When I tell people I played college football nowadays, then the typical response is, “Oh were you the kicker?”

That’s because I’ve lost about 20 lbs since my “glory days” as a free safety.  Most of that weight loss was muscle atrophy accelerated by my new found love of distance running.

But despite my now slender physique, I did in fact play football and I continue to lift weights on a fairly regular schedule.

Which brings me to my main point in this article…

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is Like Weight Lifting

That may sound like a crazy analogy, but let me explain with two examples of how some business owners try to implement SEO campaigns:

  1. Business owner launches a sound search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, but after a month or two quits because she doesn’t see a big spike in traffic, leads, and sales.
  2. Business owner launches a blitzkrieg campaign with a year’s worth of SEO tactics condensed down into just one or two months, but then does no more SEO for the rest of the year because all of the work was “done.”

 

In both examples, the business owner has set unrealistic expectations for how successful SEO campaigns are implemented.

SEO,  like weight lifting, takes several months of consistent effort (even years in very competitive markets) before you start to see significant results.  Of course, results will vary for every business just like it varies for athletes trying to build muscle.

There is still a big opportunity to see very fast results with Google+ Local (formerly known as Google Places), but you really need to be willing to make a long term commitment/investment in SEO, or you might as well not even start the campaign.

Also, like weight lifting, there are no shortcuts to SEO.  You can’t try to cram an entire month’s workout into a single day and then take the rest of the month off.  Everyone knows that would be ridiculous, but some people try to use this same strategy in their SEO campaigns.  Again, it takes consistent effort over a long period of time to see the best results.

 

Silver Bullets Are like Steroids

If you study SEO then you’re going to find an endless supply of information and tools claiming to possess a silver bullet to propel your SEO campaigns to new heights. Typically these offers tout “little to no effort” to get a “flood of new traffic, leads, and sales.”

Sounds alarmingly similar to the claims of steroids for weight lifters right?

It’s well-known that anabolic steroids do in fact provide a shortcut to build muscle with less effort.  However, it also comes with serious health risks, so it’s just not worth it.

The same is true with any SEO tactic or tool that seems too good to be true.  The risk for taking shortcuts with SEO is getting banned from Google.  That’s not something you want to take lightly since Google owns roughly 65% of the search engine market.  For some businesses, getting banned from Google would be sudden death.

So if you’re considering launching an SEO campaign or if you’re trying to improve on what you already have in place, remember the following:

  1. SEO, like weight lifting, requires consistent, ongoing effort and investment to be successful
  2. Be very wary of any SEO information or tool that claims to eliminate effort or shorten the time to success.  These types of strategies or tools typically do not work over the long term and could get you banned from Google altogether.

 

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