Keyword Phrases – Maintaining Long Term Ranking Positions

In a previous post over one year ago about how I maintain top ranking positions for keywords on my own websites, I talked about a keyword phrase I’d targeted – “Google search cheats” – and its SERP ranking. That post was back in May 2008.

The ranking was doing well at that time – #4 out of 389,000 result pages.

Well today out of curiosity, I checked the ranking position. And I found it has inched down a bit to #6, but now it is commanding the position out of 10,500,000 SERPs. Ummm … OK, perhaps Google’s results are a bit wild today as compared to the more realistic results back in May ’08, but nevertheless, I really don’t care how many oodles of results there are in the grand total – I just care where I stand in the midst of true competition.

Here’s a screenshot taken yesterday (November 2, 2009):

I’m not all shook up about moving two slots down for a keyword phrase that really isn’t one of major concern traffic-wise. After all, competition for that targeted term has changed a bit over time, as evidently there are other sites using it in an article, too. These sites are possibly older than mine, and/or have way more posts with quality content compared to the number of posts my blog currently has, and/or have more links, and/or carry more “authority” than mine, etc. Issues such as these do affect final ranking “scores” when computed by Google.

But the point is … that post of mine is STILL in the top ten! Not bad. And certainly no complaints on my part.

What’s the moral of this post? Rankings go up, and rankings go down in the world of search engines. But I will bet you that if I wrote another post or two on the same subject, I just might inch back up. But with all the other pressing projects that are currently on my plate to tackle, those posts will have to be put aside for another day.

Are My Search Engine Optimization Techniques On My Own Sites Effective?

Let’s Take a Look at Another of My High Ranking Keyword Phrases

In my continuing promise to “put my money where my mouth is”, and openly share some of the keyword phrases that I actually use and rank highly for on my own sites, I thought I’d show you a keyword phrase that is bringing a nice trickle of traffic to my blog every day: google search cheats.

As of today’s date (May 29, 2008) I am pleased to say that my SEO efforts have paid off very nicely and I have a top ranking position of #4 out of 389,000 SERPs.

How Did I Achieve This Top-Ten Ranking?

Obviously, I have used the keyword phrase google search cheats and a slight variation of it properly in the Title tag:
<title>Google Search Cheats | Advanced Google Search Techniques</title>

Also, the description that I wrote and inserted into the “All In One SEO Pack” plugin that I do make use of for my blog posts, was also used by Google in the returned result:
<meta name=“description” content=”Utilize Google’s search capabilities to its fullest. Refine your Google searches. Searching tips, techniques and cheats for internet marketers.” />

I will admit that I was focusing on the very competitive keyword phrase “google search” which quite honestly I knew I’d not rank well for at all at this stage of my blog’s age and number of posts, but still decided to stick with that as the main phrase, but use the modifiers of “google search cheats” and “google search techniques”.

Sometimes it is just fun to take a gamble and see what happens with ranking positions. It is my own blog after all, not a client’s site that I am taking chances with. In addition, I like to do experiments with the way I write my tags and the manner in which I utilize keywords when I optimize. I continue to learn and expand my SEO abilities in this way but at my own expense – good or bad! .

If you notice, I didn’t use the combined keyword phrase google search cheats towards the beginning of the description as I would usually do (and teach my clients to do, too) had this been the primary keyword phrase.

But! As can so often can be proven in search engine optimization efforts, NOTHING is set in cement as far as there being a “one right way” to optimize tags. And look what happened! With everything being taken into consideration by the happy little Google spiders, I am ranking #4. Obviously between the way the competition has optimized for the term versus the way I ended up optimizing for the term … Google thinks I did a great job and rewarded me appropriately.

I have also used the keyword phrase effectively in the post’s content. Don’t forget that it just isn’t Title tags and meta tags that come into ranking consideration by the search engines.

As can also happen in one’s SEO efforts, tweaking things every now and then can be a good thing. I see that I chose to name the permalink “seo-google-search-help”. You know what? I’m going to cash in on the fact that “google search cheats” is bringing me some nice traffic, and to help keep the ranking where it is, I’m going to tweak the permalink and change “help” to “cheat”. Why not?

Does this example help you? I hope so. You know, it’s sometimes hard to try and convey the subtleties of how to perform effective SEO techniques. Remember that analysis is necessary when it comes to SEO, and sometimes your efforts pay off in slightly different directions than what you originally had in mind.