Riding the Ranking Roller Coaster

One of the challenges to those new to the world of search engine optimization is learning to ride the ups and downs of search engine rankings without losing your stomach. Fluctuation is a natural part of search indexes and few sites maintain their exact positions without a little bit of jostling now and then. That said, for those that haven't experienced these bumps, it can be difficult to understand what's going on. Stoney deGeyter addresses that issue today in his Small is Beautiful column at Search Engine Land.

He explains:

While it's fairly obvious that you can control one of those three factors, there's no denying the fact that you can't control the other two. In his article, Stoney goes on to give a little bit of insight into the how and why of those three factors and to offer up some advice on how to deal with them.

I'd add a word of advice as well.

Consider rankings, but spend more time focusing on sales. I've seen sites jump around in the top five positions with little change in traffic or conversion rates for their strongest keyword segments. Sure, a drop in ranking can cause a drop in sales, but sometimes, a little jostling here and there has almost no impact at all.

Keep in mind that rankings alone are not what determine which links get clicked. Things like the title tag and description attached to your ranking, or the branding of your web site or even whether or not you have accompanying paid search ads for the term can go a long way toward evening out the clickthru rates for different positions.

Add in the fact that you should be targeting and ranking for oodles of phrases and the reality will be that minor fluctuations won't cause much harm to your bottom line.

So learn what causes these changes...understand them...but save your worry and your fretting for the major ranking swings. After all, it's the 310 foot drop that sends the veterans screaming...the bunny hills just make them laugh.