---
name: striking-distance-prioritisation
description: Use when you need traffic in weeks rather than months and already have a site with Search Console history.
---

# Striking Distance Prioritisation

Most keyword plans start from scratch and ignore the demand a site has already proven it is relevant for. Chasing brand new terms wastes months because ranking from nothing needs links and time. Terms where you already sit in positions eight to twenty move with on-page work alone, because Google has already decided you belong in the consideration set.

## What you need first

- Search Console query export for the last 3 to 6 months
- ability to edit titles and on-page content
- a way to see which URL currently ranks for each query

## Method

1. Export queries with 90 days of data, filtered to impressions above a floor that suits your site - roughly 50 impressions in the window for a small site.
2. Filter to average position between 8 and 20. Below 8 you are already harvesting; above roughly 25 the gap is usually authority, not on-page.
3. Sort by impressions descending, not by position. A term at position 18 with 4,000 impressions is worth more than a term at position 9 with 60.
4. For each candidate, confirm which URL ranks. If two URLs alternate across the period, you have a cannibalisation problem and must fix that before any content edit.
5. Check the query appears in the ranking page's title and first 100 words. Missing title inclusion is the single most common cause of stalling around position 12.
6. Ship changes in batches of ten to fifteen URLs and re-pull the same report at 28 days to measure position change rather than clicks, which are too noisy at low volume.

## What this produces

A ranked worklist of existing URLs with the specific query each should target and the on-page change required.

## Where this goes wrong

- Using average position across a period where the page was re-indexed, which averages two different realities into a meaningless number.
- Adding new paragraphs when the actual fix was the title tag, so you cannot tell what worked.
- Including branded queries in the filter, which sit at position 8 to 20 only for irrelevant long-tail brand variants.

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From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/striking-distance-prioritisation