Google Rankings: Chasing #1 Could Be Hurting Your Bottom Line | Ranking vs Revenue
Chasing the #1 spot on Google might actually be harming your bottom line
When it comes to rankings vs revenue, most business owners assume they go hand-in-hand.
Have you heard otherwise before? I doubt it.
If you think about it there could be several reasons for this.
For example, spending money on SEO that doesn’t move the needle.
Spending money on pay-per-click ads that don’t do anything except help Google make more money.
Another thought is being number one on Google, but Google sending you bargain hunters instead of actual buyers.
I’m going to discuss 10 different ways that being first in a Google search is costing you money. I know this idea might sound totally nuts, but read on and at the end you might agree with me.
1. The Myth of “More Traffic = More Money”
Is your SEO person working on getting more traffic to your website?
Of course they are. That’s what you’re paying them for.
What if more traffic doesn’t bring you more leads or actual sales?
This is the classic debate of rankings vs revenue: you can rank #1 for high-volume keywords, but if those visitors aren’t local buyers, that traffic won’t generate income.
I’ve seen this many times. For example, if you are a plumber. Your SEO is doing a great job of getting articles up on your website.
Articles like
* “What to look for when buying a new water heater” or
* “How to keep your main sewer line clear of tree roots.”
These articles work great for bringing traffic from all over the U.S., but few. If any local visitors. You’ve spent a ton of money on the wrong articles.
Here are some article titles that could make a local plumber money:
* “The 3 best places to buy a hot water heater in St. George” or
* “Why do so many homes in Southern Utah get sewer line stoppages?
2. Google’s Intent Mismatch
Are information seekers wasting your hard earned rankings?
For example: Let’s say you own a local auto repair shop and you want more business from the web.
You even go so far as to hire a local whiz kid to help you improve your website. And you see that your website improvement is causing more people to visit your website, but not getting the phone to ring. You go to your site and look at the articles that your whiz kid has posted and you immediately know why you aren’t getting leads. There are articles on your site like:
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- “How to replace a oil pan in your 1990 Chevy truck” and
- “Why don’t my windows roll up any more?”
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You fix this by revising the article to better match the search intent you are looking for like:
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- “How much will it cost to replace the oil pan in my truck?”
See the difference? One person is a “looker” and the other one is in buying mode.
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3. Why Ranking #1 On Google Attracts Price Shoppers
Having a lot of price shoppers look at your website isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
If you provide a service and are #1 in a search you are going to get price shoppers. Probably a lot of price shoppers. Mostly price shoppers.
But…this is a numbers game. For a certain number of price shoppers visiting your site there will be a few real buyers sprinkled in.
For example, imagine owning a lawn care business. You’re getting tons of visitors to your website. Your SEO person is doing a great job. They let you know that for every 100 visitors (that’s a lot of looky loo’s) you do get one good long term customer. Your #1 ranking attracts price shoppers, but it also attracts a few actual buyers.
4. The Local SEO Arms Race
An arms race in ranking your website? Well kind of.
Let’s say you decide to do a Google pay-per-click campaign. You ad goes up. But then your local competitor increases their ad spend (bids) to outrank your ad. You both go back and forth raising your bids over and over. This is a losing game as you can see.
There is also another scenario. You hire an SEO company to try to out rank your competitor. They see what’s happening because their ranking goes down as yours go up. So they spend more money on SEO to try to win the race. You do the same and so on.
5. The Potential Profit-Killing Cost of SEO Agencies
There are many SEO companies that should lower their heads in shame.
(If you have hired someone that did next to nothing…well, we’re not all like that).
It’s possible that you are spending money on SEO and getting nothing in return. Your profits are going into enriching the SEO company and not you. Your ROI is negative. You get a tax write-off, but no profits.
Hopefully this hasn’t happened to you. If it has, you’re on the right website. We care about our clients and their success. Contact us at (435) 879-1239.
6. Google’s Constant Algorithm Changes
Google makes changes to its search results every few months. As I write this in July of 2026, there have been 3 Google algorithm updates this year.
For some website owners, they see or have seen the updates destroy their search results.
If you have a decent website that doesn’t involve trickery, your site will be fine. You won’t need to spend even more money to fix the issues.
7. The Rise of Zero-Click Searches
So, you’re #1 on a Google search for your speciality, but you keep seeing clicks going down.
Welcome to the world of AI.
AI will often answer a search query without links going out to helpful websites. No links, no clicks.
How would I combat this situation?
Write content that interests AI’s and hope they link to your site.
Create interesting, sharable assets. This usually refers to infographics, but it can refer to interactive assets like the one on this page of our website: https://outoftheboxseo.com/property-managerment-content-creation/
Creating assets sets up a situation where you get visitors to your site because you have something new and interesting.
Best case scenario: Your clickable asset goes viral.
8. Why Local Trust Beats Local Rankings
My experience: Imagine getting so many calls from real customers that you stop answering the phone. These are customers that trust you and only want you to help them.
Of course that rarely happens. It does happen though.
When I owned my window cleaning business, occasionally Southern Utah would get what I call “mud storms.” St. George mud storms happen when we get light rain and blowing dust. This creates mud which gets on everything including the windows.”
After these storms I would get so many calls for window cleaning I couldn’t keep up.
The first time it happened I had to stop answering the phone because I was getting overwhelmed and over-stressed.
The second time it happened I scheduled the window cleaning to be 3 or 4 weeks later, and I would tell the client to use the hose to spray off the mud. This solution would keep them satisfied until I could get to them and clean their windows.
I didn’t need to rank #1 on Google for this to happen. I built up trust over the years. So much trust that my clients insisted that they use me to get the mud off of their windows.
9. A Better Strategy Than Ranking #1
Here are three ideas off the top of my head to help you get more customers, whether you rank #1 on Google or not.
* Build your referral business. For my window cleaning business, after I was done cleaning a client’s windows I would give them a gift card to give to their neighbors, family, friends, etc. The card was good for $35 off an outside window cleaning or $50 off an inside and outside window cleaning. I would give the recipient (friend, family, etc.) the discount and I would give the person that gave away the card the same amount off their next window cleaning
* Fix your website to convert better. Your website should get you business. It should act as a sales person. Have a friend look at it as if they were a customer, then use that feedback to improve your website conversion rate.
* Create sharable assets: As mentioned before, create or have your SEO create clickable, sharable assets. If they’re good, these will attract more visitors to your site.
The winning SEO game isn’t about patting yourself on the back. It is about rankings vs revenue. Make the right changes and the bottom line will take care of itself.
Reddit – r/SEO
Note: This thread has 150 responses. It would be worth looking at. Tap here.
HyHoang – The more I do SEO the more I realize Google doesn’t know what “Quality content” even means
“It’s insane how Google is ranking an incredibly low-effort article that’s obviously AI slop with absolutely no images on top of well-written content that is longer, flows better, has more images, more informative, more entertaining.”
Answer: hotpotato87
“tell me if you understood this before or not. what ranks at top on serp for each keyword or longtails were tested by google. they allowed millions of urls to rank on top, then measuring how search users interacted with the website each visited, based on these data they rank the most suitable urls that gives their search users to their favor, whatever it is. so it means you create a novel about something that your targeted kw doesnt need (search user decided that by not visiting similar urls with your type of novels) so what will rank? good content? whatever content that makes people come back to use google.”
