Of course there is value in ranking in the top spot in Google. We're not trying to tell you there isn't. However, it's important to understand that rank isn't the only way to measure the success of your SEO efforts. It's a good idea to keep an eye on rankings because too much fluctuation could be a sign of a bigger issue but focusing too much on rank can make you crazy and frustrated and it's not going to get you anywhere. Here are 3 reasons why rank is the wrong metric to pay attention to when measuring SEO success. Search is personalized. The search engines want to provide the best results to users which is why search results are becoming more personalized.    

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Word on the street is that Penguin 2.0 will be coming to a Google organic search result near you very shortly. If you aren't familiar with the Google Penguin algorithm update, it was first launched in the spring of 2012 and targeted websites that were using low quality (spammy) link building tactics. According to Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google, Penguin 2.0 will be significant. Website owners- you've been warned.  

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Links are an important component of SEO because the search engine spiders crawl the web from link to link to determine what certain pages are about in order to rank them properly. While the link focus of an SEO campaign tends to be on generating valuable inbound links to a site from outside sources in order to establish trust it is important not to forget about the internal linking structure of a site. The internal linking structure of a site is important primarily for usability purposes.

Recently I had the chance to interview SEO expert Ted Ives. Ted previously served as Vice President of Product Management at The Search Agency, and currently helps enterprises to scale up online marketing efforts through custom engagements tailored to their unique situations. His background working for technology companies, including Apple, Microsoft, APC, and National Semiconductor, gives him a unique perspective on SEO.  Thanks so much to Ted Ives for spending the time to answer all of my questions!  

I am a strictly white hat link building advocate and have been my whole SEO career. That means I believe that SEO campaigns need to play by the rules set forth by the search engines (as best as we can understand them anyway) and to avoid anything that might land your website in hot water. There are a lot of different things you have to take into account when deciding whether or not a link is white hat, and one of those qualifications is relevancy.

Your keyword research is not set in stone. The best keywords for your SEO program are bound to change as your business, industry and searcher behavior evolves. For instance, the concept of "social media marketing" didn't even exist until a few years ago and now it gets 165,000 searches a month in the US alone.

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