- What if I told you that ranking number one on Google
won't necessarily make you more money?
Hey everyone, I'm Neil Patel and today
I'm going to share with you why you should stop
wasting your time trying to rank number one
on Google.
Before we get started, make sure you subscribe
to this channel,
that way when we release more videos like this
you'll get notified.
Question for you, how many of you try to continue
to try to rank number for a specific keyword?
If that's you, leave a comment below with "Yes".
If it's not you, leave a comment below with "No".
Can you guess how many keywords I try to rank
number one for?
Zero.
I don't even track my own rankings.
Now let me break down why you should try to avoid
trying to rank number one on Google for a lot of terms.
First thing, one, rank tracking is really inaccurate.
So when you think you rank number one,
you may not rank number one.
Every region has different results
because of localized search.
Every person, every state, every country
is looking at different results based on how they search.
Google is trying to adjust the results
to be personalized to each individual.
So it's not about trying to rank number one,
it's about trying to provide the best user experience
so more people want to see results from your site
versus someone else's site.
The second thing is ranking number one,
doesn't mean necessarily mean that you're going to get
most of the traffic.
Did you know according to ahrefs, only 49% of the time,
ranking number one gets you the most traffic.
That means 51% of the time, all the other spots
get the rest of the traffic.
It's not about being number one, it's about
getting most of the traffic.
The third thing is, you don't have to rank number one
to get the most traffic.
For example, there are certain keywords
that I rank, let's say, number 3 or number 4 for,
like SEO tips, but yeah, I get more traffic
than the number 1 listing because I take up
the rich snippet.
If you take up rich snippets, you can also rank higher.
So when people are googling for a term,
don't just think about,
"oh I want to rank high, I need to build more links"
"I need to do more internal linking".
Make sure your content addresses that term.
And here's what I mean by that.
If someone's typing keywords like SEO tips,
they're looking for SEO tips.
So your article may break down seven tips that can
help them out and when you clearly define these tips,
you'll notice that you have a higher chance of being
pulled in as a rich snippet and that'll
help you get more traffic than if you weren't there.
The fourth thing is not all keywords have intent.
For example, I rank on Google for terms like
online marketing, internet marketing, SEO.
Those terms may seem amazing and they are competitive
but guess how much revenue they drive?
Very little.
Why?
Because anyone who searches for those keywords
is looking for basic advice.
There's no intent there.
People who search for SEO are looking for,
"Hey, what is SEO?"
"How does it work?"
"How does Google rankings work?"
Those warm people that aren't going to pay me
for my ad agency, but on the flip side,
if I rank for SEO agency, I'll generate way more revenue.
So in other words, you need to look for keywords
that are intent based.
And last but not least, rankings won't
guarantee your success.
Here's what I mean.
If you do all the right things to get to the top,
but yet no one wants to go visit your page,
you're not going to stay at the top.
A good example of this is ahref was trying
for a very long time to rank for backlink checker.
They created content, internal links,
they did everything that's possible to
rank at the top, but no matter what they did,
they weren't ranking.
It wasn't that their SEO was bad,
it was that users didn't care to visit their page.
And the reason being is they were looking for a free
backlink checker while their tool cost money.
Once ahref figured out that,
"hey, we're not doing what's best for the user"
and they gave the skimmed down version of their tool
for free and they only provide, let's say,
100 links, I don't know what's the exact number is
but it's somewhere around there.
What they found is,
their rankings shot up to the top of page 1.
Why?
Because they gave users what they wanted.
So even if you do all the right things to rank at the top,
but you ignore the user, you're not going to rank,
you're not going to convert them.
You need to understand what they want.
And using tools like survey monkey will help you
get that information.
So that's it, it's not just about ranking number one,
you shouldn't focus your time on that,
you should focus your time on all these other things
including providing the best user experience,
because that's what will help your business grow
and make more money.
If you need help growing your site,
your traffic, your revenue, check out my ad agency,
Neil Patel Digital and of course if you enjoyed the video,
like it, share it, tell other people about it.
And leave a comment below and
I'll make sure I respond and answer it.
Thank you for watching.