I Conquered the SEO Universe With “Zibberwabble”

I may be one of the greatest SEOs of all time…

In every pitch, content, and social gathering, I’m going to talk about my page 1 rank for Zibberwabble.

It must get me respect.

After all, achieving page 1 ranks in Google is a clear indication of an SEO’s ability.

Everything I Said So Far Is Complete BS

Let’s get this straight…

Getting a page 1 rank does not mean you are good at SEO. (Or, if you are getting pitched SEO services, it doesn’t mean they are good at it).

Sometimes it does, but it also can mean you are getting somewhere in the ballpark of zero traffic. More on this in a bit…

First, let’s define Zibberwabble.

What is Zibberwabble?

Zibberwabble is a completely made-up word (thanks ChatGPT) to demonstrate the foolishness of obsessing over ranking for irrelevant keywords and the need to refocus our efforts on what truly matters in the world of SEO – driving traffic that gets results.

Now, let’s talk about why page 1 ranks can be meaningless.

Reason One Page One Ranks Can Be BS: Insufficient Volume / Low Rank

Many SEOs talk about their quality work by saying they rank on page 1.

But, they are far down on page one for a keyword that doesn’t get significant traffic.

Let’s take “blackhat SEO techniques” as an example.

I’m using this keyword because it’s another issue I have with the SEO industry… my estimate is that over 90% of SEOs/agencies blatantly violate Google’s policies to try to cheat the system. We’ll save that one for another day.

That keyword gets roughly 100 people searching for it a month globally. And let’s get generous and use the “traffic potential” which includes traffic the top-ranking post gets from other similar keywords. So, 300 people a month.

Now let’s look at this nice chart that shows how many people click each result in Google (we usually click the first result)…

Let’s do simple math and assume the person bragging is ranking page 1 but position 10 (last). Well, that gets 2.4% of the clicks and there are 300 clicks.

Great, you’re getting 7.2 clicks per month.

Now most businesses need the visitor to convert (some just care about traffic for ads).

If the website converts at 3%, then the post will take ~14 months to get a conversion!

If you want to be getting at least one conversion when you rank 10, you’ll need to be ranking for a keyword that has over 1,300 volume a month (1,300 volume * 2.4% CTR * 3% conversion). All VERY rough estimates BTW.

So that’s nothing to brag about… how about scenario two?

Reason Two Page One Ranks Can Be BS: No Volume

“I am ranking page one AND position 1 for Zibberwabble.”

^Wow he must be super good at SEO.

Well let’s put this statement through two tests…

Test 1: Keyword Tools

I plugged this keyword into Ahrefs to see how much volume it estimates the keyword gets.

It gets zero traffic.

But keyword tools are usually pretty inaccurate, especially for low-volume keywords.

So let’s go to test two…

Test 2: Google

I find many lucrative keywords by going to Google and seeing what shows up in autocomplete.

I often find keywords in Google autocomplete that show 0 volume in keyword tools.

💡 All autocomplete keywords come 100% from what people actually search.

So let’s test my claim that I conquered the SEO universe by ranking for Zibberwabble using Google autocomplete…

No matching terms in autocomplete.

This means that the term Zibberwabble isn’t searched in volume.

Therefore, ranking for Zibberwabble is actually super easy, because nobody searches for it (I mean the damn word is made up).

Talk About Valuable Achievements Instead Of Vanity Statements

To all SEOs: Let’s talk about stuff that actually delivers value! It’s not necessarily a bad thing to say you have a page 1 rank, but don’t do it unless you know it’s driving results.

To all Non-SEOs: If someone is pitching their services to you based on “page 1” ranks, ask to see the traffic those pages have brought in. It’s not necessarily a red flag they are talking about page 1 ranks, but it’s also not necessarily a guarantee of success.

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Zibberwabble out!