Matt McGee over at the Small Business SEM blog has a blog post that we 100% agree with titled “Dear Small Business Owners: Put Down Your Ranking Reports.” Matt’s point has been one that we’ve been telling our clients – ranking reports aren’t as useful or powerful as they once were. Why shouldn’t one be too concerned with where one ranks in Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.?

1. With the rise of personalization in search, search rankings vary from individual search to individual search. Personalized search means that search engine result pages (SERPs) are, really, quite dynamic.
2. So you rank #1 for “yellow polka-dotted money shoes” (bad example, since this isn’t something someone would ever sell… at least I wouldn’t think so) – that’s great. But it doesn’t mean squat if your site isn’t user-friendly or lacks a clearly-defined sales funnel.
3. More traffic ≠ more sales. You optimized the heck out of your site for search… now you also need to optimize the heck out of it for human consumption.

Search engine ranking reports shouldn’t be completely ignored; they give you a quick snapshot if search engines are finding your site relevant to the keyword phrases you’re optimizing for. But they shouldn’t be the end result yardstick that measures the success of a search engine marketing campaign.

So, say it with me now:

1, 2, 3, 4, put that search engine rankings report on the floor. 5, 6, 7, 8, shift that focus to user-friendliness & creating link bait.