10 Reasons Why SEO is Like Fitness
10. Everybody Has an Opinion – Some people will tell you the answer to fitness is running 5 days a week, or never eating processed food, or drinking a glass of red wine each day. Most fitness experts would tell you it’s a combination of things, not just one thing. There’s not just one answer. Same with SEO. I’ve had people who have no understanding of SEO or online marketing of any kind say it’s a useless effort. Reality is that it’s a cost-effective strategy for gaining traffic and revenue for a website. Even the best SEO’s have different processes. Some put heavy focus on on-page content while others put focus on technical issues. There’s nothing wrong with either approach as long as it gets the job done. Most experts would tell you it’s a combination of things, not just one SEO tactic.
9. It’s Important to Understand the Math - Your body needs X amount of calories each day (depends on weight, your sex, muscle mass, other factors). If you eat more calories than you burn you gain weight, if you eat fewer calories than you burn you lose weight. With SEO Google and other search engines return a page for a search query that their algorithm determines is the most relevant to that query. One page will be determined to be the most relevant and trusted based on many factors. Understanding the math on ranking for a particular keyword helps businesses make decisions about which keywords to pursue for natural search (if you’re a brand new site with little content and no reputation or trust, it’s not possible for you to rank for “shoes”). It’s a math equation. Just like in fitness, define your goal and understand the math around that goal.
8. The Fast Way Isn’t the Best Way – Weight Loss isn’t the only factor in fitness, but losing 50 pounds in 2 months isn’t likely or even healthy. Fitness experts agree a combination of nutrition and exercise done safely over time is more effective and provides long-lasting results. Same with SEO. Asking a Search Professional to hurry up and implement SEO efforts is like taking a diet pill. It’s not going to work or provide long-lasting results. Haste is the least effective and most frustrating path.
7. It’s A Long Term Commitment – Fitness goes away if it isn’t cared for on a regular basis. If you’re a fit person and quit exercising, start smoking and eat out at every meal, your fitness will go away in a hurry. Natural Search requires regular SEO because the competitive landscape changes and because search engine algorithms change.
6. It’s Important to Make Goals – Weight Watchers is a successful program because it involves creating goals and making a plan which is a part of everyday life. Same with SEO. You can have multiple meetings about the importance of better online marketing for your sites health, but until you come up with a goal and a plan it’s not likely to happen.
5. Find a Professional – If you know how to do it yourself, do it. Reality is that if you knew how to do it yourself, you already would have. If you’re a long ways away from your personal fitness goals, it’s wise to hire a fitness professional to help you. There are many kinds out there (nutritionists, trainers, etc.) All of which can help. Same with SEO. There are people who provide SEO for better rankings and natural search presence, PPC for paid search efforts, Social Media for engagement on social sites, Analytics to provide learnings and actionable analysis for your sites health, Landing Page Optimization to improve the likelihood that a visitor will take the action you desire on a site. All of these skills are necessary. For fitness, in a perfect world, everyone would have a personal trainer, a shopper, and an on-site chef. For online marketing, in a perfect world, everyone would have a Danny Sullivan, a Tim Ash and an Avinash Kaushik. Find a professional who has had success with other clients.
4. Be Honest and Realistic – The danger in making fitness a goal is not being honest and realistic. Don’t create a fitness goal of looking like Beyonce. Create a goal of weight loss or improved cardio capability or reduced cholesterol. If you’re a small shoe company, you’ll probably never overtake Zappos for “shoes”, but if you specialize in “red stiletto heels” you may be able to rank for that term. That honesty should go both ways. If an SEO tells you they can give a particular ranking in 2 weeks, that should be a red flag. SEO’s should promise improvement and return on investment, not guarantee ranking in a short period of time.
3. Fitness Is More than One Thing. If you run 5 miles a day but eat Ding Dongs and Big Macs you won’t achieve a high level of fitness. If all you do is for SEO is put lots of keywords on a page or spam blog comments you won’t achieve your site fitness goals.
2. It’s Easy to Be a Hater – Be supportive of the friend who is achieving his/her fitness goals. Often times the people who try to give SEO a bad name are the people who wished they understood it, or feel like they should understand and are frustrated that they don’t.
1. If it Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Is – Diet pills and weight loss schemes are a huge business. People want to just take a pill or do a crash diet and be fit, but that’s not how it works. Good nutrition and exercise are the recommended path for long-term fitness. It’s not easy. Same for SEO. It requires keyword research, competitive analysis, content development, technical skills and a number of other strategies and tactics if done well.
Analogies for SEO are important because it’s such an misunderstood industry. SEO’s often get a bad rap. Check out this post by Elisabeth Osmeloski that addresses this week’s Dexter which dings SEO.
The reason SEO’s have a bad name is two-fold.
There are people who will take your money and accomplish very little in fitness and SEO. There are businesses who will pay those people to take their money for making miracles in fitness and SEO. There is no easy way to either.
Morsel of the Story – For the people who do it the right way (fitness or SEO) it’s a valuable and rewarding effort.