Everyone wants to be on page one of the Google SERP, it’s almost every client first request, “I want to be on the first page of Google for this keyword”. The keyword itself might be very relevant to their industry, however not at all to their business or even more specifically to their business strategy. Clients often misjudge the value of a particular term and lose focus on the bigger picture, Gain Leads!
Should you care about first page ranking for competitive keywords? I want people to understand that it’s not all about being on the first page of Google for competitive keywords.
Some people are reading this and thinking: “Yeah….yeah….I’ve heard this sales pitch before”. This is not the case, we here at nvision have a very successful track record of competitive and none competitive rankings for a variety of different clients.
First Page Rankings VS Conversions
Conversions are ideally the only thing you need to be focusing on when it comes to SEO. Yes, generic terms DO in fact bring in a lot of search volume. The more people search the more business naturally is should get. Conversions and ROI come from many different factors. The fact that you are ranking on the first page of Google for an industry-related term, does not mean you will be happy with the type of leads you’re obtaining, it’s about the quality of that lead vs the number of leads.
For example, A flat roofing company that deals with flat roofs is not the ideal candidate to be ranking for terms such as “roofers” or “roofing” in a city populated by sloped roofs. Flat roofing is usually a commercial business and is very unique. Usually, only commercial businesses have flat roofs in Ontario.
Another example: a custom-made, high-end Italian furniture store would not be the best fit to be on the first page of Google for a keyword like “furniture” or “furniture stores”. Why? Because the clients that would be searching for these generic terms are usually looking for cheaper options, information about furniture, close by furniture store locations etc… They are not searching for what you have to offer.
Thanks to @Patricks_SEO for these examples.
How Search Is Changing
With the way people are searching on Google, the game is changing. People can be very specific in their searches to match what they want due to the amount of content and information on the web. Nowadays you can type in an entire question into the Google search criteria. You will find thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pages on the internet with the same question and the answer to that question.
So What Now?
Now that we understand that first page rankings are not always necessarily the best factor when it comes to ranking, we need to establish how to optimize the site to match the most optimal keywords for conversions? As a business owner, you need to know your target demographic. Once you know your target demographic, you will need to do your keyword research.
Useful Links
Keyword research is part of the foundation for SEO. You need to find the terms that you know a customer will search for to find your business. My recommendation is using long-tail keywords for blog post titles and other terms as part of your websites content strategy. If you follow these guidelines you will be amazed at how much more relevant calls you will receive. This will lead to more conversions and sales.
If your website is getting the right traffic but not converting that traffic than you might need to look into a website redesign. People want to stay with the new trends and websites should look up to par. Your website should have a call for action and lead your customers towards your products or services that they are interested in. Find out more about website call to action and the common small business mistakes to avoid.
Here at nvision we do something called heat mapping. This shows us exactly where the mouse of most users hover over around the website the most, where people click the most and where on the website a user attention goes the most. Using this information we can move things around to show the user where they are looking at what we want them to look at.
Thanks for reading my blog post. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to comment below or give us a call!
