It’s important to think of search engine optimization (SEO) as a competition. After all, there’s only a limited amount of ranking space in the search engine results pages (SERPs), but there are thousands of companies who want the space. In the past, your goal is to get the highest SEO ranking possible for as many keywords and phrases as possible. This is changing today though.
Old-School Thinking About Number-One Rankings
In the past, the number one spot for SEO ranking was the best real estate you could get. This was purely for statistical reasons since it received about 32.5% of all search traffic while second place only received 17.6% and third 11.4%. Anything below third place was negligible. However, this no longer holds true today.
Why a Number One SEO Ranking Isn’t as Important as in the Past
There are several reasons why SEO ranking no longer depends on being in the number one spot today. These reasons include:
The number one spot is no longer presented as such. Instead, today Google is presenting different things than a simple list of SERPs. Now you’ll see “the local 3-pack” (a collection of the three most relevant companies for your query), a Knowledge Graph box, or a rich answer that’s set aside from the organic SERPs. All of these things slightly weaken the organic SERPs.
It’s harder to target keywords, which was the most important preliminary factor in the past. While choosing high traffic keywords with low competition was important, this relationship is fuzzy due to semantic search today. Now it’s challenging to selectively target a single, important keyword because Google matches queries with the most relevant content, regardless of the keyword.
Semantic search is also making it so you’ll get search traffic without targeting keywords. As long as you produce great content you’ll rank well in the SERPs.
Click-through rates (CTR) are directly linked to higher SERPs in that the higher you rank, the more clicks your website will receive. Additionally, the more clicks you receive, the more relevant your website appears and the more search traffic it receives. However, a number one ranking in the SERPs doesn’t guarantee high CTR. This is why you need to optimize your site, making sure you have the best offer available. It will help you bring traffic to your website.
Although rankings and search traffic are important, what really matters most is the type of visitor you attract to your website. So, if most of your visitors leave before they make a meaningful interaction with your brand, you won’t do well in the SERPs. Therefore, there are several non-SEO strategies you must include here including optimizing your conversions, successfully branding yourself, and creating a high-quality user-focused design. Without these important components, your SEO strategy isn’t very useful or valuable.
The Best Strategy
Today the way your SEO ranking determines your search traffic has changed. Of course, there are still some valuable keywords you’ll want to target, but you can now enjoy a lot of success without even being in the number two spot. As such, there really is no specific SEO strategy that you should engage in today. Instead, you must look at the big picture today.
When you’re ready to look at this big picture, you’ll want a company with 10+ years of experience who truly understand the changing “face” of SEO today, we invite you to contact us at Local SEO Tampa Company. Throughout this time, we’ve been working to bring in the search traffic that companies like yours need. At the same time, we stay on the cutting edge of SEO ranking. With these things in mind, we invite you to contact us today.
