Whether you call yourself an “SEO”, an “online marketer”, or an “inbound marketer”, you probably still keep one eye on search rankings most days. Unfortunately, the past couple of years haven’t been kind to those of us who watch rankings – personalization and localization have complicated the picture, the rise of (not provided) and Google’s crackdown on rank-tracking tools have taken away useful data, and a diversity of new advertising options and SERP features are pushing even the coveted #1 spot farther and farther down the page.

Is there a better way, and can we imagine life beyond rankings? I’m going to argue that rankings still have an important role, but I think we also have to broaden our view and consider more diverse metrics, including search traffic, aggregate rankings, and traffic diversity.