You’ll say high PR (here PageRank) and high search engine rankings are the two elements to determine the success of your SEO campaigns. I’ll say: think again. I don’t mean rankings are dead. I mean they are irrelevant.

Let’s say you do rank high for certain keywords and you do have a decent PR. What about your traffic? Is that high enough? And what about the number of ready-to-buy visitors? In short: what about revenue?

If it happens to you that you have high PR and good SE rankings (yes, the positions where you see your site listed in the search result pages) but the traffic is still low and you make no more revenue than before getting such high rankings, then you cannot speak about a successful SEO campaign.

It doesn’t matter how high your rankings are. It makes no difference whether you are number 1 in Google, Yahoo, MSN (etc) or not, when these results don’t bring you traffic. The equation is simple: rankings matter if they bring traffic, traffic matters if it brings ready-to-buy clients.

To measure SEO success, SEO experts used to employ ranking reports. I guess it’s clear so far why these are irrelevant. Then what should you use? The answer comes from Google again: Web analytics.

Google Analytics is a great tool. According to Google (and you can bet on it!) it tells you all “you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You’ll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.”

Now, most webmasters use Google Analytics with AdWords. But the tool was not designed solely for AdWords users. This tool could and should be used by all serious online entrepreneurs to develop successful SEO campaigns.

So, I suggest, when you choose a SEO company, don’t go for those promising you high rankings for a certain keyword, but for those able to get you high rankings for the relevant keywords, those keywords that will bring you traffic and help increase revenue.

And use a Web Analytics program to measure their success. It’s not that difficult. Just visit Google’s page, create and account, read the FAQ and learn by doing.

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Mihaela Lica is the owner of Pamil Visions and a featured author of Thumbshots.org. She specializes in online public relations and branding, SEO, Web writing and W3C, ADA  compliant Web development.