10 SEO life lessons

SEO lessons learned.  Some, learned the hard way.

1 There is NO Guarantee
This wasn't the first thing I learned but it is certainly one of the most important. In SEO, like in many other areas of life there is no guarantee – ever.  The reasons are complex – such as algorithms change, competitors attack, or simply your content gets old but the consequences are always the same – you can never guarantee your rankings.

 

2 You Need Lots of Patience to Achieve ResultsSEO is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. In order to see results, in addition to skills you need a lot of hard work and patience.

 

3 There Are Clients You'd Better Not Work with
It isn't only SEO where you can find toxic clients but in SEO with its unpredictable nature such clients are even a bigger nightmare. Clients who are not familiar with the specifics of SEO and who want impossible things, like guaranteed rankings are a poison and it's best if you part ways as soon as possible.

 

4 Take Link Building Slow
Backlinks might be the backbone of SEO success and you might want to rush backlink building but this doesn't help. You need lots of patience and time. This applies to linkbuilding as well. You build them slow, even better at a constant pace rather than in a rush over the weekend.

 

5 One Quality Backlink Is Worth More than 100 Crappy OnesA single quality backlink from a reputable relevant, high-ranking site does more than hundreds of crappy links. This was so even before the Panda update but after it crappy links not only lost value completely, they became toxic.

 

6 You Can't Get Good Rankings for a Product/Service that Is Not Good
SEO isn't witchcraft and even with black hat techniques (that are to be avoided for sure), you can't push a product/service that is not good - or at least these good rankings won't last. Even if you manage to get traffic and some conversions, imagine the negative publicity angry users will give you over the Internet.

7 Content Is King
This is repeated all the time because it is so true. If you don't have good content you are just wasting your time and money. Period.

8 Meta Tags Don't HurtMeta tags were much more important 10 years ago than they are today. However, they are still not totally deprecated, especially the