Chasing rankings…

We are seeing an increasing number of clients (and potential clients) playing the ranking chasing game.. what is ranking chasing?

The usual scenario goes something like this:

We sell ‘Bramley Apple Pies’, we must do everything we can to ensure that we rank number one on a Google search for ‘Bramley’s’…

– We actively use social media and engage with our market every day.
– We blog regularly on on website and push the blogs out to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
– We have made sure that all the pages on our website are relevant, used the word ‘Bramley’s’ within our text and in our page headings.
– We have all our ‘Alt’ tags in place for our lovely pictures of our ‘Bramley’s’ Pies.
– All our Meta information (Keywords and descriptions) are in place and relevant.
– We have loads of inbound links from other important websites and forums that talk about pies.
– We occasionally even buy Adwords.

…. you get the idea.

So.. they now rank on the front page of Google for a search for ‘Bramley’s’.

But.. And here is the kicker.. The whole point of this article – Are potential buyers of apple pies searching for ‘Bramley’s’?

The mistake that is made is not using analytics to make sure that you are receiving visits to your site, and in particular visits from the keyword ‘Bramley’s’.

Quite often organisations make the mistake of assuming potential buyers will use the same terminology as is prevalent in the company culture. In this case everyone in the company calls the pies ‘Bramley’s’, whereas a potential purchaser will probably just search for ‘Apple Pie’.

I am using a very base example, and quite often it isn’t as easy to see the error.

What should you do..

You need to make sure you are undertaking all the activities listed above, or contract someone to undertake them for you, they are very important in putting your product in front of your market; but you should check your analytics, interview existing clients / buyers and even conduct focus groups to check what actual customers outside of your company refer to your product as, or search for when they need it.

Very simple, blindingly obvious even, but very often completely overlooked.