Why personalized search is making keyword ranking reports useless and how to measure your SEO results the right way.
Congratulations, you’ve gotten to the top of the search rankings! You did your keyword research, optimized your website, created a flawless link building strategy, and had the patience and knowledge required to run an effective search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. According to your keyword ranking reports you are sitting at the number one spot for your keywords and the world is your oyster. Or is it?
Search engine ranking reports are generally considered to be the gold standard of the SEO industry. Showing customers a report displaying their website at the top of the rankings is nearly as valuable as handing them a winning lottery ticket. Unfortunately, this report might not be as useful as many are led to believe.
In order to improve user experience, Google personalizes search results based on past web history, preferences, and numerous other variables for every one of their users with a Google account. This means that one person’s third search result might be tenth or higher for someone else. It also means that your new report showing your website as number one in the rankings is really showing up in a much less desirable position for many of your potential customers. To make things even worse, there are some data centers that are not completely in sync with each other that might provide variations in search rankings to different users.
Before you rush out and cancel your reporting and stop your SEO campaign, keep in mind that the more you work on your SEO the higher the likelihood of your site appearing near the top of the results no matter what. Also, there are many users who do not have Google accounts and therefore do not get personalized results so their rankings are more consistent.
Still if keyword ranking reports aren’t able to provide completely accurate measurements it is important that other methods of performance reporting are established to get a complete picture. Fortunately, there is a better metric easily available to anyone using analytics on their website (you are using web analytics, right?).
Consider for a moment why you started using SEO practices in the first place. More than likely it was to get more visitors to your website. More visitors mean more conversions and more conversions means more money in your pocket! Keyword ranking reports are so widely used because it is generally accepted that high rankings equal higher visitor numbers. So why not cut out the middle man? By looking at your visitor numbers from search results you can easily determine if your SEO is working as it is supposed to. Do you have more visitors this month then a previous month? Then your SEO is working, keep on doing what you’re doing. If not, it might be time for a change of strategy. It’s that easy.
The usefulness of keyword rankings might not have gone the way of the dodo bird just yet, but as personalized search continues to evolve it just might. It’s time to start looking at the big picture – your profits.
Tags: Keywords, Online Marketing, Rankings Reports, Search Engine Optimization, Search engine rankings, SEO
