SEO Tycoon

**chrishirst** · 06-14-2008, 12:32 PM

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Then, you don't care about being seen ahead of your competitors.

Ok?
You are going to explain how knowing how many backlinks, helps you keep ahead. But then again doesn't "being seen ahead" mean you would be checking rankings?

**Flying Monkeys** · 06-14-2008, 12:55 PM

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But then again doesn't "being seen ahead" mean you would be checking rankings?

Yea, why not?

Search marketing is the #1 form of advertising.

Rankings, in and of themselves, don't matter but if you've done quality research for your company's keywords, then YES they DO matter.

Most people click on the organic listings (66% of clicks are for the organic results, on average).

I think I read somewhere that search marketing produces an average of 56% ROI. Where T.V. ads only produce 10%, magazine ads 7%, and billboards 5%.

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The things that matter, of course—the targeted traffic, but even more important than that—the conversions and sales.

So, rankings DO matter but not in-and-of-themselves.

**Flying Monkeys** · 06-14-2008, 11:12 PM

I think these pictures speak volumes.

All this traffic can be a good thing. Just know the solution is quality research.

**chrishirst** · 06-15-2008, 06:08 AM

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Rankings, in and of themselves, don't matter but if you've done quality research for your company's keywords, then YES they DO matter.

Sure, but that is more a case of getting found for the right terms, which is should be the primary goal of any search marketer and is entirely different to getting rankings for some term or other.
There are many many times I find genuine visits that have converted for various phrases and words (not "long tail" phrases either) that simply cannot be found on the same SERP referral link. If I was using the rankings that I could see as a measure of success for those phrases, it would be deemed as a failure. But, as the tracking logs show, it was actually successful and could be improved and built upon.

**chrishirst** · 06-15-2008, 06:10 AM

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I think these pictures speak volumes

Why? Are they dispersion patterns for a speaker cone?

**dave9713** · 06-15-2008, 07:46 AM

Preach!!

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Originally Posted by Flying Monkeys

Yea, why not?

Search marketing is the #1 form of advertising.

Rankings, in and of themselves, don't matter but if you've done quality research for your company's keywords, then YES they DO matter.

Most people click on the organic listings (66% of clicks are for the organic results, on average).

I think I read somewhere that search marketing produces an average of 56% ROI. Where T.V. ads only produce 10%, magazine ads 7%, and billboards 5%.

So, rankings DO matter but not in-and-of-themselves.

**witnesstheday** · 06-15-2008, 10:36 AM

Ranking does matter for very big companies/organisations, when it comes to the highest levels of branding.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/
http://news.sky.com/skynews/home

In my location, google returns those as number #1 and number #2 for the 4-letter word, news

The bbc's pagerank is several notches higher than sky's on my google toolbar. Although sites with higher ranks than sky's may well be somewhere below it, the important thing is that in the battle for the number 1 result on google for news, the bbc currently beat sky, and everything counts, including the pagerank.

Rankings have a place, but the mistake is associating them with exposure, when really you should associate it with branding - however branding uses exposure as a vehicle, thus the confusion is easy to get lost in.

**Flying Monkeys** · 06-15-2008, 10:51 AM

Hmm, then can you please clarify how these two statements came from the same person (you)?

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That's why;
I don't care about SE "rankings"
I don't care how many backlinks any page has.
I don't care about "keyword density"
I don't care about making pages that are "good for search engines", search engines don't make purchases or make enquiries.

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Sure, but that is more a case of getting found for the right terms, which is should be the primary goal of any search marketer and is entirely different to getting rankings for some term or other.

In one statement you say rankings don't matter. Then the other you hint at the fact of quality research for keywords, and the high rankings on them DO matter. So, which one is it?

**chrishirst** · 06-15-2008, 04:57 PM

maybe you should quote the rest of the post instead of taking one paragraph that suits your point

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There are many many times I find genuine visits that have converted for various phrases and words (not "long tail" phrases either) that simply cannot be found on the same SERP referral link. If I was using the rankings that I could see as a measure of success for those phrases, it would be deemed as a failure. But, as the tracking logs show, it was actually successful and could be improved and built upon.

**Flying Monkeys** · 06-15-2008, 05:01 PM

Could you describe that more? Cause I don't seem to be fully understanding what you said (in the quote).

**blogdog** · 06-17-2008, 03:10 AM

Chris- Can you elaborate on why you think the KEI is based on an incorrect premise from the start?

There has to be some ratio to target a keyword that the competition is not going after. However, I have to say, based on what I've seen with the KEI, finding a secret keyword with a KEI of 200 or whatever just, realistically, doesn't exist. Providing it's a legitimate keyword that a real human being would search. Otherwise, it seems like a KEI of 14 is good.

I can see a main problem of it based on unreliable data since it's next to impossible to get accurate data on keyword counts. But, presuming the data is clean, what are your thoughts? (... on this subject...or on cats..., whichever you prefer)

**johniman7** · 06-17-2008, 06:40 PM

This situation is like the ying and the yang. Without good rankings there won't be traffic (unless you advertise, etc) and without good site copy and usability, all the visitors in the world won't buy anything. A lot that that article says isn't 100% of the story IMO. Yes, reason 4 has a point to it, but that simply means that you need to research kewords first. It is like saying that someone who can shoot 10 three pointers in a row in the wrong basket is bad at basketball.

However the article doesn't say that rankings aren't important, it just says that they aren't a good indication of success which is true. I have a site with only about 30 pages that all rank very well. Actually, that site gets more organic traffic than any of my other sites yet extremely low CTR no matter where I put the ads. Whenever I want to see how good I am doing, I look at the number on that green check google sends every month.

**chrishirst** · 06-17-2008, 07:38 PM

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There are many many times I find genuine visits that have converted for various phrases and words (not "long tail" phrases either) that simply cannot be found on the same SERP referral link. If I was using the rankings that I could see as a measure of success for those phrases, it would be deemed as a failure. But, as the tracking logs show, it was actually successful and could be improved and built upon.

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Originally Posted by Flying Monkeys

Could you describe that more? Cause I don't seem to be fully understanding what you said (in the quote).

What I mean is that, I could go and run a search for a particular phrase that a page has been optimised for and find nothing at all in, say the first 100 results. This being the case, whatever has been done to get SE traffic has not been successful (apparently) because the page is not visible. So you would probably consider a change of tactics for that phrase. When in reality the phrase/page HAS generated real visitors and is something to be improved, strengthened and built upon rather than changing or reworking the page(s).
Another advantage of being focussed on what brings traffic in rather than what drives SERP position, is that the pages are less susceptible to algorithm changes and dropping out of sight every time there is a minor change.

Checking rankings as a yardstick of the work carried out is subject to the vagaries of the SEs with mutiple datacentres, geo-targeted and personalised results all affecting what any one person at any particular location and time will see. There are many documented instances of two people in the same office, using the same Internet connection on machines side by side seeing different results for any given query.
So realistically, the only true measure of your efforts, is the effect it has on the traffic to the page and the conversions.

BTW. I do get the feeling that we are on the same tack and it's only the thread title that is the point of contention.

**Flying Monkeys** · 06-17-2008, 07:49 PM

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However the article doesn't say that rankings aren't important, it just says that they aren't a good indication of success which is true.

Great summary!

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BTW. I do get the feeling that we are on the same tack and it's only the thread title that is the point of contention.

Eh, it was more of a misunderstanding than the title.

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the only true measure of your efforts, is the effect it has on the traffic to the page and the conversions.

Now that's a statement you can always bet on.

Traffic and Conversions!

**chrishirst** · 06-17-2008, 08:14 PM

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Originally Posted by blogdog

Chris- Can you elaborate on why you think the KEI is based on an incorrect premise from the start?

The "competing pages" count from any SE is simply not accurate to base conclusions on. It is also based on a "quoted phrase" whereas the phrase it is being calculated against usually isn't. Add to this the "keyword" databases are already skewed.

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Originally Posted by blogdog

There has to be some ratio to target a keyword that the competition is not going after. However, I have to say, based on what I've seen with the KEI, finding a secret keyword with a KEI of 200 or whatever just, realistically, doesn't exist. Providing it's a legitimate keyword that a real human being would search. Otherwise, it seems like a KEI of 14 is good.

I suppose the theory could be, that if your "competitors" are using the same means to determine what keywords to chase, it would be simple to outsmart them by ignoring the middle ground (which is what they are probably chasing) and target the low end stuff, much easier to get results for and tends towards better conversion ratios mainly because the high flyers think it is "beneath them" to chase low traffic phrases.
Personally, if I can get conversions without vast amounts of promotion and optimising work I'm happy

Quote:

Originally Posted by blogdog

I can see a main problem of it based on unreliable data since it's next to impossible to get accurate data on keyword counts. But, presuming the data is clean, what are your thoughts? (... on this subject...or on cats..., whichever you prefer)

Yep, if you can get clean, reliable data, your own logs and Adwords on your own pages being the best you can hope for. Then you can make much better progress

And if you don't mind I'll leave my views on cats alone, on the grounds that it will cause an uproar amongst the cat lovers

**chrishirst** · 06-17-2008, 08:20 PM

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Originally Posted by johniman7

This situation is like the ying and the yang. Without good rankings there won't be traffic (unless you advertise, etc) and without good site copy and usability, all the visitors in the world won't buy anything. A lot that that article says isn't 100% of the story IMO. Yes, reason 4 has a point to it, but that simply means that you need to research kewords first. It is like saying that someone who can shoot 10 three pointers in a row in the wrong basket is bad at basketball.

That's basically the whole picture of SEO/SEM. Do more things better than the ones in front of you.

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Originally Posted by johniman7

Whenever I want to see how good I am doing, I look at the number on that green check google sends every month.

Yep, conversions win every time, doesn't matter whether they buy a Jumbo jet from you, or click on a Adsense link. It's all bankable.

**Flying Monkeys** · 08:24 PM

KEI is very unreliable it's kind of something people 'think' might be a good indicator but I haven't seen any software/application that show how great the ROI is for a certain phrase.

KEI is a cool acronym but it's a factor any good SEO (that i know of) uses.

Maybe in the future this might be great but for now, it's a waste of time. (From my perspective)

**full house** · 06-19-2008, 09:48 AM

great thoughts there! there are time that the site rank # 1 in certain keywords but doesn't give traffic. I think good keyword selection is the key.

**juliensimon** · 06-27-2008, 06:44 PM

here is another article I read today on the same topic:
http://www.businessol.com/seo-blog/2...continues.html

Personally, I think Chris is a little bit extreme:

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That's why;
I don't care about SE "rankings"
I don't care how many backlinks any page has.
I don't care about "keyword density"
I don't care about making pages that are "good for search engines", search engines don't make purchases or make enquiries.

I agree that you shouldn't focus on those, but I like stats and the more numbers I have, the better I can see the progress of a website. Sure enough, those numbers don't mean you are going to have a high conversion rate, close a lot of sales etc...but they are still indicators of how well the website is doing, especially for new websites.

**TRUForums** · 07-03-2008, 01:38 AM

Yes I think ranking is pretty useless in short term.