It\u2019s not a bad question\u2014it shows you value your business\u2019 position in search engine results pages (SERPs) and understand that organic\u2014or unpaid\u2014search traffic can give you a continual stream of targeted traffic, qualified leads and, eventually, paying clients.<\/p>\n
But if you, too, are asking this question, you\u2019re focusing on the wrong measure of SEO success<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry. I\u2019m not avoiding your question\u2014I\u2019ll answer it in this post.<\/p>\n But before I do, allow me to reframe your problem with another question:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the real goal of your SEO efforts: increasing your Google ranking, or creating a continual stream of qualified leads?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing: your keyword rankings for a variety of terms should increase with any comprehensive SEO strategy.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the goal. And it shouldn\u2019t be your focus.<\/p>\n While we are monitoring how you are ranking across of hundreds\u2014even thousands\u2014of keywords, we don\u2019t measure the success of your campaign by SERP rankings.<\/p>\n And why would we? You want to attract qualified leads, not win a blue ribbon for ranking first for a specific keyword. It\u2019s the trend of rankings across industry-related keywords that will drive business, not ranking for any one keyword.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how we measure success<\/a>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Okay sure, increased rankings in Google are correlated to an increase in targeted traffic and qualified leads\u2014that\u2019s the very idea that search engine optimization is built upon.<\/p>\n But SEO is not about winning a specific keyword. See, 3.5 billion Google searches are made. Every. Single Day.<\/p>\n And about 16 to 20 percent of those<\/a> searches have never been made before. Especially as searchers become more comfortable asking Google complex questions<\/a>, optimizing for specific keywords isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n The best way to rank for these new, never-been-searched-before keywords is to have a strategy focused on building helpful content<\/a> surrounding all facets of your business, and optimizing for every possible question a potential client might have from awareness to conversion<\/a>.<\/p>\n By creating shareable content and increasing the number of sites linking to you, you will increase your Domain Authority<\/a> and, eventually, increase your SERP rankings for industry-relevant searches\u2014even searches that have never been asked before.<\/p>\n Yes, you still need to have a robust keyword-targeted SEO strategy. But now more than ever, you need to be more focused on addressing questions, improving user experience<\/a> and creating a robust collection of web pages, blogs and backlinks<\/a> in order to compete for the ongoing stream of new, long-tail search queries.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why we\u2014though we thoroughly monitor your SERP rankings over time for hundreds of keywords\u2014focus most of our time on \u201ckeyword themes\u201d rather than individual keywords.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I know what you\u2019re thinking:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is great and all, but I still need to rank #1 for [INSERT KEYWORD]! How do I do that?!??\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Okay, let me actually answer your original question. One caveat before we begin: the answer is not simple.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you desperately want to know how to rank #1 in Google for the keyword \u201clocksmith STL.\u201d<\/p>\n There are at least five other variations of that same keyword. Locksmith St. Louis. St. Louis locksmith. Locksmith in St. Louis. Even locksmiths\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>STL.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Though these keywords all seem <\/em>the same, you will get a slightly different SERP for each one. You might appear for \u201cSt. Louis locksmith\u201d but not \u201cLocksmith STL.\u201d<\/p>\n To drive this point home, let\u2019s compare the SERPs for two Google searches: \u201clocksmith STL\u201d and \u201clocksmiths <\/em><\/strong>STL.\u201d<\/p>\n The ads are different. The local pack is different. And the organic results are different.\u00a0 You might be ranking for every single variant of \u201cSt. Louis + Locksmith\u201d except \u201clocksmith STL.\u201d<\/p>\n See, if you focus only on one keyword, you\u2019re missing the big picture.<\/p>\n And this example only shows generic location-based searches.<\/p>\n What about when someone searches, \u201cHow to get broken key out of ignition\u201d? Or when they search \u201cHow to fix a door lock that is jammed?\u201d Or when they just want to know the \u201ccost of rekeying a lock\u201d?<\/p>\n You could lose your mind trying to optimize for every single variant of every single keyword. Even for the best SEO companies, optimizing for every possible search query is impossible.<\/p>\n Remember: Nearly 630 million Google searches <\/strong>are made every single day that have never been searched before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At Digital Strike, we do tons of keyword research for each of our clients.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll create a detailed spreadsheet of every possible keyword phrase someone might use when talking about your products or services, from the awareness phase (when someone is looking for a solution to a problem), all the way to down to the purchasing decision or conversion.<\/p>\n In any given SEO campaign, we are optimizing for hundreds of keywords for every market you serve, service you provide or product you sell.<\/p>\n Usually, each of these keywords can be distilled down to several \u201cthemes,\u201d or broad areas of focus that we\u2019re optimizing for.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s tie the locksmith example back in:<\/p>\n You provide both residential and commercial locksmith services. The end goal of your SEO campaign is to leverage targeted search traffic, turning searchers into paying customers.<\/p>\n Once we understand your business and know your goals, we\u2019ll do some keyword research.<\/p>\n We might find there are three main \u201ckeyword themes\u201d surrounding the keywords in your business: residential, commercial and emergency services.<\/p>\n There are a variety of keywords that fall under these keyword themes:<\/p>\n Of course, there are dozens of other keywords we could list under each theme. But essentially, these themes describe facets\u2014service areas, products, or markets\u2014of your business you\u2019d like to grow.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll develop a long-term content and link building strategy that encompasses many different ways to search about each theme. In the end, this will help increase your SERP rankings and, in the end, drive business for each of your service areas.<\/p>\n Bottom line is this:<\/p>\n Ranking for one keyword won\u2019t drive results. Building a robust collection of web pages, blogs and backlinks surrounding the various services you provide and markets you serve will.<\/p>\n The success of your SEO campaign is measured by bottom line results, not keyword-by-keyword rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You might be wondering: \u201cWhy am I not ranking first in Google for [INSERT KEYWORD]?\u201d It\u2019s not a bad question\u2014it shows you value your business\u2019 position in search engine results pages (SERPs) and understand that organic\u2014or unpaid\u2014search traffic can give you a continual stream of targeted traffic, qualified leads and, eventually, paying clients. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,6,7,4,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing","category-digital-strategy","category-off-site-seo","category-on-site-seo","category-seo","category-solution-partner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\u201cBut wait\u2014I thought SEO was all about keyword rankings\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Back to your question: \u201cHow do I rank first in Google for [INSERT KEYWORD]\u201d?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Locksmith-Results-300x128.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/locksmith-stl-172x300.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/locksmiths-stl-183x300.png\")
<\/p>\nShift your focus from specific keywords to \u201ckeyword themes\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\n<\/strong>Example keywords: residential locksmith, front door lock replacement, how to rekey a deadbolt, door lock repair service<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>Example keywords: commercial locksmith, electric strike installation, filing cabinet key replacement, digital safe lock change out<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>Example keywords: emergency locksmith, how to get a broken key out of ignition, locked out of house, commercial lockout<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n