Rankings alone can be overrated. They don't measure sales and conversions — the bottom line — and they also don't necessarily equate to increased traffic.

On the other hand, a low ranking does not necessarily mean your web site is a ghost town, but even if it's not a ghost town, high traffic in and of itself can also be overvalued, if it's not the targeted traffic that you want.

If you're a local, small to medium sized business, and in particular if you don't sell products online, then location plays a critical factor in increasing targeted traffic to your site.

Let's face it: the most widely used search engine used these days is Google, and Google is pretty smart. Google (and other search engines, as well) knows where you are when you're searching. Specifically, it knows the location of your IP address, and more specifically, your IP's sub-net.

For instance, a web seeker may live in Murfreesboro, TN, but depending on their Internet Service Provider, their network's sub-net may be located in Nashville, TN. If they go online and do a simple one word search, for instance, guitars, chances are the highest results will likely be sponsored results from national retailers, and below these would be highly placed organic results for national retailers, and then below these businesses in Nashville. The same one word search in Chicago would likely yield the same sponsored and highest ranked results, followed by businesses local to Chicago.

So, what if your business is located in Murfreesboro? The seeker in Murfreesboro may possibly see your business in organic search results from one word, if their network hub is located closer to home.

There are things that can be done to help you be included in those Nashville results, but overall you'll want to target your local business to your local clientele.

Being seen mostly by the locals may not garner you a high ranking in the overall scheme of things, and you may not get a lot of traffic from all over the globe, but being in those top results is where you want to be when your local customers are seeking out your local products and services. And it's those seekers who are seeking what you have to offer that will be the ones you want to target your traffic to, because they're the ones who can walk into your business as prospective customers.