Stop Obsessing About Where You Rank
Writing by Brick Marketing in SEO
When people are looking for a product or service and conducting research, the first place that they typically turn to is the search engines. For this reason, it’s important to invest in SEO in order to improve your search engine visibility. If you’re spending money on SEO, you obviously want to see a return on that investment but obsessively looking at where you rank on a daily basis isn’t the correct way to gauge success. Rankings consistently fluctuate and are based on many factors to deliver searchers a more personalized experience which results in your website being displayed differently on the SERP for each person.
The first way that Google personalizes search is by location. Based on the location of an IP address, Google knows where a searcher is located and will provide them with local results if it is relevant to do so. Search is also personalized based on social signals and social connections. If a searcher is logged into a Google account that is connected to a Google+ account, a searcher will see results that have been recommended by social connections. A logged in user will also see results that are associated with previous search and website visit history. No matter how well you optimize your website, there are items that you can’t contend with.
The best way to gauge SEO success is to measure traffic and visitor growth to the website over time that is delivered to the site via organic search. SEO isn’t a quick fix strategy. It takes time to see results and an SEO campaign is essentially never ending. To improve traffic and maintain traffic, it’s necessary to participate in content marketing, social media, and other link building tactics throughout the lifetime of your website. Scaling back on any portion of an SEO campaign will result in a gradual decline in what initially could have taken years to build.
Rankings fluctuate and can’t be guaranteed. If someone tells you otherwise, they are lying. If an SEO company promises a number one ranking, it’s probably for some obscure long tail keyword phrase that would never generate any traffic anyway. Especially in a competitive niche, it’s difficult to get to the first page, never mind the very first result.
Looking at rank every day will make you crazy. Instead, focus on the success of your website. Have organic visitors increased? Are they buying, filling out a lead form, or converting in some other way? If these success metrics are all on track, that’s all that matters.
