What Exactly Is Page Rank?

Sometimes a client will do some research and read  about  the “Google’s Page Rank” system. The client then uses  this as the sole metric to measure their SEO success.

Wikipedia has a good explanation of Page Rank (PR), but simply it is part of Google algorithm for ranking websites.  The ranking is on a 1 – 10 scale and the higher the score means the more powerful/influential the site.

Why Google Page Rank Is A Bad Metric

To answer my clients with this question I usually focus on the down sides of the Google Page Rank.  The following are the biggest reasons why I don’t really look at Page Rank to closely.

Between 1 -10 which of the million of site is best?

The biggest flaw with the Google Page Rank scoring is that is a 1 – 10 metric.  Out of all billions of sites on the world wide web how do you rank them with a 1 through 10? It’s not very helpful, especially because the a PR7 site is 10x greater than a PR6! The decimal, which they don’t show would be extremely helpful!

PR is only 1 metric in the Google algorigthm

Page rank use to be a lot more important in determining rank on Google, but now it’s 1 of over 200 factors! Focusing solely on someones PR isn’t very practical, and it’s especially hard to see a lot of movement once you get to the higher PR levels.

What’s Your Answer?

I would like to hear from you SEO experts on how you handle this question. Do you have statistics, analogies, or examples do you use to help your clients understand that PR is not the best metric to measure SEO results.

If you have questions or solutions that you think would help other SEO’s please leave them in the comments below. You can also follow @ben_beck on Twitter with the tag #seofaq all this week.

“Why should i hire you to do my SEO? I don’t see you on the top of the search engines for the term SEO” Grrrrrrrrrr, I hate when clients ask me this question! Instead of me being offended and shouting back the first rude and sarcastic thing i can think of, I’ve come up with the following reasons to explain why they should hire me despite not being #1.

SEO FAQ - "Why don't I see you when i search for SEO?"

#1 Doesn’t Always Mean The Best

First I explain to the client that just because someone is #1 on the search engine doesn’t always mean that they are the best or even the most relevant for the search.  To illustrate my point I try to find  a good example. Make sure you check your examples often because they can change frequently, and you don’t want to look like a fool in front of the client.

My Example: One that I like to use is to search “buy car arizona” which seems like the top sites would be of people selling cars for people to buy in Arizona.  Surprisingly the top 2 results are for the DMV, which ironically might make someone reconsider buying a car when they remember they have to go to the DMV take over the title.

Buy Car Arizona SERP - SEO FAQ's from blog.benjaminbeck.com

Not Enough Of Me To Go Around

The other reason why I don’t worry about not being #1 in the search results for SEO consultant is because  simply theirs not enough of me to go around! Currently their are 5,400 searches for the phrase “seo consultant“, and if I get even a leads from 1% of those searches thats still 54 new leads a month! That is a lot of work to do for a small operation and  would be impossible for me to keep all of those clients happy! I still would like to have a life outside of work.

Along the same lines i’m too busy with my current clients to spend the time, money, and energy on making myself number one for these keywords. I am not saying that you shouldn’t try to rank for these keywords with a geo-locator like “seo consultant phoenix” which will be a lot less competitive.

Check Out My SEO Portfolio

The ultimate weapon to combat this question is to show your potential client seo case studies and current examples of your clients rankings. This especially helpful when you have worked with companies that are in a similar niche that they are in.

What’s Your Answer?

I’d like to hear from you, my fellow marketers and SEO’ers on other explanations, examples, etc to answer this question for your clients

I’ve told you some of the explanations that I’ve been using to explain to my clients why they should still hire me to do their SEO despite not being #1 on the search engines. Now I look forward to hearing your ideas and comments!

More From You

The rest of this week we are discussing the F.A.Q’s that SEO’s get all the time. You can follow the discussion on Twitter with the tag #seofaq or here in the comments. Would like to hear what SEO FAQ’s you get the most.

This is probably the most asked question we get as SEO consultants. They are paying us to get them to the top of the search engines, they don’t care about how, but when! Unfortunately as an SEO we have to let them know that we can’t make any promises. Why? Simply we have too many factors that are out of our control.

SEO FAQ - How long until i'm #1 on Google?

The Factors An SEO Can’t  Control

Clients hate hearing that you want to charge them thousands of dollars to do search engine optimization without a solid commitment of when they can expect to see results. They are putting a lot of trust into you, but after explaining how we as SEO consultants don’t control the following factors helps the client realize that what your doing is important but you can’t give exact time tables.

Google’s Algorithm

We don’t work for Google and they are very secretive about there algorithm that determines ranking. Over the years we have figured out what tactics improve, hurt, or do nothing for ranking. Since the algorithm is constantly changing we might be doing something that really helps ranking now, but in a year does nothing. This is why you want to make sure you hire an SEO Expert, not just anyone.

EX:In the early days of Google, meta-keywords were actually something that had some ranking power on Google. Where as now meta-keywords have absolutely none!

Competitions SEO Efforts

We work our hardest to get the best ranking for our clients, but what happens when the competitor above you is also actively doing the same thing? This makes it harder for you to pass them in the ranking

Searchers Habits

The way we know what words to optimize for in on our sites is by past statistics of what people were searching for. If you are in an industry that gets new buzz words often the old data my not be accurate to what people are currently searching.

EX: 80GB Ipod use to be a heavy searched keyword, but since Apple stopped making them and started making Ipads the search terms have really changed.

Whats Your Answer?

I know that this is a very common question that all of SEO consultants have to face on a weekly basis. What statistics, analogies, or other magic tricks help you to get more clients without making commitments that you may not be able to keep?

SEO FAQ Week

Every day this week i’ll be writing about the most asked questions we get as SEO’s. I’d like to hear what your most asked questions in the comments below. You can also follow @ben_beck on Twitter or the tag #seofaq.