Top Rankings are losing ground

December 5, 2008 by yhurg
Filed under: Marketing

So the SEO game seems to be evolving a bit. Over the past few years, content has been king and linking has been vital for rankings. But the idea of ranking is now shifting and the where, why, and how you rank is changing. Pretty soon, keyword ranking as we know it will be obsolete.

This is not something to be alarmed about. It’s actually a good thing. It gives more dimension and dynamic to searching and softens the elitist effect that websites often establish by out-spendig competitor sites.

For instance, dealers love to show up in the top positions of keyword searches such as brand+state or brand+dealer. But these 2-word phrases lack important information that filters in quality site visitors. Brand+state does not tell a search engine what about the brand you want. Do you want a car, a part, service, financing, a dealer, and where in the state do you want this and why? Sure a dealer has all these things but the 2-word phrase does not distinguish this. A brand+dealer phrase does not pinpoint a geo market, thus the search engine at best would filter your results based on the geo proximity of your ISP.

As a result, showing up in the top ranks of these searches brings more lower quality traffic to your site than something like brand+dealership+city which tells a search engine precisely what about the brand you are seeking and more precisely where. The quantity of searches between the two often confuses people because the brand+state and brand+dealer phrases receive significantly more searches than brand+dealership+city. Thus, if you have the capital you can afford to position your site in these less specific keyword markets.

This is all Search 101 but the reason I bring it up is because soon Google will be filtering results for people based on previous searches and sites being visited, information stored on your computer as cookies. Thus a brand+state search will start showing different results for someone that has been searching for parts related to a brand versus someone searching for financing related to the brand. However, you won’t be able to position your site in targeted markets like you can today because your position will be influenced by user variables you do not control.

What this comes down to is that showing up in the top rankings is losing its significance. You will not be able to position your site in specific keyword markets as effectively because the same keyword phrase will have different meanings for everyone searching based on their recent behavior. Thus, the key to driving quality traffic to your site will be more impacted by how effectively you can appear in un-anticipated keyword markets AND offer a sticky experience to these un-anticipated users.

Lots more to come on this subject.

Tags: automotive seo, search engine optimization