Google’s Not Sure – So Move On

If you are think of optimising for a very generic term, you look at the SERP for that term, and make a call about whether its worth targetting. Yes? It could be full of irrelevant sites (for your purposes), or the term may have a number of meanings – English lesson over.

In the same way, if you come across a SERP for a niche term that is equally mixed, or contains results that do not suit your audience, move on. Its now your job to find out the variation of that term that does give the user (a user interested in your site) the best results; a place where they are much more likely to click-through. I have heard a lot of talk about SERPs that are ‘broken’ – but what’s the point dwelling on this when your time is surely much better spent optimising for the terms that people are using, and they are getting the best results. If you know what term people use after seeing a ‘broken’ SERP, then that is the one you need to be visible for.

Any SERP that get any decent amount of traffic that is genuinely showing bad results will get sorted, I am sure. Anything more than reporting a SERP and moving on is holding you up from doing your most productive work – optimising for terms that are going to give you, or your clients, results.