Learning SEO: Expectation Versus Reality

If you believe some Facebook groups, you’d think it was easy to get a website to rank well on Google.  All it takes is regular posting of blogs, right?

Wrong.

I often come across groups on Facebook where frequent blogging is touted as the answer to a top spot in the search engine pages, or that using image alts is the answer to everything SEO.  Well, if you take your online business seriously, you’ll know it takes effort and commitment to get a website to rank well on Google and keep it there.

Learning SEO: Expectation Versus Reality

Learning SEO can be a tough lesson in expectation vs reality.  Yes, it is possible to learn the fundamentals of SEO and manage it all yourself (you can download my Free Starter Kit to get started) but results won’t just fall into your lap.  Sustained online visibility takes work – and you need to spend time (and sometimes money) each month to keep your website where it counts….at the top of the search engine pages, in front of your target audience and ahead of your competitors.

When we look at the fundamentals of SEO, it’s obvious why blogging and adding Alt Text to images won’t cut it.

The fundamentals are keyword research, backlinks and technical SEO.  Technical SEO involves improving the infrastructure of a website (such as sitemaps, page speed, navigation, URL structure, schema etc) so that the pages can be found, crawled, understood and indexed by the search engines.

I always recommend that people start with keyword research, making sure that they understand the fundamentals.  You’ll need to really dive deep into your niche market to discover what searchers are searching for related to your products or services and your keywords need to take into account search intent, audience, relevance, authority, keyword competitiveness and search volume.

Most keywords are chosen to attract motivated searchers who are ready to make a purchase or at the very least, who could convert into customers over time.

Once you’ve done thorough keyword research, you can start writing meta data (including SEO titles and meta descriptions), building links from a range of niche and relevant websites and doing technical SEO for things like fixing broken links and improving page speeds.

The Reality of Learning SEO

But even if you’ve learned all about these elements and tactics and have implemented them on your website, it’s not a case of ‘setting and forgetting’.   Changes are often necessary to improve a website’s page ranking, plus the search engines’ algorithms are constantly changing too, so you need to move with the times to stay relevant.

You also need to update your page content to include your keywords and add fresh content that is useful to readers, which answers their queries, keeps them engaged and entertained and importantly, which meets the search engines’ requirements.

Perhaps this is where the misnomer arises that frequent blogging will get a website to rank well.  Some people think the more they post, the better for their SEO.

But it’s not about quantity.  Content is all about quality – and it needs to meet the readers’ expectations, the search engines’ requirements and it needs to be better quality than the content which is currently ranking on Google.  I always recommend that my clients ask themselves the following question: ‘Is my web content the best in my industry for the search term I want to rank for?’

Help Your SEO Reality Meet Your SEO Expectations

It’s not easy doing SEO on your own and you probably (definitely!) aren’t getting the results you deserve.  So, if your SEO reality differs from your expectations and you could do with a helping hand, get in touch with me at The SEO School or email me to discover how my online SEO course can help boost your online visibility and get your webpages ranking well on Google.

I’d love to help you achieve your business goals!

You might also enjoy “Can I Learn SEO On My Own?” and “Why Local SEO is Important to your Business“

Karen Dauncey

Karen Dauncey has been working in SEO since 2003. She specialises in helping businesses get found online through Google using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) She is the founder and creator of The SEO School an online SEO Course to help teach business owners how to do their own SEO. She regularly delivers educational programs for both Local, State and Federal Government and is an advisor for the ASBAS Digital Solutions Program. Karen’s passion and commitment to help small business owners get found online is the driving force behind her online school, making SEO advice accessible to all with free resources and online courses.

Karen's wealth of SEO knowledge and practical digital marketing experience comes from running her own SEO and Google Ads agency, Blue Cherry Online Marketing since 2008. Karen has optimised over 1000 websites, managed millions of dollars' worth of spend on Google Ads and has a solid understanding of the constantly shifting industry of digital marketing and SEO. This gives her a unique advantage when it comes to being able to recommend the right online marketing strategies for your business. This gives her a unique advantage when it comes to being able to recommend the right online marketing strategies for your business. She was recently recognised as an SEO Expert for the popular course creation platform, Kajabi as well as appearing on ABC Radio
for her expert opinion on the ACCC's investigation into search engines.

Karen has attended search engine conferences in London, Stockholm, Adelaide and Sydney, and was also invited to attend a pilot Business Coaching Course at Google’s Head Office. She has a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.

She is also the co-owner of the Digital Experts Directory, an online directory for female serviced-based businesses to promote their business (with a great backlink for SEO).

To keep up to date with the latest in SEO, join her Facebook group The SEO School Community or follow her on Facebook or LinkedIn.