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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
December 2009, Volume 8, Issue 12

search engine marketing

Organic Search: Why Organic Rankings Still Matter

By Ani Nalbandian, Client Services Manager, iProspect

In today's aggressive search environment where new metrics are unveiled daily, it can be difficult to keep up. But despite new options, marketers should not lose site of an old but valuable metric from organic search: Rankings.

Why you should care about rankings
Clearly, the various metrics in use today such as clicks, conversions, and click through rates, are critical to a successful SEO campaign. However, organic rankings also hold considerable value. Not only can they help drive traffic and build brand awareness, they can also give your visibility a boost.

How rankings deliver value
For example, consider how organic rankings could help a lesser known brand compete. If the smaller player was smart with their SEO efforts and employed various tactics to obtain rankings--such as additional site links, local listings with a map showing you where to buy their products, issued an optimized press release, and contributed to a blog - chances are they would dominate the page. Doing exactly that would leave the competition with little room to compete. As a result, the lesser know brand would be in a great position to grab all the traffic and potentially convert the consumer.

Making them work for you
To get the most out of your organic rankings, follow the below tips:
  1. Traffic: Organic rankings are the best way to get users to your website. In fact, according to a recent Jupiter Research report, 87% of clicks take place in organic search. Specifically, improving your organic rankings will get you more eyeballs, drive traffic to your site, and in turn, possibly lead to more conversions. One way to tap into them for this purpose is by ensuring that your site has content that is both relevant and indexed in the engines.


  2. Brand Awareness: An increase in rankings can lead to improved brand awareness. iProspect research shows that 39% of search engine users associate top rankings with brand leadership. Given that, achieving top organic rankings are key if you want to boost brand awareness. To accomplish this, strive to have your actual site rank at the top, and then work to dominate the page through other tactics, such as optimized press releases, videos, and social media outlets.


  3. Visibility: While an increase in rankings can boost your visibility, a drop in rankings could mean a loss of potential consumers. In fact, 68% of search engine users click on a result within the first page of search results, and a full 92% of users click on a result within the first three pages of results. To boost your visibility via organic search, aim to do dominate the page by having multiple listings, including your website, possibly a press release, a link to your blog, your YouTube video, or a link to you from any credible source.
Overall, savvy marketers know that while other metrics are important to a successful SEO campaign, organic rankings also provide a lot of value. In short, rankings still matter.

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