Just wondering. For your given keyword or phrase, do you guys use your placement compared to the number of search results as a measure of success ? If you are targeting "widgets" and you place on the first page of the search results out of 20 million. Is that the whole kit and caboodle ? Seems kind of anti climatic.
If I understood your question right, number of search results isn't a factor to determine success. I have an article in my blog about how do I determine right keywords. How to choose keywords
In search engine optimization you messure success on the amount of traffic and sales you generate from the search engines. I belive that in todays word SEO goes deeper than simply achiving rankings. You also need to increase traffic and sales which after all is the whole point to SEO.
Agreed. I have seen so many people around here get so exited when they are #1 for a search term, but never do they mention that they also get 5k visitors a day. Seems like they are putting a lot of resources into the battle but not paying attention to the war.
number of search result is a minor indicator. you should focus more on number of searches performed per month which will tell you how profitable a term can be. more searches per month, more profitable a term is, and higher the competition will be