Listener Question On Search Console

Meredith's Husband 0:26

Meredith, would you do the honors, please? We have a question from a listener.

Why More Impressions Is Good

Meredith 0:31

Yes. My question is about the data I'm seeing on Google Search Console. My impressions are rising, but my average ranking has remained the same. Will the ranking improve over time as impressions increase, or are there other things I need to do to rise to page one?

The Average Ranking Trap

Are Blog Keywords Still Important

Meredith's Husband 0:52

And I'm actually really glad somebody asked this because that is exactly what you want to see. Oh. Like that's that's perfect. I tell students, like, this is what we want to go for. And I will explain why that is. First, let me, if you're not familiar with what this person is talking about in Google Search Console, when you log into Google Search Console and you look at your website performance, you're gonna see a chart. And the chart is gonna, it's a line chart. So over time, it's gonna look like it's you know going up and down, and it shows your impressions. That's the number of times that Google is displaying your website whenever somebody searches for anything. That's one of the lines. And another line is the average ranking, and that's your average ranking for all the keywords you're ranking for over the same time period. And so what this person is seeing is they're seeing the number of impressions go up, right? Graph is going up, but the average ranking is not, or maybe it's even going down. Now, the reason I say that's perfect is because we obviously want Google to be showing our site more often. So impressions going up is good, is good. Now, the fact that rankings are not going up, remember what I just said, it's your average ranking over all of your keywords that are ranking. So let's say you have a bunch of keywords ranking and they're all pretty good. Let's say you have 10 keywords ranking and they're all in the top 20 positions. Okay, so your average ranking is let's just say, for example, number 10. Now, let's say you have some additional keywords start to rank. Okay, but they're going to, as keywords are going to come into the top 100 positions and they're going to be at like position 80 or 90 or 70, they're going to be towards the bottom. Now, what does that do to your average keyword ranking? It makes it go down. So for that reason, I say to people, never, never use the average keyword ranking unless you are looking at a single keyword or a keyword in a couple variations and you want to see how the ranking for that keyword is trending over time. Otherwise, if you're doing the right thing, it's going to look bad, is what I'm saying. Like it's very common if all of a sudden your impressions jump up at the same time your average ranking is going to go down, and vice versa. So if you're looking at your average rankings and all of a sudden you see a jump, you think, oh, that's really great. But what might have happened is you just had a bunch of keywords ranked in positions 50 through 100 and they fell out of the top 100. They're no longer being ranked. And that would, on the flip side, make it look like your average ranking is going up when it's not. So that's perfect. And yes, as long as you are continuing to see an improvement in impressions, your rankings, your traffic, your leads are going to follow. I don't think I have ever seen a situation where a website has impressions improving over time and it doesn't end up, you know, where good things are happening. You're going to get more leads from that website. So yes, stick with it. Whatever you're doing, I would say you're doing a good job. So the next question is actually something that you had asked, and I think you got it from one of your online groups you asked earlier. I'm going to refresh your memory just in case.

Meredith 3:58

Me, there it is.

Meredith's Husband 3:59

Yeah. So you asked, just out of the blue, we were doing something, and you said, Are keywords still important for blogs? Yes. And I was like, hmm? That was a very odd question, just come out of left field. Um, and so you followed up by, I think you said something, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you said something that somebody in one of your groups, or you saw something that a blogger was offering to write for you, and they were going to include your keywords.

Meredith 4:24

Yes.

How Keyword Cannibalization Happens

Meredith's Husband 4:24

Okay. I'm now I'm not exactly sure what they were offering, but to me that sounds like it's bad.

Meredith 4:29

Okay.

Meredith's Husband 4:30

And I'm going to tell you why. And then you tell me, and then you tell me if I'm if I'm on the right track or not. What typically happens is people hear you need to blog for SEO and you need to include your keywords, right? That's pretty common advice you hear. And what people take that to mean is if let's say your main keyword is children's photography, you need to then blog about children's photography. That's the pretty common misconception. What that does is that leads to you're going to end up cannibalizing your own rankings. It's really bad because it the more you do it, and this is something else where if you're looking at Google Search Console, if you start doing it, there you're going to see indications that it's working when it's really making the situation worse. So you'll say, let's say you put up a blog about children's photography, and then you see it rank all of a sudden. You think, oh, that's great. I should do more of that. What that does is you're sending conflicting signals to Google about what page should be ranked. And so what ends up happening is you might get rotating blogs ranked uh showing up in Google Search Console. This one's ranking, then the next week another one is ranking, then a different page is ranking. That's keyword cannibalization. And that's because Google doesn't know what page to rank. So what's going to happen is you're never going to reach page one. That's what I see a lot. Now, correct me if I was wrong about the question. Is that what the person was offering or suggesting?

Meredith 5:47

Yeah.

A Better Blog Keyword Approach

Meredith's Husband 5:48

Yeah. Okay. That's what I had assumed. The reason that your very initial question are keywords important for blogs? The one, the reason that piqued my interest is that, well, there was a question about SEO, number one, that piqued my interest. And number two, uh, yes, keywords are important for blogs, but not what people think. Like a blog is going to be about a topic. Okay. That topic is going to have a keyword, but it's a it's a keyword specific to that topic. You're usually answering some sort of question in a blog, I hope. If it's resourceful, might not be phrased as a question, but essentially you're providing some sort of answer.

Meredith 6:23

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband 6:23

So you want to match that with somebody out there asking that question. So that's your keyword. That's your key raise, your key phrase for the blog. It's not that keywords are not important at all to blogs. It's just the way most people take that to mean is it is wrong, unfortunately. Right.

Meredith 6:38

So we don't want to stuff the blogs.

Meredith's Husband 6:40

You don't want to keywords. Exactly. You don't want to take your main keyword and sprinkle it all throughout your blog.

Meredith 6:46

Good to know. Thank you.

Meredith's Husband 6:49

Yeah, I hope that helps.

Meredith 6:50

Does.