When embarking on an Search Engine Optimization campaign, it can be easy to get lost in the swathe of data and the mass of topics that overwhelm you. As such, it becomes easy to lose sight of the target in an Search Engine Optimization campaign, which is ultimately to generate traffic to your website. Your search engine ranking is obviously an important factor in how well your search engine optimisation campaign performs but it shouldn’t be the be all and end all of any campaign. To take it a step further, while traffic is the ultimate goal in Search Engine Optimization, it is more likely that sales, profits, and conversions are the reason that you started search engine optimisation in the first place.

Traffic Is More Important Than Ranking

Different keywords offer different results for a website. The more competitive keywords, which are usually the more generic, will take more effort and time to get better results. This is because more pages are competing for the top positions in these keywords. Similarly, generic keywords often prove to be less effective in terms of conversions. Niche or more highly targeted keywords typically provide traffic that is more likely to purchase products, pay for services, or perform any other desired action while on the pages of your website.

Your Conversion Rate Is More Important Than Traffic

Website owners should track as much data as possible regarding traffic levels, traffic sources, and sales and conversion figures for each of those sources. If traffic from a particular source isn’t making a profit then it is costing you money and should be dropped in favour of more profitable traffic. This relates in a similar fashion to the keywords you are using in search engine optimisation. While it is difficult to calculate how much a specific keyword is costing, you should be able to determine how well it converts.

Long Tail Search

Long tail search terms are those terms that individually generate very few clicks through to your website. When combined, though, they make a decent portion of the overall traffic you receive. Because the keywords are very specific they also generally provide you with the greatest conversion rates and ultimately prove to be the most profitable. The problem with long tail search terms, from an Search Engine Optimization point of view, is that they searched so infrequently that they are very difficult, if not impossible to research and specifically target.

Niche Keyword Search Engine Optimisation

Similarly, niche keywords are highly specific, but unlike long tail search terms they are easier to research and therefore target. Keywords can be in niche categories and therefore eliminate more of the competition, or they can be geotargeted to give the same results. Another advantage of geotargeted keywords is that some potential customers prefer to deal only with local firms or businesses.

Search Engine Optimization Targets

When considering Search Engine Optimization campaigns it is important to keep sight of your ultimate goal. Traffic levels are more important than how highly you rank for certain keywords, but conversion rates also need to be factored into the equation. It may, and often does, prove more profitable and timely to target niche keywords and attempt to capture long tail search terms within the content of your pages.

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