Most of the digital marketing companies receive requests from their clients to rank them on number 1 on Google for a specific term (keyword).

When I get such requests, I have to say that it’s a total waste of time to focus all your energy and effort on ranking number 1 on Google for a specific keyword term or even a handful of keywords terms.

I never keep a track of my keywords where they are ranking. But this doesn’t mean I don’t do SEO. I’m just saying that I don’t focus on keyword rankings.

Can you increase traffic without tracking rankings?

In short, the answer to this question is yes. Being on number 1 spot doesn’t guarantee maximum traffic. Don’t take me wrong here. I’d be happy to be on number 1 than on number 2. All I want to say is being on number 1 doesn’t guarantee the most amount of traffic.

Ahrefs did a study that clearly showed being on number 1 generates maximum traffic is all myth. There are several other factors too that contribute to higher traffic than just being on number 1 on SERP.

Things have changed drastically as they were 5 years back. The entire look and feel of the SERP page has been changed. Have you felt the difference?

What are the big differences that I noticed?

• Paid Listings have blend in: Paid listings aren’t clearly defined on SERP as they used to be. Now, they just blend in helping ads generating a higher percentage of clicks than organic results.
• Localized listings can be ads: The first listing in the localized listing can also be paid one.
• The right side of SERP doesn’t have ads: The ads section has been removed from the right. Most of the elements you click on the right drive you to perform another Google search.
• Less Organic Listings: If you exclude the localized listings, the homepage only has 9 organic listings.
• Organic results have been pushed down: Apart from local and paid listings showing first, news results are also in-between the organic results. This makes the 3rd, 4th, 5th… organic result to get lesser clicks.

People are now focusing on paid ads than organic listings. And most importantly, organic listings are no longer guarantee to be as high as they were once. So, wasting your efforts on trying to rank 1 is a total waste of time. Isn’t it?

Does this mean you should give up?

No, not at all! I’m not saying that SEO is useless. But, you should not waste your time in tracking different keywords and trying to rank them at the 1st position on SERP. Stop thinking about each and every change Google makes to its algorithm because it is out of your control.

So what should you do to stay ahead of Google’s next algorithm?

It’s simple and I bet most of you don’t do this. Focus on USER EXPERIENCE.

Try improving the speed of different pages of your website. Start with the pages getting maximum traffic. Make them responsive and optimize them for multiple devices.

You won’t be able to control ranking for every single keyword, especially if you are doing SEO. So, do things that can really help.

The Bottom Line

Yes, you want to improve your website’s traffic continuously, but obsessing over whether a keyword is ranking on number 1 or not doesn’t mean much. SEO has now moved to long-tail strategy. The objective is to rank for hundreds and thousands of keywords if not for millions.

So, work hard and create an excellent user experience for your readers. Engage them with superb content and don’t put extra efforts to be on number 1 on SERP.