Talk to internet marketers, peruse the forums and read the blogs, and you will see search results as being one of the silver bullets to free traffic and therefore instant millions.

The problem is, this kind of focus can be counter-productive …

What is a search result?

It’s just a link on a page.

Yes, sorry, but it is not a direct line to a gazillion bucks or a “hack” that feeds you money like an ATM!

Ranking number one means nothing in of itself. I could be you are the only person in the world to have put those words together on a web page. Or it might mean your particular page has been linked to more often.

In many industries there are search terms that people try to achieve but have little bottom line impact. These search terms only impress others who are trying to rank for those phrases. Customers don’t use single word or two word searches, only your competitors care about them. Rather than “lawyer” they might look for “road accident injury lawyer seattle”. The former impresses your bar buddies, the latter brings in dollars.

Just because you are the first result for a particular search does not mean anyone will ever do that search, that huge numbers of people will perform that search, or that there is any value to be had in ranking for it.

Don’t get me wrong, ranking in search engines can have huge benefits.

But you need to rank for phrases that people are looking for, and that convert into useful transactions, or actually mean more than a few random clicks.

Compare the searches you make on a daily basis. Some will be random, some will have a goal, some you will be simply browsing, and some will appear very strange to the site owner!

When thinking about search you need to answer these questions:

• What question is the visitor asking?
• What is the goal behind the question?
• How can I provide the best answer to the relevant questions?

Aiming to rank for questions that have no impact on your business is just a vanity competition. Rather than impressing your peers with a #1 result that customers never see, instead you need to go for the real gold!