Some time ago I mentioned the importance of SERP review and analysis, and even offered to cover some SERP review on this blog. I haven’t forgotten, but that project grew into something a bit more interesting and will take a bit more time to get posted. In the mean time, I was just reminded again of the importance of perspective when looking at the SERPs.

I believe it is essential to look at yourself in the mirror each day, before you start out yet another day in the rat race. Some call that vain, but it’s only vanity when all you see in that mirror is yourself. Get too caught up in that central portion of the mirror and you may end up like Narcissus. What you should be noticing are the details of everything around you. Everything in the back ground. Everything “coming up behind you”.

The Google SERP is that mirror. Do you check the SERPs for your targets? What do you look for? Too often the client looks for his web page, sees where it is, and focuses on it. How does it perform? Is it #1 or #2? How is the snippet? Was it well-crafted? Did Google make one up that doesn’t work well? And if it’s not #1, she will then look at #1 with contempt more often than respect. I bet the words muttered into the mirror are more often “How did HE get there” than “HOW did he GET there?”

The vain way of looking is known as ego surfing. Ego surfers look for themselves, and only look at themselves. When you look at the SERPs, use your page as an anchor for review and ignore the content. Look above your page, with the scrutiny you would normally apply to your eye lashes, your hairline, or your teeth in the morning mirror. Then look below your page with similar attention. Here’s a test for you: at 6pm, ask yourself “what was my position in Google this morning?”. Then ask yourself, “Who was behind me?” I suggest that you need to know the latter more than you need to know the former. If you’re too focused on yourself, someone is very likely to sneak up behind you in the SERPs. By the time you are watching them outrank you (watching them with contempt?), your SEO costs have at least doubled.

Topical Tags:SEO

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 8:09 am and is filed under SEO, Competitive Webmastering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.