Keyword Rankings – Google Top 10 or Bust!

Posted on | April 1, 2009 | No Comments

In our SEO business, we use a combination of metrics to measure the success of a particular SEO campaign and one of those metrics is the actual ranking for a group of targeted keywords. Our thought process is to create a list of targeted keywords focus on a combination of variables such as search volume, competitiveness, intent of the search, and conversions.

Once this is created, we use tracking software to monitor these keywords on a weekly basis while providing a report to our clients. Invariably, this creates a lot of conversation around normal fluctuations of rankings and the relationship of keywords to traffic.

One of our strategies for clients is to identify keywords that rank between 6 – 12 for quick movement up to top position(s) which we consider to be #1 – #3. Once we have a keyword rotating through the first 3 positions, we can often work on external link building and on-site link architecture to lock in a top position.

When only viewing a keyword ranking report, these small movements don’t seem very important. For example, a move from 27 to 8 looks a lot more impressive via our ranking reports as this keyword is soaring up the charts. While this is a nice move and may result in a little bit of traffic, a move from #6 to #2 is much more impressive and will lead to more traffic or conversions. Of course, the movement from #2 to #1 is the last step and most important step, all of these are just points of illustration.

Top Ranking on Search Engines

#1 Ranking = 56% of Organic Clicks

To make it a little more scientific, I like to reference this study done by SEOResearcer.com. They produced this as a quick overview of how click distribution on the average Google results page is recorded visually by the user.

A #1 ranking, for example, results directly in almost 56% of all clicks possible on the page. In comparison, the #7 ranking through #10 ranking on the page only generates 1-2% total click traffic rates. This chart provides evidence that jumping from #10 to #3 is great—but jumping from #3 to #1 is huge in relation to total increased traffic referrals.

We tend to spend a lot of time doing keyword research at the beginning of every client project, so we have to assume our target keywords will deliver quality traffic to our clients.

One last note, Google owns approximately 80% of the search market compared to Yahoo! at 10% and MSN at 5% (I know these aren’t exact numbers, but I want to make a general point). When looking at rankings and ranking click percentages, this means that a #1 ranking on MSN is worth a combined factor of .0028 (56% for a #1 Ranking with 5% market share) which is comparable to a #10 ranking on Google with a combines ranking of .0204 (2.55% for a #10 Ranking with 80% market share).

I’d be more happy with a #10 ranking on Google than a #1 ranking on MSN since Google traffic tends to be higher quality and we know can work on moving the keyword even higher once it is on the first page of Google.

Category: Research Engine

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