Regular Search Engine Guide contributor Stoney deGeyter has an excellent article over at his E-Marketing Performance blog that asks the simple question "What's a Top Ranking Worth." The post plays off a concept that I've been touting over here at Search Engine Guide as well...the idea that the search marketing world needs to move past the concept of search engine rankings as the be-all-end-all judgement of how successful a search marketing campaign is.

Stoney does an excellent job of breaking down the different ways to judge not only a listing, but where the listing is coming from. For example:

Looking at search engines...

Different search engines produce a different level of searcher intensity. Demographics play a role in this. Some searchers use different search engines depending on what they are looking for. Other engines attract users that are shoppers more than researchers. This intensity can make the difference between a quality hit to your site or a mere “Sunday driver” taking a leisurely stroll through the web. If you're an e-retailer you want traffic coming from those that are ready to buy your products.

Looking at keywords...

While high-volume keywords are attractive by the sheer numbers of potential customers, they can often produce a far lower conversion rate than more specific, lower volume keywords. Take the word ‘golf' for example. According to WordTracker that word gets searched over 7000 times a day. While the phrase ‘golf clubs' gets less than 2000 searchers per day, significantly less search volume, the relevance of that phrase is far higher. This, in turn, means that if you sell golf clubs, you're likely to get a much higher conversion rate off of traffic coming from searches using ‘golf clubs' than searches using just ‘golf'. In the world of keywords, relevance matters.

Looking at your industry...

For most industries, this fluctuation in overall industry search volume won't mean a thing. It doesn't matter if thousands of people are searching for motorcycle related products but only hundreds are searching for what ever you offer. All that matters is if there are enough searches being performed for what you offer to build a successful business online.

Looking at your profit margin...

Profit margins are a huge factor in the value of a ranking. Search volume can be low for your industry or keywords, but if you are in an industry with a high profit margin it doesn't take much to succeed.

Looking at your position...

Statistically very few people click past the third page of search results and instead, if they have not found what they are looking for, go back to refine their search. In fact, a great majority don't even click past that first page. This makes first page search results prime real estate.

Looking at personalization...

If the search engines had their way (and they are trying to) they want to produce a completely different set of results for every searcher even though they are searching for the exact same thing. Why? Through localization and personalization, if search engines can ensure that they are giving each user unique, but also highly relevant results, everybody wins.

The complete article goes more in-depth on each of those concepts and does an excellent job of helping guide marketers toward a more holistic approach in determining what makes a search marketing campaign successful.