{"id":26762,"date":"2019-03-28T05:31:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=26762"},"modified":"2023-12-04T04:13:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T09:13:10","slug":"ranking-number-one-is-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/ranking-number-one-is-overrated\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking #1 on Google Is Overrated (Ahrefs\u2019 Study of 100k Keywords)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Everybody wants to rank number one, but is this really the right goal to pursue? Our study of 100k keywords says not always. <\/div>\n

I haven\u2019t done any client SEO work for many years, but I\u2019m sure the gist is much the same as it was 5-10 years ago:<\/p>\n

Can you rank my website #1 in Google for these keywords? <\/strong>How long will it take? How much will it cost?<\/div><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing is wrong with any of those questions, but they do demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how SEO works in 2019. Why? Because ranking #1 doesn\u2019t always equate to SEO success.<\/p>\n

The amount of traffic (that drives sales and conversions) is what really matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re tired of explaining this to clients, then you\u2019ll love the results of this study.<\/p>\n

The epiphany: the top-ranking page doesn\u2019t always get the most search traffic<\/h2>\n

I use Ahrefs Keywords Explorer<\/a>\u2014our keyword research<\/a> tool\u2014almost daily.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, this is to check the search popularity of topics we\u2019re thinking of writing about on the blog. Sometimes though, it\u2019s just for fun.<\/p>\n

Case in point, last week I found myself wondering about the most popular searches that start with \u201chow do I learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curious too? Here you go:<\/p>\n

\"how<\/p>\n

Still, these days, I rarely pay much attention to the search volume of individual keywords (I explained why here<\/a> and here<\/a>). Rather, I look at the amount of search traffic to the top-ranking pages.<\/p>\n

To explain why, take a look at the query \u201csubmit website to search engines\u201d in Ahrefs\u2019 Keywords Explorer. It gets 1,400 searches per month in the US.<\/p>\n

\"Keywords<\/p>\n

If we assume a click-through rate of ~30%, then the search traffic potential of this keyword in the US is ~400 per month (1,400 * 0.3).<\/p>\n

Now look at how much US search traffic the top-ranking pages get:<\/p>\n

\"Keywords<\/p>\n

Some of those numbers are closing in on 20x our estimation above!<\/p>\n

Why does this happen? Because those pages also rank for<\/a>\u2014and get traffic from\u2014hundreds of long-tail keywords.<\/p>\n

Now take another look at the screenshot above.<\/p>\n

Do you notice anything? I do:<\/p>\n

The top-ranking page isn\u2019t the one that gets the most total search traffic!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is something I notice all the time. The top-ranking page often gets less search traffic than other pages in the SERP.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another interesting observation:<\/p>\n

The traffic numbers of the top-ranking pages rarely show the trend you might expect. They don\u2019t always go in descending order.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the case in the screenshot above. The page ranking in position #1 gets less traffic than those in positions #2 and even #10!<\/p>\n

So, the question is: how often does this actually happen, and what impact (if any) does it have on the way you do SEO?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, I got our data science team to study this at scale.<\/p>\n

The study: how often does the top-ranking page not<\/u> get the most search traffic?<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s what we did:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Took over 100,000 (non-branded) search queries with at least 1,000 searches* per month in the US;<\/li>\n
  2. Pulled the top 10 ranking pages for each of them;<\/li>\n
  3. Pulled the total US search traffic for each of the pages;<\/li>\n
  4. Calculated how often the top-ranking page got the most search traffic.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Sidenote.<\/div> *the keywords we analyzed had either 1k-2k, 5k-6k, or 10k-11k monthly searches. <\/div>\n

    And here\u2019s what we got:<\/p>\n

    \"how<\/p>\n

    This pie-chart clearly shows that ranking #1 is overrated. <\/strong><\/p>\n

    The top-ranking page gets the most total search traffic only 49% of the time!<\/p>\n

    Sidenote.<\/div> we actually studied those ~100k keywords in three groups by search volume (1k-2k, 5k-6k, 10k-11k). Our thinking was that the results may be different based on the search popularity of the keyword. But the resulting numbers were so close that we decided not to share all three experiments and take the average instead.<\/div>\n

    The lesson: it\u2019s time to stop agonizing over ranking #1 and start focusing on relevant search traffic<\/h2>\n

    Please don\u2019t get me wrong here.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m not trying to convince you that ranking #1 for your \u201cmain keyword\u201d is a foolish goal. It isn\u2019t, so there\u2019s no need to stop sending your clients pretty reports detailing the ranking progress for their desired keywords.<\/p>\n

    The position of a page in Google for your head term is still a good indicator of SEO success.<\/p>\n

    In fact, it has the highest correlation with the search traffic of a page out of all the variables we\u2019ve studied:<\/p>\n

    \"how<\/p>\n

    But notice how it doesn\u2019t correlate at \u201c1.\u201d<\/p>\n

    That means it\u2019s possible to get more traffic than your rivals even when they outrank you.<\/p>\n

    And here is how you do that:<\/p>\n

    1. Cover your topic in more depth<\/h3>\n

    Here are the top-ranking pages for the search query \u201ckeyword research tools:\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"Keywords<\/p>\n

    Our post only ranks at position #6, yet gets almost 3x more traffic than the article from Backlinko that ranks #1.<\/p>\n

    One of the reasons for this is that we went after two very close topics with a single article:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \u201ckeyword research tools\u201d<\/li>\n
    2. \u201cfree keyword research tools\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      So not only do we rank in the top 5 for queries related to keyword research tools<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

      \"keyword<\/p>\n

      \u2026 but also free<\/strong> keyword research tools<\/em>.<\/p>\n

      In fact, our article ranks in the top 5 for 191 search queries (in the US) with the word \u201cfree\u201d in them.<\/p>\n

      \"Organic<\/p>\n

      The top-ranking article from Backlinko only ranks for four.<\/p>\n

      Editor\u2019s Note<\/div>
      \n

      So how do you actually \u201ccover your topic in more depth?\u201d Here are a couple of tips:<\/p>\n

      Tip #1: <\/strong>Check the Phrase match<\/strong> report in Ahrefs\u2019 Keywords Explorer.<\/a> Look for long-tails<\/a> you can simultaneously cover alongside your main topic.<\/p>\n

      \"keywords<\/p>\n

      Tip #2: <\/strong>Paste the URLs of the top 3 ranking pages into our Content gap tool<\/a>. Filter only for keywords that include your main topic.<\/p>\n

      \"content<\/p>\n<\/div>

      \"Joshua<\/div>
      Joshua Hardwick<\/div>
      Head of Content<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

      My next point can probably be considered an extreme case of this, rather than a standalone one, but still\u2026<\/p>\n

      2. Create an \u201cauthority\u201d page on your topic<\/h3>\n

      Take a look at this SERP for the keyword \u201cchocolate lab:\u201d<\/p>\n

      \"Keywords<\/p>\n

      Two interesting things are happening here:<\/p>\n

      First<\/strong>, the page in position #4 gets more search traffic than the top-ranking page. If you open both these articles side by side you\u2019ll immediately see why:<\/p>\n