![]() Not only are keyword rankings useless, they are also unreliable. Showing a client an example like this is a good way to get them to begin understanding why their arbitrarily-thought-up keywords, and the rankings thereof, are usually of zero importance. (We call this having zero search volume.) We are not getting any traffic from it, and we likely never will get any traffic from it. What good is a #1 ranking for a particular keyword if it in no way contributes to your website’s traffic and conversions? The best way to start this conversation is with an illustrative example: The Brandon Agency’s own website ranks all over the first page of the Google SERPs for the long-tail keyword phrase “accredited brand strategy agency south carolina,” yet it should be obvious that no one is searching for this term. ![]() Woohoo! Proud and satisfied, you open up your Google Analytics dashboard with a huge smile on your face to see the sweet fruit of your labor, only to have that smile turned upside down when you realize not one of those keywords has brought in a single visitor. You’ve compiled a long list of “money” / “golden” / “long-tail” / “focus” keywords (SEOs like to use nouns as weird adjectives), you’ve uploaded them to your nifty rank tracking tool, and within a few months of optimizing your content for your new keywords, you’ve actually seen some decent rank improvement and your site is on the first page of the SERPs for some of them. Where traffic and conversions (sales/revenue in an e-commerce setting) are the signals, keyword rankings are the noise. Whether or not your site ranks on the first page of Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages) for “blue widgets” – and 20 related keywords, for that matter – may not affect your traffic and subsequent conversions at all. ![]() We know that the world of SEO is not a place for speaking in absolutes, yet I would argue that per se keyword rankings are meaningless. Furthermore, agencies have begun dropping these reports, though the recent shift in philosophy can also be attributed to the simple fact that rankings reports have always inherently had shortcomings. But, have we ever stopped to ask “why?” Thankfully, Google’s ranking algorithm updates over the past few years have sparked this question, along with more curiosity about whether or not keyword rankings reports are actually useful. SEOs have always used keyword rankings reports, and clients have always wanted them. Here, we’ll examine why individual keyword rank is largely an unreliable, un-actionable metric, and investigate some superior statistics to use instead. When I was a consultant, the number of times I had to explain to clients why keyword rankings aren’t really important would have suggested that my job title should have been crisis manager. Clients famously love to ask, “Why am I ranking on page in Google for ?” – without realizing the flawed methodology in their cursory self-audit. Let’s put keyword rankings reports down to rest forever. Get out the shovel and your funeral attire.
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