Key Concept Number 2: – “Ranking is ONLY in relation to the search being done.”

First, realise that a given page will rank in different positions for different searches. If I have a site with a page about “bee sting cures”, I may have achieved a good Page 1 rank for a search on “bee sting cures”, while that same page may not even be in the top one hundred for a search on “bumble bees”.

Same page, different ranking. Where I rank depends on the search being done.

Second, understand that there are no set rankings. When you do a search, Google takes all the pages it deems appropriate for that search, orders them by relevance and ‘strength’, then presents the results at that time . That same search may yield different results the next day. Ranking is determined when asearch is done.

In other words, THERE IS NO ‘RANKING ORDER’ UNTIL A SEARCH IS BEING DONE. This is why rankings change. New pages are constantly being added (‘indexed’)– and deleted (‘de-indexed’) – and their values are constantly being updated. A particular search on one day might have certain pages ranking higher than others, while the same search a few days later may have different pages, or the same pages but with different ‘values’ and therefore in a different order.

It is a mis- statement to say, “My site finally reached the first page in Google.” First, it must be in relation to a search, so “My site finally reached the first page in Google for the phrase “Paralegal Training” would be more accurate.

Again, it isn’t the site that has a ranking position, but a specific page. And so, my site on Paralegal Certification might have a page devoted to “Paralegal Training,” and that page might rank on Page 1 for that phrase, but it is that specific page, not the site itself.

All of this means that if we are trying to rank for a particular keyword or phrase, we have to be ‘relevant’ and ‘strong’ for that phrase. We do this by optimizing our page for the keywords we want to rank for (on-page factors), and boost our ‘strength’ by increasing our “Total Backlink Value” for those keywords (when we rank for keywords without specifically targeting them, it’s through a combination of ‘brute force’ and weak/low competition, meaning the overall ‘strength’ of our page happens to be high enough to outrank other pages).