Most days I receive an email, or two, informing me that I can be guaranteed a Google # 1 spot if I hire that particular search firm. These marketing campaigns are pretty disingenuous because it depends on the keyword difficulty of your target keyword in combination with the relevance of your web site to that particular keyword and the popularity (how many web sites link to your web site with content about your target keyword) of your web site .
The following video, from SEOMOZ nicely explains the importance of keyword difficulty.
The next time that you receive an email guaranteeing you a number 1 spot on Google think about the keyword difficulty for your target keywords. There are many strategies to push a company high on the Google rankings but there are NO guarantees…unless the search term is esoteric. Unfortunately, esoteric search terms generate little traffic.
Many of my prospective clients will inform me with pride that they are ” Google # 1″ and I often have to burst their bubble when point out that there is little value in being # 1 for a keyword that has zero search traffic.