Ranking at the top of Google: what that position is worth for us
Ranking at the top of Google: what that position is worth for us
Aron Meystedt
January 23, 2026
Hello!
Aron here.
We measure what turns ideas into action.
👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
🤖 If you want to take the next small step to validate your idea, mockup your landing page at Base44 and get something live to show everyone!
👉 Build Your Landing Page for FREE in One Minute!
Use our Startup Idea Validation Tool & New Business Idea Generator and contribute to the largest live dataset on how ideas turn into action.
👍 Let’s break down how ranking at the top of Google creates real, measurable value, and how we think about valuing that traffic.
What our free traffic would cost if we had to buy it
Over the past few years, ValidatorAI.com has become a first stop for people deciding whether to pursue their idea at all.
We rank high on Google for over 1000 decision-stage search keywords.
People querying Google: “validate my business idea” or “is this idea worth pursuing?”
We recently looked at what that traffic would cost if we had to acquire it through paid ads.
Here’s what the data shows.
Estimated paid-equivalent value (last 90 days)
Low estimate ██████████ $30k+
Mid estimate ███████████████ $65k+
High estimate ████████████████████ $100k+
How this estimate was calculated
Based on organic clicks multiplied by keyword-level bid ranges from Google’s Keyword Planner.
We pulled every query we rank for from Google Search Console and matched those terms against available PPC data. Only keywords with clear CPC ranges were included, which means this reflects a conservative subset of our actual organic footprint.
The ranges shown use low-to-mid bid estimates, not aggressive advertiser pricing.
Very small subset of validation-intent queries (positions only)
validate startup ideas #1–2
startup idea validator #1–2
idea validator #2–3
validate business idea #1–3
ai idea validator #1–2
is my startup idea good #1–3
validate small business idea #1–2
business idea validation #2–3
ai validation tool #1–2
startup validation ai #1–3
We rank on page one for hundreds of these search phrases.
All content, blogs, newsletters and URLs target these key phrases we want to rank for.
It’s smart to target keywords that have low to medium competition on Google. You can quickly rank for dozens, even hundreds of these phrases and the cumulative searches and traffic start to add up fast!
Why this traffic is durable
Searchers at this stage are deciding whether to move forward, slow down, or stop entirely.
That intent creates three advantages:
People link naturally to outcomes and tools
Queries age well and don’t depend on trends
Rankings compound instead of resetting every cycle
Over time, this creates a steady, defensible stream of high-quality inbound interest.
How we earned these rankings (you can do this too)
We really focused on writing great content, linking it all together, gaining honest and helpful backlinks (over a long period of time) and ensuring our site content and page URLs reflect exactly what we offer. It takes time, and we’ve been at it for 3½ years.
Here’s what consistently mattered:
Built tools around validation and readiness, not generic startup advice (homing in on a narrow niche’ really helped us)
Optimized for how founders actually phrase uncertainty and decisions
Let our core tools generate links through real outcomes and results (it took a while to build our link profile, but the more people used the tools, the more they talked about them)
Republished newsletters as indexable, interlinked pages
Used clear, keyword-shaped URLs that match search intent
Strengthened internal linking from content → tools → related insights. We make sure our main tools are linked in every article and blog post
Cleaned crawl paths, duplicates, and legacy pages in Search Console
Published consistently over multiple years
Launching on Product Hunt really helped jumpstart the backlinks and conversations
Each piece reinforced the others.
👉 Check your Domain Rank and Backlink Profile at AHREF’s Backlink Tool. We like to keep track of our domain ranking and the backlinks we’ve earned.
Speaking of search, ads and the competition: 👇
Stop guessing. Start scaling.
See the top-performing Facebook ads in your niche and replicate them using AI. Gethookd shows you what’s actually working so you can increase ROI and scale ad spend with confidence.
👉 If you want to contribute to (and learn from) this dataset, try the Startup Idea Validation Tool or New Business Idea Generator. Every run strengthens our understanding of what turns curiosity into commitment.
See how we directly linked those keywords 😉
🤖 Drop this prompt into Base44 to start your journey:
“I’m building [X] for [specific customer] who struggle with [specific problem].
My goal is to validate demand by collecting emails and pre-orders.”
👉 Drop that prompt into Base44 and get your idea mocked up in a minute.
Always here to talk through your idea…
Aron Meystedt
Chief Data Nerd at ValidatorAI.com
👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
This newsletter may contain paid promotions. I never recommend a company or service that I wouldn’t use myself. In fact, I decline 9 out of 10 ads that come my way.
Follow along on social media below 👇👇
