I found this post after trying to explain this exact topic. The point never has been rankings or PR (*sigh*). It’s all about the conversion.

But trying to explain that to some folk seems to be a never ending nightmare. Oh well… we try.

I’ll be sure to point doubters to this post, thanks for the write up!
.-= Robert recently posted: RE-MAX Finest =-.

Thank you very much for clearing it up, it was really helpful for me!!

Hi Kimi,

I wanted to try and shed a bit of light on PageRank(PR). It is essentially a voting system, where a link would represent a vote. Think of PR as someones “popularity on the net” – or at least that was the goal.

The more “popular” a website is (higher pr) the more weight their vote carries. Achieving a link from a PR9 page would essentially be a very strong vote for your website.

All this said, PR is a bit outdated and somewhat obsolete. It can be quite easily manipulated and therefore it’s weight in Google’s ranking criteria was significantly reduced. It was a novel concept, but PR is now only one of the hundreds of algorithmic ranking criteria – and not even a very heavily weighted one from what I can tell.

Keep your content relevant and useful to readers, and let the traffic flow 😉 Good luck with your site Kimi!

Cheers,
Kris

I would agree with Kris here. If you can’t rely on rankings, look at other metrics like % increase in leads or site traffic. Set your KPIs with your client as soon as possible to set reasonable expectations from the start. If a client says they want to rank #1, ask them why – the “why” is what they actually want from you.
.-= Rebecca L. recently posted: Friday Link Love for December 10- 2010 =-.

Always interesting if we talk about PR topic, love it!

Since my PR dropped to 0 last year, i tend not too care about PR, because i know, people can manipulate it.

I instead concentrate on creating useful videos for others and i do believe PR comes from alone, most important to me is my traffics, it means i want people want to find my content that i hope it is useful for them.

Thanks for bringing this topic.

Kimi.

I was sent over here after asking one of my experienced marketer friend lots of questions! He sent me the link to this post.

Excellent information that I will bookmark for reference. Thanks so much for such a comprehensive post. There is so much fluff on the net these days. It’s so hard to wade through all the posts and know what is for real.

I am so glad I have friends who can point me in the right direction. Thanks for sharing this with us Rebecca. Much appreciated.

Patricia Perth Australia
.-= Patricia@lavenderuses recently posted: Are You a Tweetheart-Commenter…or both! =-.

Hi Jim,

I just wanted to re-iterate that the Google Webmaster tools does now contain a reporting interface for “Organic rankings.” As the personalization came in, you’re right that it became a lot more difficult to sell a client – however I find that tool really helps quantify results.

Also, I think a good client won’t necessarily need to see “hard keyword ranking evidence” to prove your value. The organic traffic, quality of qualified traffic and conversion rates should be the real seller in my opinion.

Good luck!
Cheers,
Kris

if not “rankings” to be followed on, then how do we SEO practitioners, show a client “where” their hard earned SEO budget has gone…ie without a tracking device….I wonder how many clients would ever “buy into” SEO?

?

Jim

I thought you made some excellent points about the A/B and multivariate testing, which is a larger part of optimization that most tend to realize. The personalized ranking criteria have thrown us all for a loop over the past year and ultimately SERP stability has crumbled for most competitive industries.

One light that still shines on keywords however, was Google’s new search reporting interface in the webmaster tools. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check this out – it’s a great way to gain some real insight on your keyword rankings. The new search model can result in fluctuated rankings for different visitors as you said, and the Google Webmaster tools report the fluctuations and average positions.

While the methods and process have changed, the underlying goal of SEO is still the same – creating quality content relevant to a topic and it’s human readers. As you stated, it’s all about relevance.

Great post, looking forward to the next one!

Cheers,
Kris