5 Things I Hate About SEO

- Some say that SEO is kind of like having a marriage.
So sometimes you're inseparable, sometimes you fight,
but either way you're in this for the long haul,
and in this video I'm gonna teach you five things
that I hate about SEO.
Now, I have a lot of love for the industry.
Like I've worked in SEO for the last few years.
I run my own link building agency, and it's given me
a business where I can work online, run that business,
and travel the world.
So for that reason, I have a lot of love for SEO,
but it's far from perfect.
So in this video, I'm gonna talk about five things
that I don't like about search engine optimization
and how to overcome those challenges, but before we jump in,
please make sure you subscribe and hit a like on the video
if you enjoy it.
So number one, when it comes to SEO I think part
of it is outside of your control, and sometimes you can do
what you can, but then you just kind of have
to let the chips fall where they may.
So it's kind of a mindset.
With SEO, you know that a big part of your business is
outside of your control, and you can publish content,
you can build links, but at the end of the day,
you're kind of publishing and praying to the gods of Google
that your content gets ranked, and then you also have
Google algorithms which are constantly updating
and upgrading, and every time they release an update,
you have to keep up with that, and you'll see this
every time there's a Google update,
you'll see people melting down and raging on Facebook groups
like pumping out conspiracy theories about
why their traffic has dropped overnight.
So that's something to be aware of, and then you also have
your competitors as well which are completely outside
of your control.
So are they gonna start pumping out content?
Are they gonna try and start ranking
for the same key words as you?
And there's not much room at the top to compete.
Plus you always have to aim
to outdo your competitors as well.
So if they level up, you need to level up as well.
If they publish more content, you should publish
more content as well or if they start driving more links
to site then you need to increase the authority
on your site as well.
So what can you do about all of this?
Well, without getting too stoic, you can only focus
on what you can control, not what you can't,
and there are loads of ways to optimize your site
so that you outrank your competitors
on the first page of Google.
So what does that mean?
Well, you can publish more links,
you can publish more content, you can improve the quality
of your content, and you can publish more often,
and if you keep doing that and driving more authority
to your site with backlinks,
then eventually the traffic will come.
So number two, Google's algorithm is still a mystery,
and chances are it probably will be forever, okay?
So no one knows exactly how Google's algorithm works,
but it has over 200 ranking factors.
However, luckily you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes
to figure it out, okay?
Because we have clues.
For example, Google came out and they said
that link building is still one
of the most important ranking factors for your website.
However, there's new updates coming out all the time
and sometimes your website can take a huge hit overnight
and it can be absolutely brutal to get your traffic back
to where it was, but not just that.
Sometimes you can make some content changes,
spend hours tweaking and improving the content,
imagining all that sweet Google love you're about to get,
and when you reindex the content, it ranks way lower
than it ever did before.
Plus there's so much bad information out there,
and so many people are wrongly informed about SEO
because they get bad information from the wrong sources,
and it can be kind of like watching
the blind lead the blind sometimes.
So for example, some clients who come to me asking
for VPN links or even worse, they've tried to buy a website
with 1,000s of links thinking it's worth a lot
when in reality most of those links are spammy
and it's not worth the price at all.
So be careful where you get your SEO information from.
Question it, analyze it, and ask yourself,
does that make sense?
Next up, and this is one of the biggest reasons
why most people fail at SEO is that it's just such a long
and drawn-out process, okay?
So when it comes to SEO, it's kind of like a slow cooker,
not a microwave, and if you expect fast results,
you probably shouldn't invest in SEO, you know?
It requires a lot of time, a lot of patience,
a lot of waiting around, and if you have a new website,
it can be months to see results.
So this is just something to be aware of
and you just have to be prepared to wait.
You can't just keep hitting the refresh button on Google,
hoping that your rankings are gonna change.
So when you're building a website, you should be thinking
long-term in terms of years, not months.
For example, like I have a client who, before they came
to me, they started their website three years ago.
So they were grinding it out for three years trying
to build out a website, trying to see results.
They didn't get any traffic for three years.
So they got, they started the website in 2016,
started seeing a little bit of traffic come through in 2019,
and then in 2020 they're finally killing it.
So it's just something you have to be aware of,
and it's one of those ones, it is what it is.
Number four is that there's less real estate
on the first page of Google than ever before,
and I'm not talking about houses here.
So there's featured videos, snippets, pictures, and ads
on the first page of Google, meaning there's less space
than ever for your website to rank organically.
So if you really want to drive a lot of traffic
to your site, you need to be in the top three results
at least, and maybe one day Google will just be
like a blog post with feature snippets which you can click
on to get all the information you need.
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that's gonna happen,
but I do expect this trend to continue,
and I think Google's a business,
they want to make more money with their ads, and therefore
with every update they release, there's gonna be less
and less space for your website to rank organically,
and that's just the way things are going.
You know, it's a trend that I expect to continue,
and I think there are certain things you can do
about that too.
So for example, you can monetize your content better,
you can increase your prices, and you can do whatever
it takes to make the most out of the traffic that you do get
so that you make more money from them,
and this isn't necessarily a bad thing because these changes
are forcing us to monetize our content better,
and like any business you either adapt or you die.
Number five is competition because it's now easier than ever
to grow and scale an SEO website.
So for example, you can easily hire writers online,
put loads of money into your site, publish loads of content,
and with the amount of tools and information out there,
it's just so much easier than it ever has been before,
but also competition is healthy
and SEO is kind of like one big casino.
Everyone's got their poker faces on,
betting against each other, bluffing, rolling the dice,
and just hoping that they rank, and if you understand
the rules of the game, you can easily increase your chances
of winning.
So what can you do about competition?
Well essentially, you have to go the extra mile
and do all the hard things
that your competitors aren't prepared to do.
So for example, with content, the 80, 20 rule doesn't really
apply here, and content is your business.
So the better quality your website's content is,
the more you're gonna stand out from your competition,
and this applies to all elements of SEO.
So that's it for me and the five things I hate about SEO.
Now like I said before, I do like SEO.
It's totally changed my life and given me a business
where I can work online and travel the world,
but it's not without its downsides too,
and that's something most people working
in SEO simply won't tell you.
So thanks for watching, don't forget to subscribe
if you like my videos, and drop a comment
if you have any questions.