Being in the SEO game since 2005, I can attest to it getting progressively harder and I can tell you in my experience, there’s 5 reasons for this, all of which have solutions.
Now I’ll be giving you a list of each reason SEO is getting harder, but with each reason, I’ll be explaining why that “problem” presents an opportunity at the same time.
Contents
Firstly: Expectations are too unrealistic for people.
I talk to and get countless questions from people wanting to get into SEO and if I were categorize the kinds of questions most of those people have, it would be things like this:
- How do I get fast rankings?
- What’s the best SEO strategy for fast rankings?
- What’s the best tool to get on the first page of Google fast?
- How do I make money through this business as fast as possible?
- What is the secret to getting fast results in Google rankings?
- And things like that…
All of these questions indicate to me that the person asking them is very inexperienced and EXPECTS fast results and I have often cited places like Quora where this is asked.
Just have a look at that link I placed and you’ll see these kinds of questions occupy the majority of SEO questions on Quora, and this speaks to the bigger picture of what people are thinking when it comes to this topic…
The truth is, in this business, results do NOT happen fast. They used to when I started with one page websites, but today, that is no longer a strategy, but it’s still being peddled by inexperienced people, parroting it to others who then ask me these same questions.
Here’s the reality (solution):
Getting results in this business will take at least 6 months or even a year. When you start a website, considering you do the right things on it to have it gain rankings, it’ll still take 6 months or more to see the results of that work.
This is because ALL new websites, regardless of which “secret” or “spicy” ranking techniques they use will undergo the Google sandbox and see their rankings jump around via the Google dance.
So the reality you have to understand is that this business WILL take time. Never expect fast or easy results with SEO, otherwise you will fail. And to the people I tell this to, who still seek those “shortcuts” and so on, I will answer followup questions that usually pertain to things like if there’s any secret or magic techniques to shortcut that process.
And here is my answer:
Secondly: There is no secret technique or magic strategy. It’s straight forward hard work.
If you are just starting out in this business, have no connections, no influencers with their own high authority websites sending traffic to your page through valuable backlinks, then you can expect to go through the typical 6 months to year long process to get results and in 99.9% of cases, this will always be the scenario.
Even for someone like me who has connections, and people who can I link to on their site and them on mine, I still find that when I start a new site, I will have to start fresh and grow my authority from scratch.
Thirdly: Many people who try this stuff are lazy.
I was one of those people. I thought writing a simple 100 page article would get me high rankings and traffic, when in fact, it’s closer to about 1,500 or even 2,000 words and the value and quality of the content that has to go into those 1,000+ words HAS to be high.
I literally tell people that quality content is arguably the most consistent and important SEO trend that’s continued over the years and I have no doubt it will continue to be a top priority for rankings.
If you are lazy and CANNOT invest the time to write at LEAST 50 articles of high quality content, each of which is at LEAST 1,500 words or more, forget this business and leave, because it will be a dead end.
I currently run 5 active sites that have either already reached an authority status with Google rankings (1st page rankings) and/or are already climbing and that is ALWAYS the initial goal I set when I start these sites. It is because of this goal that I set, that these sites are all climbing and not dead in rankings.
Once again:
- 50 articles.
- 1,500 words or more.
- 6 months wait time to see it mature.
That HAS to be your initial goal when you begin in this industry.
And the simpler ways to get this goal accomplished to look at your site as a blog and to blog about a specific subject that you know a ton about. Without this, you are going to make that above quota I set nearly impossible to reach.
Fourth: There are specific techniques that help rankings, but…
They are only useful when you apply the above point about writing high quality content (the main dish). Without this MAIN dish, the SEO ingredients that help that content rank higher, will not work.
What I find is that people focus on the techniques to make a site grow and not on the big picture advice (the main disH) I gave in point 3 above writing 50 articles, lots of content, ect…
It is because of this misplaced focus that they fail. And again, this is tied together with the laziness point.
So considering that you are doing this stuff the right way and truly writing high quality content, if it isn’t already ranking high on Google, then you can do these 15 SEO optimization strategies to make that happen.
There are even tools I recommend using here that are great, but just like the optimization strategies, they will not work without the great content being at the HEART of this.
Fifth: Make sure your passion is tied together with your site.
Because SEO is so hard and takes so long to see results with, as I said earlier, you’ll have an easier time with this process if your blog/site is focused on a topic you love.
Very often, I find people who create travel blogs, mom blogs, and/or basically share with the internet world their passion, are the people who produce the BEST content and get the most traffic through organic rankings.
There’s a wise lesson within these examples and that is that the people who truly succeed in SEO are those who create a site based on their passion. That passion in turn helps them produce better content and since content is what is truly the most important SEO ranking factor, this is why they get results.
Now what happens more commonly and unfortunately is that people neglect chasing the passion and instead chase the money, and end up creating sites on subjects they have no clue about. And when they do, the content they produce is very poor and naturally, then reaching that 50 article goal becomes next to impossible.
Not only that but anyone who does read that poor content will very quickly see that it is poor and leave the site, thus signaling to Google and other search engines that this page does not have quality content worth ranking.
If we use me as an example, I mentioned earlier that I run 5 active sites and I can tell you that every single one of them, including this particular one are on topics I have passion for, so when I write my content, it flows very easily and I’m able to produce that content very quickly.
This very article took me about 30 minutes to write and that’s because I have PASSION for this subject (and of course practice from writing 1,000’s of articles, literally). And I assure you that you can reach this same level with a mix of passion and practice.
Now I regularly help people decide on what kinds of blogs to build to help them succeed in this business, so if you are stuck in this part of the process, comment below and I’ll be sure to assist in that regard!