A number one ranking is worth exactly what the people typing that search are worth to your business. Some searches bring buyers, most bring readers, and some bring people you can never sell to. Traffic is a count. Customers are the result, and the two are further apart than most keyword lists admit.
Distance to money
I like to think of every topic as sitting at some 'distance to money'. "Espresso machine leaking water" is one step from a repair booking or a replacement. "How does an espresso machine work" is a school project. Both are espresso searches. Only one of them pays for the page.
The rule: sort topics by distance to money first, and by search volume second. The consequence is that a small topic next to the sale beats a big topic three steps away. The far topics are not worthless, they make your site look like it knows the subject, but they come later, once the near ones exist.
| Distance | What the searcher is doing | Espresso example | Worth to an espresso machine shop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buying | Looking for an offer or a supplier | "espresso machine deals" | Highest |
| Choosing | Deciding what to get | "best espresso machine under 500" | High |
| Fixing | Owns one, has a problem | "espresso machine leaking water" | High for a repair service, lower for a shop |
| Learning | Curious | "how does an espresso machine work" | Low. Builds coverage |
| Unrelated | Wrong audience | "espresso martini recipe" (coffee is in it, a machine is not) | Zero |
One keyword, two distances. "best espresso machine" gets 4,400 searches a month and the person is choosing. For a shop that sells machines that is one step from the till. "How to descale an espresso machine" is asked by people who already own one. For the same shop it is three steps away. For a shop that sells descaler and water filters it is next door. The keyword did not change. What you sell moved it along the line.
Worked example: distance depends on the offer, not the keyword
Two expectations to set before you start. Google says it plainly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google" (opens in new tab), so plan for a topic, never for a position. And a page's visits are a count, while the enquiries it produces are the result. Judge pages by the second number.
Step by step
- Write down what you sell, in three to five lines. Distance is measured from here. Without this list every topic looks equally good.
- For each topic, finish the sentence "Someone searching this is about to …". If the sentence ends in something you sell, the topic is near. If it ends in "learn", it is far.
- Sort the topics by distance, then by demand. Two columns in a spreadsheet are enough. The order falls out on its own.
- Build the Choosing and Buying topics first. They produce enquiries while the rest of the map is still growing.
- Keep the Learning topics on the map. They are how a site ends up covering the whole subject, which is what step 3 of this Academy is about. They are just not where you start.
- Track enquiries per page, not visits per page. The measuring section shows how: Which numbers to track, and which to ignore.
When you need this, and when you don't
You need this every time a topic goes onto the map. It takes a minute per topic and it stops you from spending three months on a subject that brings readers and no customers.
You don't need it for pages that exist for other reasons: your about page, the contact page, the legal pages, a page a customer asked you for. Those are not on the map and they don't have to earn a ranking.
Next
- Next page: Topic-first SEO glossary. Every word the Academy uses, defined once.
- Then start step 2, Find your topics, where the distance-to-money list becomes real topics.
- See who is actually in the results for a keyword before you decide it is near the money, with the free What Ranks Here tool.
- If you would rather have the map built and sorted for you: Done for you.