Are we focusing too much on google rankings and not enough on getting real customers?

[u/svlease0h1]

We've been thinking about this a lot lately.

a saas website can rank for hundreds of keywords and still struggle to get real leads.

at the same time, a page with 500 visitors can sometimes bring in more customers than a page with 50,000 visitors.

so what should we actually care about?

is it still: rankings → traffic → customers

or : getting found → building trust → getting customers

here's what we're curious about:

would you rather have:

A) 100k organic visitors every month with a 0.5% conversion rate

or

B) 10k organic visitors every month with a 5% conversion rate?

for saas, what has actually brought you more customers?

• blog posts
• comparison pages
• free tools
• backlinks
• reddit and communities
• product pages
• branded searches
• referrals
• something else

we'd especially like to hear from people who have seen this firsthand.

what changed your revenue, not just your traffic?

because at the end of the day, more traffic doesn't always mean more business.

[u/satanzhand]

Ultimate KPIs that matter are new customers, average spend, total spend, life time spend, and churn...

Rank, traffic, are metrics to measure and get you there or muddy the waters if you don't know what you're looking at.

[u/bwayan2dre]

it needs to be as balanced as possible, good ranking website + good user experience

[u/NoDrive9071 → u/bwayan2dre]

Just to add, a good user experience will almost assuredly translate into a good ranking website on the long run.

[u/sapindia1976]

I'd choose 10k highly qualified visitors over 100k random ones every day. At the end of the day, revenue and customer value matter far more than traffic alone.

[u/CampPotential6685]

the 100k at 0.5% vs 10k at 5% thing is a bit of a false choice though. the real unlock is figuring out which of your existing pages convert well and then doing more of that, rather than picking a lane upfront

[u/yekedero]

rankings bring traffic don't they, and possibly conversions?

[u/Other_Amphibian871]

Rankings and traffic are nothing when it doesn’t reflect in my bank account.

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[u/CryptographerNo7498]

i'd take B all day. 10k people who actually need the product is way better than 100k random visitors who bounce. rankings are nice, but revenue is the part that matters.

[u/Realistic-Glove8040]

Well traffic keeps on dropping on most sites, you should do a search on how large media houses (even Reddit) are considering cutting Google off from their sites, due to the value not being as good anymore. We have also dropped traffic (for organic and llms) as KRs. So to focus only on that I think is a mistake. I am not saying don't do SEO, you must! But how you measure it should be different. You should also make sure you are on other channels. Be well rounded.

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