Your post is very informative and I’m very thankful for learning about this article.

Thanks again!
Thomas

But in the end, people don’t go past the first page of search results (many not past the first listing), so ranking will continue to matter to anyone with a website. The more niche the market (assuming that means smaller), the more important it is to be the number one listing. So ranking 1st continues to be really important. Of course you could get that ranking through Places listings and in fact that could be a whole lot easier.

Just shows that local businesses are likely to be the winners in Google’s quest to personalise everything to the nth degree.

Take Care,
Nick

Some people say it’s all about the brand, others say it’s all about the keywords and SEO.

In all honesty, i think neither one of these matter. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that as soon as you place a direct emphasis on a given strategy or technique, everything about your business will begin to fall apart because it’s simply a poor foundation and mindset to be coming from.

I think if we start to approach it more along the lines of how actual traditional business people think (Treat the customer with care and provide value), you will set yourself up with a solid foundation for a future proofed and reputable business.

It’s simply a matter of time before all of this gets recognised by the online community. The Internet and the search engines are simply a tool to help aid your business and not the magic bullet.

However I would like to add one. Just because “social signals” are now impacting serps, that doesn’t equate to rankings being dead? We will still have the rankings, We will need to be more involved in social to impact rankings in the future, but that just doesn’t equate to rankings being dead.

Thanks for publishing Best of Luck!

I was just picked up on my use of effective and affective by a team mate… Terrible grammar… Rant ruined…

You make some great points.

Thanks again & take care,
Nick

It’s morning, so this could come across aggressive…

Right, Rankings aren’t dead, and reports certainly aren’t.

Rankings give a good average, they also directly correlate to the amount of traffic you receive for particular terms. Sure that number will drop, but don’t forget that not everyone is going to have personalised search… People won’t always be +1 “ing” websites, and rankings for the moment, won’t be drastically effected.

In fact, I think you will find that any #1 rankings terms that you do have, probably receive a similar amount of traffic that they used to, same goes for all terms that have been in the same position on page 1 for a year.

This is an SEO’s way of attempting to bridge a gap between SEO and UX, where in all actuality there is no gap.

By stating that some sources of SEO are irrelevant, pointless or “DEAD” shows you are trying to push yourself into another sector, that you don’t need pushing into…

Instead use your brain to explain to clients or prospective clients how SEO can encompass a large amount of other areas within online, and dear god, don’t say something is “DEAD”…

Jesus… Page Rank “Died” a long time ago didn’t it? Oh wait, people still use it everyday…

Also, wouldn’t a more helpful and proactive way of titling this be “How to Combat Personalization and Retain Your Rankings / Obtain Visibility”…

Also… Google local results are rankings! How about helping to improve those too…

As for the Social Signals… Jesus, why not provide information on how to improve rankings in this sector.

Even if rankings are not as “important” as they used to be, they are still there, definitelty not dead, and reports can still provide useful information.

Rant Over.