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Ahrefs’ URL Rating (UR) correlates nicely with search traffic: pasted image 0 38 If you’re not familiar with UR, it’s our page-level authority metric that works on similar—but not identical—principles to Google’s original PageRank formula. 9. SEO is all about rankings Everyone wants to rank number one, but that’s usually because they assume that the number one result gets the most traffic. However, this isn’t always true. Our study of 100,000 search queries shows that the top-ranking page only gets the most search traffic 49% of the time. 18 top ranking page traffic study Why? Because most pages get traffic from many keywords, not just one. For example, look at the top-ranking pages for “high protein diet.” The page in position two gets more estimated traffic than the page in position one because it ranks for more keywords with search demand.
19 top ranking page traffic The lesson here is that it’s time to indian phone number stop agonizing over first-place rankings and start focusing on traffic instead. You can read more about how to do that here, but the basics are: Cover your topic in more depth. Build more backlinks to boost page-level “authority.” Nail search intent. 10. Keyword research isn’t important Given that most pages rank for hundreds or thousands of keywords, it’s hardly any wonder that some people think keyword research is dead. What’s the point of optimizing for one keyword when you’ll probably get traffic from hundreds of them? That’s flawed logic because a keyword’s popularity usually aligns with the topic’s overall search traffic potential. For example, take these two keywords: 20 keyword search volumes The second keyword has half the search volume of the first.

And if we look at the estimated traffic to each top-ranking page, we see that the page ranking for the higher volume keyword gets way more organic traffic. 21 keyword research top ranking traffic 22 local seo top ranking traffic Sidenote. Search volume is usually a good indicator of traffic potential, but not always. Tim explains more here. Keyword research also helps ensure that you’re optimizing for the most popular way of searching for a topic. That’s important if you want to attract the most organic traffic possible to your page. Read our full keyword research guide to learn more about proper keyword research. Final thoughts Is this an extensive list of SEO myths? Far from it. These are merely some of the most common ones I come across time and time again, so it’s useful to put them to rest. Did I miss any other frustrating myths? Ping me on Twitter.
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