buckworks - 11:10 pm on Mar 21, 2010 (gmt 0)

Ranking well for trophy terms is always pleasant, but measure your progress by growth in conversions (whatever that would mean for your site). Conversions are what will put money in your pocket.

If you do things right, posting quality content and cultivating quality links, you'll rise in the ranks for all sorts of searches you never thought of, as well as the more obvious terms you were aiming at.

There's not as much ego satisfaction in ranking above the fold for hundreds or even thousands of terms that only get a few searches a month, but cumulatively all those "little" terms can be worth a lot.

It's all good!