Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
To me a good result is to be the same on all googles (.com, .fr, .ch, etc) and to hold in the same (plus minus one two points) position for 3 or 4 years. Hence being 20th for several years is fine for a complex single word.
What do you think?
[edited by: FlexAjaxSEO at 12:45 am (utc) on Oct. 23, 2007]
More targeted traffic is the only meaningful "good result."
Case-in-point...
Recently I took my top ranking page on one of my sites and changed the title so it was slightly less targeted, but had the exact same meaning. It was an educated guess (at best) about what the results would be.
"BlueWidget Setup - Acme Co" -> "Acme Co Setup - BlueWidget"
For my primary keyword for that page ("BlueWidget"), I dropped from 1st to below the fold. I had held #1 (and #2 on and off) for over a year. After the change, traffic for that keyword dropped like a rock...down over 90%.
I now have NO keywords that stand head and shoulders above the long tail for that page.
Overall my traffic increased.
How? My "bread and butter" magnet keyword is gone, but my long tail for that page grew to more than make up for the lost traffic.
What's the lesson? The overall picture matters much more than any specific SERP ranking. Sometimes chasing ranking for a specific keyword can be counter productive. Not always, but this example is something to keep in mind.
To me a good result is to be the same on all googles (.com, .fr, .ch, etc)...Irrelevant.
... and to hold in the same (plus minus one two points) position for 3 or 4 years.Irrelevant. How do either of these concepts help define what "good" means"?
For me, the bottom line is that "good" means "findable". You don't have to be #1, but your ideal customer following a reasonable search strategy should at least have the opportunity to find out about you. That might mean you're on page 2, or only rank high for specific multiple-word searches. Or even (pragmatically speaking) that you can't be found in the search results but you have an organic link on an important page that DOES get found. That's my minimum requirement for what I would call "good".
...
If you don't mind, what kind of a business are you planning?
I'm curious, in what sector do people plan their strategy this way...?
[edited by: tedster at 5:50 pm (utc) on Oct. 23, 2007]
I do get 40-50x more visitors for KW ranking top 1-2 than those ranking top 5-10.
I'd say strive for all of the top 10 listings.
(Yes, it's possible for "highly searched" terms)
Then you can retire and talk smack on message boards. :P
Think big, shoot for the stars, and then achieving #1 and #2 will be cake.
