In the dawn of 2014 the search ecosystem seems to be even more complex than before. Almost everyone advises you to consume more SEO content, buy more SEO tools, consult with “SEO ninjas”, “pivot your way” through big data, acquire proprietary competitors analysis information and of course stop all link building actions so as to be able to at last taste the SEO success you deserve.
But there are many questions that still remain.
Is this true? Are these the steps to follow in order to acquire huge amounts of organic traffic? How is it that only a minority of SEO professionals are considered the SEO gurus enjoying SEO success and offering valuable advice, while everyone else is experiencing an endless struggle and difficulty to rank and profit from the organic traffic that so generously the search engines still provide to thousands upon thousands of websites?
In today’s post I would like to untangle that riddle and present to you the biggest secret of SEO success that only a few spoke about in the past and even fewer have successfully mastered.
As a solo digital marketing consultant and as a Head of Search for a team of high calibre SEO practitioners; for the last 13 years I’ve had the privilege to assist over 120 websites to rank and generate roughly over €300 million of new business directly and indirectly, due to the organic traffic and the high rankings that these sites managed to attract.
At the same time and by taking the 80/20 rule into account a clear picture has been developed within my mind concerning SEO success. That if you gather together all SEO professionals or those regarded as SEO aware & SEO literate, the below statistics will emerge.
Out of these people:
- About 80% just reads SEO related information and attends search conferences. One fifth of that consumes SEO content almost non-stop.
- About 16% write, share and in general have a bigger involvement when it comes to writing and distributing SEO related information.
- About 4% speak to local or international SEO events. These are the guys and gals you know very well. They do the biggest noise and everyone seems to dim them as experts/gurus. Actually only one fifth of them (less than 1%) are actual SEO experts, the rest of them are just the SEO “cheerleaders” that have only one goal in mind:
To keep you distracted from what actually matters and continue to feed your brain with the latest and greatest techniques (link removal anyone?) and toys (SEO tools) that as they preach will allow you to finally attain SEO success..
What is the secret?
The secret has been staring straight into our eyes for quite some time. A lot of SEO “experts” have grasped parts of it, fewer fully understood but just a handful of real dedicated practitioners have mastered it. So without further ado let’s talk about the SEO trifecta, the secret, that leads to SEO success each and every time – guaranteed.
Focus
As we’ve covered above the great majority of SEO professionals spend their time consuming content as a way of attaining SEO success. The content marketing “machine” that so many rave about instead of liberating us, is actually designed to distract and enslave us with constant inattention and lack of focus. Jumping from reading a blog post to reading another blog post and implementing short term SEO techniques one after another is their default state of operation. Procrastination is getting unbearable due to the lack of focus, and the only “way out” is to read and accept without any traces of critical thought the latest and greatest articles like “SEO is finally dead” and “stop guest blogging now!”. The answer to lack of focus is to actually get back to the basics: Think again the importance of Keyword Research , the art of meta tags optimization , the best practises of URL optimization and how to achieve high rankings through effective link building strategies among other things.
Have a clear goal & a plan to execute
Most of SEOs believe that “everyone is doing it” (no pun intended), so to perform consistent SEO actions like on-page optimization will be just detrimental and it will not lead to the fulfilment of any goal. Without a clear goal and a plan to execute what is left is to just continue dreaming and waiting for the perfect time or researching months even years for the ideal tools that will allow them to dominate the search engines. On the other hand only a handful of SEO professionals wake up each morning with a clear purpose to improve their client’s websites rankings through a well-defined plan of action. As experience has shown, a simple plan will always beat every complex/”blackhat” strategy in the medium – long term period.
Execute
Any SEO action is better than no action. Small incremental positive steps towards the right direction will create the positive upward spiral momentum that will lead to SEO success. The Tortoise and the Hare fable apply perfectly when it comes to SEO (the SEO race is a marathon, not a sprint). The SEO actions you perform in a continues base will bring results that you can easily monitor with SEO tools like keyword battlethat will allow you to check rankings and reputation tracker helping you measure your social media activities performance. The more you execute your plan, the more confident you will become as an SEO practitioner because the previous successes (e.g higher rankings for high competitive terms) will start feeding your future successes. In other words, do your part and let search engines do their part.
By implementing the above SEO trifecta you will notice that after a while everyone will start to distinguish you as a search engine specialist that can “move the SERPs” and start asking for your advice, what tools you use, what blog you read daily, what are your “secret” techniques that give you the edge allowing you to win every single time when you enter the SEO battlefield.
When this happens, sit back close your eyes and relax for a moment because you have mastered the biggest secret of SEO.
Focus, Plan and DO or do not…there is no try.
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