In the early days of online marketing, your business’s keyword rankings were the most ironclad way of indicating how hot you were and how super your SEO strategies. But over the years, the way we use keyword rankings has evolved. It’s no longer as simple as asking “Am I #1 in Google?”
How Search Engine Rankings Have Changed
- Keyword rankings haven’t lost their value, but the context in which they operate has become more complex. Lately there’s been a bunch of significant changes in the keyword reporting landscape, lending both nuance and precision to search engine results—and shaking up how we use keyword rankings.
Until late 2011, Google used to share keyword data so you could see exactly which terms people had typed to find your website. That practice has since changed, and although there are some workarounds, it’s no longer so simple to get a good sense of what your most valuable keywords are.
Google is invested in offering an optimal user experience. This means providing the best possible, most customized search results for the user, which will make it tougher to determine your keyword rankings. That’s why we tell our clients to look at online marketing success from a more comprehensive perspective. Factors like total monthly visits, organic visits, social engagement, conversion ratio and others all contribute to a robust online presence and better SEO.
Upsurge of the Personalized Search
In 2009, Google rolled out a new way of doing search results, understanding that the most appropriate search result for a specific keyword would depend upon the user. For example, if you’re in San Diego and you enter “garden center,” you want a different result than someone searching for the same term in New York.
Based on previous searches, social media interactions and other factors, Google can customize your search results. Because of Google’s personalized search, your keyword rankings alone don’t mean as much as they used to. Your business may rank well according to your search results, but that doesn’t mean everyone else will see the same results.
Irrelevance of Regional Search Terms
- Back in the day, people needed to add a region to their search terms before personalized and local search were options. So, the user looking for a garden center in San Diego would have needed to search “garden center in San Diego.” These days, Google’s gotten smart enough to fill in those regional blanks itself, and users have gotten hip enough to dispense with regional keywords as a result.
When Google sees that you’re searching for a product or service near you, what’s sometimes referred to as “the 7-Pack” will show up: a few ads at the top of the page, a couple organic search results, and then a list of local results accompanied by a map on the right. The local search feature makes it difficult to evaluate for keyword rankings, as there’s a whole host of reasons why the regional 7-Pack may or may not appear (and why it may or may not include your business).
Long-Tail Keywords on the Rise
When it comes to keywords, you may think that less is more. Staying with our garden center example, it would be great if a local shop ranked high for a broad search like “garden center.” But when everyone and their dog is searching for “garden center,” sometimes it’s the oddball search term that can result in a higher search engine ranking.
Nearly every business has an online presence and is competing for customers, so a unique product or service (or the creative way in which you describe your product or service) can put you on Google’s map. The garden center may discover that because they’re the only garden center that offers landscaping services, a long-tail search phrase like “where to buy flowering trees that does landscaping” will yield more business than ho-hum search terms.
Stay tuned for [url] Part 2 [/url] of this series, where we explain how to evaluate your SEO performance in the new online marketing landscape.