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One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that it\u2019s all about rank. To an extent, we get it. Yes, if you rank in the top positions for a search, you\u2019re going to get more traffic, and get more sales. However, fixating on rank as the only metric that matters when executing an SEO campaign and measuring its success is shortsighted. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n
You can abide by white hat SEO best practice to a T, but that doesn\u2019t mean that your website will always be the best result. Take local search, for example. Google takes factors like physical location of someone searching into consideration when they rank websites, especially in the \u201cLocal Pack.\u201d This could mean that a difference of a few miles could put you in a different position in the search results. Google also takes search history and social media activity into account when ranking websites. So, if a searcher has visited a competitor\u2019s site before and never visited yours, that competitor might be ranked higher.<\/p>\n
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\nThere are so many variables at play when it comes to the search algorithms that it\u2019s very common for a website\u2019s rank to fluctuate within a few spots on a daily or even hourly basis. And if you see that your rank dropped a few places, it doesn\u2019t mean that you did anything wrong. It could be that a competitor recently got a few great inbound links and that is being factored in. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important never to completely ditch an SEO campaign. As long as you\u2019re consistently building great content and generating new, relevant inbound links you aren\u2019t going to drop off of the map completely and you\u2019ll be able to keep up with the others in your space.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty crazy, but there are still lots of those \u201cWe\u2019ll get you to rank #1!\u201d type SEO firms out there. Maybe they will, eventually. But notice they don\u2019t say what they\u2019ll get you to #1 for or how they\u2019ll do it? Chances are good that they\u2019re planning to create low quality doorway pages that target keywords with little to no search volume and then get a ton of spam links to point to it in order to get you a quick high ranking. You might be #1 for a short period of time, but if it\u2019s not generating traffic or leads, what\u2019s the point? And when Google catches on to the spammy link building, the entire website will be penalized for it.<\/p>\n