Are Rankings Really That Important?
Lately I've received a few private messages from fellow WA members that have been hard at work on their websites writing articles. They keep checking their rankings but like a TV remote control in your living room, they can't seem to find their website in the search engines. So why is this happening?
Why Isn't My Website Ranking In Google?
Let's walk through a couple of scenarios and possible solutions. You may not like them all but it will give you a better sense of what's going on for better or worst. So are you ready for it?
1. We don't know you from a hole in the wall!
Here's the thing, most of you are brand new websites that have only been around for a few weeks or a couple of months. To Google that means you're a stranger. And you know what we were all taught about strangers. Don't trust them! Well that's how Google feels about you. Sorry, I know it sucks but you can thank other marketers for that situation. There are countless other affiliate "marketers" out there that produce garbage websites that don't provide any value. They are just designed to pump out as much thin content as fast as possible. This way they can flood the internet with their garbage and hopefully earn a commission by brute force and numbers. You've probably landed on one of these garbage sites at one point in time. And as you know, It makes for a crappy user experience and people don't like landing on crappy websites.
So Google constantly changes how it ranks websites nowadays. And in most cases it will put new websites like yours on a time out until it sees that you're in it for the long haul. This means producing quality content regularly for a long period of time. The time frame can vary depending on your niche and the competitiveness of your keyword. There isn't an exact rule of thumb. So you need to keep banging out that content until Google does trust you. This shouldn't be news to you because that's exactly what's taught here at WA. But sometimes we need to hear things a few times in different ways, by different people.
2. Duh, You're checking the wrong keywords silly.
A lot of times when we do our keyword research and we've optimized our content for one or two keyword phrases. So you keep checking Google just for those keywords. However you may actually be ranking for other variations of the keyword or totally different keywords. You won't know that unless you check your google analytics or google webmaster tools which will give you more information about other keywords and traffic you might be getting. I'm always surprised to find new terms that I'm ranking for that I never intended. I love it because It's like finding money in your old pair of jeans or coat.
Check out the following resources on Google Analytics to help you get started:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/setting-up-tracking-goals-in-google-analytics
3. There are other fish in the sea!
It always amazes me when I check my stats to discover that I'm ranking in Bing or Yahoo for keywords that Google totally ignores me for. Sometimes I look at those stats and wish that Bing was the dominant search engine because I'd be killing it! LOL For all you know you're getting traffic from Bing as well. It might be worth setting up a Bing webmaster tools account as well. This way you can see what keywords from Bing are driving traffic to you.
You may also be getting traffic from other resources such as social networks. So don't just stay fixated on Google. There are other sources of traffic as well.
Check out the following resources regarding Bing webmaster tools:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/the-webmaster-tool-that-goes-bing
Ultimately, Yes ranking is important. But getting traffic and rankings is a long term and ongoing process. It can take weeks or months for you to see results. This is why I always warn people that this business is a marathon. If you're about doing quick sprints to the finish line, this isn't for you. But if you run at a consistent pace (producing content regularly) eventually you'll hit the various marks along the race and will eventually reach the finish line. So focus more on producing useful content regularly and less about obsessing over your rankings. The rankings and most importantly the traffic will come in time.
Let me know if this was helpful. Feel free to chime in below.
Until next time folks,
Eddy with a Y.
Recent Comments
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You're welcome Christina!
Glad you found the information useful.
Thanks for chiming in. I really appreciate it!
Eddy, you nailed it. I got to say that Content is King oops, Valuable Content is King lol. You are precious in providing helpful content. That's why I gave myself 2 years and 7 months a.k.a. 1,000 days of daily tweaking my site and regularly updating it with content and researching new keywords to write about. maybe when I hit the one year, I will try to see how I perform in Google and so forth. I have bookmarked this blog post, it's super helpful in deed. Thanks my friend
You're welcome Margaret!
It should actually be consistent valuable content is king. LOL Either way I'm glad you found the information helpful. If you're in it for the long term like you are, you will see results. We just can't be too obsessive about ranking as hard as that can be in this business. Thanks for chiming in!
Eddy
I love the format you use to reply, so personalized and emphasized to the individual. I am stealing it
Thanks Margaret! I don't like canned responses so I try to personalize all my interactions. Glad you noticed that and yes you should do it too! It's good for your business and building trust.
Great point with number 1 and one I've constantly been making recently. Ever since Panda (2011), Google has looked at a website as a whole rather than individual pages on it, so it's just not going to rank a new site instantly no matter how good that keyword is.
Exactly Dom!
That's why I think it's important to set up realistic expectation with these new sites. People may end up giving up quickly because they think this doesn't work. So hopefully this article will help them understand the mindset of Google and why they may not be ranking right away.
Thanks for chiming in!
Yeah, another good point. A lot of the time online you have to wait months to find out if you are doing something right, if you KNOW it works, then it's easy to wait, but if it's your first site it can be pretty difficult to be that patient.
I agree, running this type of business will definitely test your patience. That's why being a business owner isn't good for everyone. Sometimes people are meant to be employees and that's fine too.
You're welcome Lawrence!
Glad you found the information useful and you got my name right. LOL
EddY lol
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Thanks, Eddy! I really needed to read this. I've almost created 50 posts and various pages and I generally get page 2 rankings and around 15 visitors a day. But at least I get visitors, which is nice. I've been working at my site for five months and I'm sure it will just take more time. All the best for you, Vanessa :)
You're welcome Vanessa!
You're doing the right thing and just need to continue to bang away. The fact you continue to show up on the second page and are getting visitors means your efforts are paying off. Eventually you'll end up on the first page and your visitors will grow accordingly.
But you're doing all the right things!
Thanks for chiming in. I really appreciate it!