{"id":2127,"date":"2018-05-31T05:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T05:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2025-06-30T18:00:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T18:00:22","slug":"measure-seo-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/measure-seo-success","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Focus on Rank to Measure SEO Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NoSo many potential SEO clients have one thing on their mind. They want their website to rank number one in the major search engines for their priority keywords. What they don\u2019t realize is that ranking can never be guaranteed, and any SEO company that does guarantee a number one spot is full of it. Yes, rank is important. It\u2019s obvious that the websites that are ranked more prominently receive the most traffic. But when it comes to getting that coveted number one spot, it\u2019s important not to worry so much about it. It will only drive you crazy. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n

Rankings Fluctuate<\/h3>\n

If you see that your web page is ranked number one for a relevant keyword or keyword phrase, that\u2019s great but it doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s going to stay there forever. Every industry is competitive online these days and any smart website owner is investing in SEO and content marketing to improve their search engine presence. It\u2019s tough getting to number one, and even tougher to stay there. It\u2019s very possible to go from one to three in a matter of days without doing anything \u201cwrong\u201d. Website owners can only control their own websites. They have no control over what the competition is doing or how they\u2019re doing it which means that they essentially have little control over how the websites are ranked within a few positions.<\/p>\n

Number One Rank Might Not Mean Anything<\/h3>\n

A number one ranking is only valuable if it\u2019s for the keywords that will actually generate traffic and conversions. It\u2019s easy to promise a number one ranking for an obscure keyword that nobody is searching for, although that is pretty much a waste of good web content. It\u2019s better to focus on the keywords that you know will deliver at least some traffic than spend hours and hours on keywords that might make it to the top, but ultimately won\u2019t generate traffic because people just aren\u2019t searching for them. This approach is also dangerous because it can result in targeting keywords that might not even be that relevant, meaning that the website is generating traffic from the wrong audience that will never convert.<\/p>\n

Personalized Search<\/h3>\n

\"Search
\nDepending on factors such as previous search history, location, and social media activity it\u2019s very likely that two people searching for the same thing will see a different set of results. You may even see different results yourself depending on if you are browsing on a desktop at home, desktop at work, or on a mobile device. The search engines want to provide their customers, the searchers, with the most relevant results that suit their personal preferences. Since everybody is different, search results can vary slightly.<\/p>\n

Temptation<\/h3>\n

Focusing too much on rank can lead to some bad decisions, like dabbling in black hat SEO practices that are frowned upon by the search engine webmasters and meant to game the system for short term gain. Sure, you may see a quick improvement in rank but it will be short lived. The search engines are smart and once they figure out what you are up to your site will be flagged. It can take a long time to come back from a search engine penalty, so dabbling in these practices isn\u2019t worth it.<\/p>\n

Does any of this mean that you shouldn\u2019t pay attention to rank at all? Of course not. We still keep our eye on client rankings. If we see a big fluctuation it means that we need to dig a little deeper to figure out what happened. But small fluctuations are normal on a month to month basis. As long as there is a gradual, overall increase over a period of time it means that the SEO program is working.<\/p>\n

Instead of focusing on rank, it\u2019s more important to focus on organic traffic growth over time in addition to website conversions. If you\u2019re generating more traffic you should also be generating more conversions as long as you\u2019re targeting the right keywords and getting traffic from the right people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So many potential SEO clients have one thing on their mind. They want their website to rank number one in the major search engines for their priority keywords. What they… More Info<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seo"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDon\u2019t Focus on Rank to Measure SEO Success | Brick Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Instead of focusing on rank, focus on visitor growth and conversions to measure SEO success.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/measure-seo-success\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don\u2019t Focus on Rank to Measure SEO Success | Brick Marketing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Instead of focusing on rank, focus on visitor growth and conversions to measure SEO success.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/measure-seo-success\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Brick Marketing - 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