Why is SEO So Difficult? Top Factors for SEO Success
As a digital agency that specializes in search engine optimization, the experts at Blue Compass get asked a lot of questions about SEO from businesses looking to improve their online presence. They want to know about SEO best practices, what they can do to outrank their competitors on Google, how local SEO works, the list goes on and on. Our experts are always prepared to answer search engine optimization inquiries in presentations and in our SEO Guide, but what businesses and marketers really want to know, is how to do well at SEO without necessarily being an SEO guru. We’ll cover a little bit about why it can be so challenging to compete in the online market, and steps you can take to improve your search engine optimization skills.
Why is Search Engine Optimization So Difficult?
There are so many factors that go into SEO that this is one of those questions that doesn’t have one right answer. You need to take so many things into consideration – from the content that is on the page to outside resources that boost your businesses credibility – that it makes it really hard to solve the SEO puzzle.
A few of the components you need to consider:
Our team loves working on any SEO challenge, but we struggle with the fact that there’s no one right answer to any problem. Unlike math where there’s a single right answer – you’ve done it, you know you’re done and you can put it away and move on – SEO is ever evolving and there are so many things you can do to get to a similar, same or better outcome.
When our team sees success, one of the things we like to discuss is how did we get the result and is this replicateable. Sometimes a different content management system is not as replicateable for the same solution. We can go in so many different directions with everything we try from an SEO perspective that it can be really difficult, and there are a lot of grey areas in SEO. Every person’s approach and every website is so unique that it’s hard to understand why you got the outcome you did anytime you try something.
We know the frustration of SEO – so many organizations feel like they have a great service or product, they have a wonderful webpage – but they go out and search, and their competitors are ranking well above them while they’re on the third page. That can be so frustrating. We know for a fact that Google’s algorithm, that determines what ranks higher than other pages, is incredibly complex – it has over 200 components that it looks at. Which mean there is not something we can give you that will provide a quick and easy solution. Sometimes organizations come to us and want to do just a quick SEO project – 10 hours to get us to rank better. But can a project like that be successful?
There’s definitely something you can do within 10 hours, but 10 hours is not going to lead to long-term success. If you want long-term success with SEO, you need to continue to evolve and continue to work on it. At the end of the day, SEO is not a set-it and forget-it tactic. It’s not something you can do once and check it off and be ready to go. It’s something you have to continually work at and improve on because that algorithm that we talked about is changing every couple weeks, every month even. Google is making updates, therefore your website needs to update and you need to shift your content and your practices with it.
What’s The Most Important SEO Factor?
Another thing people ask us is, “what’s the most important thing I can do for my website to make it a little more favorable to Google and make it rank a little more successfully?”
You can do all 200 of those things that are in the algorithm – but we recommend you start by thinking about what your user needs. Think about what is going to provide the best experience for somebody coming to your website and try to deliver on that. And unfortunately, that is one answer but it involves content, it involves the layout of the page, it involves the code, it involves your meta title and description. At the end of the day, we see the most success on websites where we’ve continually been looking at what’s going to make the experience better for the user, we like to consider:
How Can You Make a Web Page More Valuable?
One of the things that we always try to keep in mind here at Blue Compass is that Google’s entire purpose is to provide valuable results for its users. Just thinking about the user and your target audience is really the key to SEO these days. Years ago, it was more about trying to get backlinks or trying to put in the right keywords – and that still has some power, but when it comes down to it, just providing value to your audience at a high level is the best thing you can do for search engine optimizations.
Search Engine Optimization Website Audits
One of the things we do here at Blue Compass is audit websites to see what’s working, what’s not and what the low hanging fruit are that could be fixed quickest to help improve search results. Some of the things we find most often include:
Boost The Value of Your Website With Search Engine Optimization Services
These are just a few things that you can consider when you’re working through your search engine optimization journey. We’ve been there before; it can be difficult. The good news is there are so many things you can do to make your website more valuable. So, if you ever need help with your website or with search engine optimizations, we have an awesome team of experts here. Simply reach out to us, we’re more than happy to help.
Blue Compass is a leading team of digital experts helping brands succeed online through web design, development and digital marketing.
