Learn How and Why Any Page is Ranking with this 3-Step Process

Today I’m talking about how to dominate the big topics you want to rank for by serving the ambiguity of your topic.

This is my quick 3-step process for understanding what it will take to get a page to rank for a keyword/topic.

Let’s say you want to rank for a short keyword like “car seat.”

Here’s where I’d start to understand what I’m up against (I’d do this exact thing for any keyword you give me, seriously go ahead and email me with a keyword and I might send you back a 5-minute video breakdown).

1. Search that keyword in Semrush’s keyword magic tool.
   You’ll see that there are 422,557 different ways people search that contain some variation of “car seat.”
2. Search that keyword in Google and audit the search results.
   You’ll see product ads and “People also ask” high up in the results because Google knows there is a lot of ambiguity and a lot of different potential intentions (remember, 400,000+ different variations). The unique search engine results page of any keyword is telling a story— you just need to learn how to interpret it.
3. Audit the first few organic results.
   Target has a page that ranks #1 for car seats (here it is). That one page is ranking well, not just because they offer 295 different car seats (although plenty of options help). It’s because on that page, they offer a great navigational and educational experience that covers the topic of car seats well.

Auditing these three things helps me to start prescribing a strategy that can get a page(s) of your website ranking for keywords that are valuable to your business.

Great Content + Great Navigation + Great Organization = Search Engine Topic Dominance

Target’s car seat hub page contains just about everything you could possibly need in regards to car seats (trust me, I’m a recent new parent).

On their ranking page they offer:

• Car seat safety tips
• Car seat and stroller toys
• Car seat bases
• Car seat accessories
• Car seat size guide
• And of course, car seats with a great filter.

If Target simply just offered an experience that only contained car seats and not links to additional, helpful information, they would not be ranking #1 for “car seats.”

In order to dominate any keyword or topic, you must serve the spectrum of ambiguity.

• Identify ambiguity by taking a search-first approach (understanding all the ways people search related to your topic).
• Build a website and content experience for your user, not your ideal outcomes, first.
• Create a logical hierarchy of information and make it super simple to navigate.
• Don’t think about what you can get from a keyword, think about what you can give to a keyword.

It’s at this point (after quite a bit of hard work) that you’ll start getting an abundance of traffic that leads to an audience with a brand affinity for your organization and you’ll likely start generating meaningful results for your business.