When SEO first came onto the scene, keywords ruled. They completely drove rankings, and a clever hand with keywords could make a big difference in website traffic. These days, that is no longer the case.
Tracking your position(s) is important, but placing too much emphasis on this metric can be problematic. When it comes to SEO, what you measure gets managed. That means focusing on the right metrics will help you generate results that have a positive impact on your practice.
We often get asked about search results and how our practices are ranking compared to their competitors. We aim to educate our practices on the problem with obsessing over rank. Despite what you may think, we don’t recommend putting in all your efforts to get the top spot. There are so many different factors that go into this. Google is constantly changing its algorithm, so it would not be the best use of time to think about each and every change Google is making—at a certain point, it is out of our control.
It is also important to note that being number 1 doesn’t guarantee the most clicks.
A recent study showed how being number 1 in Google search rankings doesn’t guarantee the greatest number of clicks. The common trend is people are focusing on paid ads more than organic listings. And organic listings are no longer guaranteed to be as high up as they once were now that paid advertising is becoming so popular.
Another problem with putting too much emphasis on rankings is that the search results aren’t always consistent. Google’s results will vary based on a number of different criteria, including your location and your personal search history. These two simple variables can drastically impact rankings.
In order to get a 100% accurate idea of your aggregated rank, you would have to check, monitor and scan all of these inconsistencies across the web. While not an impossible task, it’s certainly difficult and time-consuming — and probably not an efficient use of your time.
In addition to being hard to accurately track, rankings are also not the best measure of success. In The Art of SEO, the authors write that “obsessing over rankings (rather than traffic) can result in poor strategic decisions.” Many people spend so much time obsessing over their search engine rankings that the more important areas of marketing suffer. Just imagine the results if that time were spent creating an engaging piece of content that drove traffic and conversions.
So, what should you focus on?
In short, we use these key metrics to measure the success of your website:
- Total Website Traffic/Sessions
- New Visitor vs. Returning Visitor Percentage
- Organic vs Direct Search Traffic
- Mobile Compatibility
- Loadspeed & User Experience Rating
Today’s analytics tools can reveal powerful data about our users and how your site is performing in search. Understanding where and how people find you online, as well as your traffic trend (up or down), is much more important than knowing where you rank.
This does not mean that we ditch SEO
This is not to say that SEO isn’t important — because it is, and we are constantly tweaking and updating your SEO to stay relevant. Doing the following things consistently over a long period of time yields great results –– that is why these are a priority for us!
- Blogging
- Optimizing & posting on your local SEO profiles
- Offering and implementing review strategies
- Adding things like schema markup and other website-enhancing features as best practices are released
- Link building (internally and externally)
- Consistent social media posting
- Google Ads
- Pinterest pinning, etc.
Focusing on these things will only give you an edge by tracking what actually has an impact on your practice. Remember, though, that success doesn’t lie at the start of your SEO journey, but instead by continuous improvements that increase traffic numbers over time — which is what we love doing, and are here to help you achieve!
Great marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Therefore, patience and trust in our expertise and knowledge will go a long way. Allow us to focus on those things, which will allow you to focus on creating the best internal strategies and patient experience at your practice. Creating those raving fans that refer is just another piece of the puzzle!
Are you ready to take your practice’s marketing to the next level with the help of our trusted marketing experts? Let’s talk.