Whenever anyone talks about SEO or ask for your help with promoting their website online, you’ll find they’re normally talking about getting on the top page of Google. Every webmaster it seems considers getting to page one of Google as some kind of holy grail, and that’s the only thing they are often interested in.
Of course this isn’t wrong as such, and obviously there is a lot to be gained by getting to the top of the SERPs – this is a guaranteed way to get thousands of people to your site every day. However at the same time it’s certainly not the only aim of SEO, and there are other things to consider and to keep your eye on too. Here we will look at some of those considerations to help you get more from your SEO service/hard work.
The Right Top Spot
Being at the top of a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) isn’t hard – anyone can get to the top spot for ‘great big juicy watermelons’ but unfortunately it’s not worth much to you because no one is going to search for that. You don’t just want to be at the top of a SERP, you want to be at the top of the right SERP – so be careful of SEO companies that seem to promise the world without being specific.
Number of SERPs
While getting to the top of the results pages is a great way to boost your visibility, what’s almost as useful is to just get near the top on lots of different searches, or to get to the top of a lot of lots of pages (even better). This way you will show up in more searches and you will therefore maximize the number of clicks you get.
The Look of Your Listing
If you’re at the top of a results page but it’s not clear what your link is about/it looks faulty, then people will often click the link below yours. Little things here like using good meta tags, and like using Google’s authorship scheme can help to make your listing stand out among the crowd and thus mean that more people end up on your web page. This is more and more an important element to consider with the introduction of rich snippets.
Being Protected and Secure
If you are just interested in fast results then that’s what you’ll get – which doesn’t guarantee you any long-term success. What’s very important then is that you think about the long term success of your website – which means future proofing your SEO and which means making sure that you are protected against negative SEO or algorithm changes.
Increasing PR and Reputation
PR means ‘Page Rank’ and it’s an important indicator of how seriously Google takes a web page. While PR isn’t as important as it used to be, and while it doesn’t directly affect your position in the SERPs, it nevertheless is very useful for things like link trades – which can further help to boost your position and help earn you some money too.
Maintaining Your Reputation
People who are only focused on boosting the position of their websites, might well be willing to accomplish this at the expense of their reputations – which will mean spamming Google with irrelevant links and filling their site full of useless content. Of course this is terrible for business in the long run and will potentially get your site penalized when Google notices.
Basically then it’s important to keep your eye on the big picture and not get fixated on one thing. A top spot is nice, but don’t get fixated on it. It’s the numbers that really matter at the end of the day and the growth of those numbers over time.
Author
Oscar Wood is the author of this article. He is working for Wisdek, which is a full service engine marketing company. It works to get their clients website on the first page of Google.
