Traffic and sales are both important

FM- Right on, thank you!

Yeah, you're right, it can't be isolated to just one variable. You could have a KEI of 200 but if only 5 people are entering the search term, then you can't really build a business off that , unless you're Learning Newbie and sell million dollar hammers (from other post).

Can you name the online tool you're referring to?

Also, I was reading through Google's guidelines and it says it frowns on certain SEO software that sends automatic inquiries to Google because it uses up Google's computing resources. It named WebMaster Gold specifically. I'm assuming as long as you don't set it up on auto pilot, but rather check it manually, that should be ok? Or would that be a wrong assumption?

Can you name the online tool you're referring to?

Sorry, I can't give you all the tricks.

I'm not referring to any crap software (Web SEO, SEO Elite, and the like). Most of the SEO software is a waste of any real SEO's time.

Just read, read, and then start doing some of the stuff. SEO is evolving because Search is evolving. Good luck.

Thanks FM, I understand.

Chris, do you have any suggestions?

on SEO software?
Save your money, or buy something useful.


On why KEI is useless?
It's based on a totally incorrect premise from the start.

On online SEO "tools"
most of them are based on someones half-assed theory on what is "important" for search engines.

or something else?

Personally I prefer the approach of ignoring what "competitors" are doing and concentrating on what is best for the site I'm working on.

That's why;
I don't care about SE "rankings"
I don't care how many backlinks any page has.
I don't care about "keyword density"
I don't care about making pages that are "good for search engines", search engines don't make purchases or make enquiries.

I only "care" about making the pages good for all manner of "users" and this usually means that the pages on the sites I work on are good for Search Marketing as well.

I don't care how many backlinks any page has.

Then, you don't care about being seen ahead of your competitors.

Yes, as webmasters, we should aim for our clients/customers but we should also be SE's friendly.

Avoid flash, frames, and spammy tactics then the SE's will index your content.

I think the general rule of thumb is, "Write quality content that persuade customers but are visible/indexable by SE's."

p.s. Google's 'pagerank' algorithm is patented by a university and it's public knowledge. No doubt Google has made some changes but it is possible to have a general idea on how each major SE's decides what is 1st.