SEO professionals face some harsh realities every day. From dealing with clients who don’t pay their bills to having to deal with unethical practices, they often struggle to cope with these challenges.
SEO has become a lucrative profession over the years, especially since Google started promoting its algorithm updates.
The number of jobs related to SEO has increased significantly. This means that SEO professionals now have to deal with a wide range of issues.
While SEO is a fun career, it’s not without its realities. Some of these realities are relatively minor. Others can be annoyances.
And still, others can make you want to rip your brain out of your skull. Then you can calmly approach others with the fix after you have done that. *wink*
Here are 10 things that SEO professionals contend with on a regular basis.
SEO Is Not a Magic Bullet
The most common misconception about SEO is that it can be done overnight. But this isn’t true at all. SEO takes time and effort. You need to build up an audience on social media
platforms like Facebook and Twitter before you start getting traffic from search engines.
If you want to succeed as an SEO professional, then you need to understand that there is no shortcut to success. You will have to work hard for months before you can get traction.
If you think that you can just buy a website and rank high in search, with few exceptions, you’re going to be disappointed. There are many factors that go into how well a site ranks in search engines. If you’re not up to the level of the previous website owner, and you’re just learning the ropes, you can easily tank your site.
You also need to know that SEO doesn’t guarantee instant success. You might spend weeks or even months building links and optimizing content only to find out that nobody wants to visit your site.
You must realize that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. If you expect to make quick profits by ranking highly in search engine rankings, then you’re going to be sorely
disappointed.
Working with Developers Is Often a Challenge
Developers often have different ideas when it comes to web design. They may prefer using images instead of CSS backgrounds. Or maybe they use JavaScript frameworks that slow down page load times.
These differences can cause problems when it comes to implementing SEO strategies. For example, if you try to implement image sprites, but the developer uses background images, then you won’t be able to create them.
When working with developers, it’s important to communicate clearly so that everyone understands each other’s goals. It’s also important to remember that developers aren’t necessarily aware of SEO best practices. So you’ll have to explain why certain techniques are necessary.
It’s also important to keep in mind that developers are busy people. They usually don’t have much free time to devote to learning new skills. So you’ll have better luck convincing them to learn something if you show them that it will benefit them directly.
Additionally, you should note that developers are often skeptical of SEO. They believe that SEO is a scam because they’ve been burned by companies promising results without delivering anything.
So you’ll have to convince them that SEO is legitimate and that it works. You’ll also have to prove that it’s possible to rank higher than competitors who don’t invest in SEO.
In order to convince developers to adopt SEO practices, you’ll have to provide evidence that their websites perform poorly due to poor coding. Show them that they could improve their sites’ performance by making changes to their code.
Finally, you’ll have to help them understand that SEO is more than just keywords and backlinks. Quality development best practices and code that helps the page load the fastest are important, and they should not be overlooked.
Making sure that you don’t load too many plugins or that you don’t cause issues because of poor coding is also important, and the SEO professional can usually advise you on that.
This is also why SEO professionals should learn to code, because it makes your job convincing developers much easier.
Working Around Prior Projects Is Often a Challenge
Outdated code and frameworks need to be updated to the latest technology in order to remain competitive. This means that old projects will require updates.
If you work at a company where there are multiple projects underway, this can become problematic.
For example, if you were hired to build a website for a client, but the project has already started, you’ll have to wait until the project is complete before you can start working on yours.
While waiting, you could end up working on concurrent projects that take more time, and thus sometimes, if the project is not managed properly, scope creep can creep in.
What is scope creep? Scope creep happens when a project grows beyond its original scope. In other words, the project becomes bigger than originally planned.
While this may seem like a good idea, it can lead to issues that can impact SEO. For example, if it was originally budgeted to be a $5,000 project, then the scope can increase to become a $10,000 project at the end, exceeding time and budget required.
This is never good, and could impact the company’s bottom line negatively.
This is why it pays to have a competent SEO professional in charge, who can help you navigate projects and make sure that your project management implementations run smoothly from the start.
Constant Google Algorithm Changes And Updates
Google constantly releases new algorithms that change how search engines view websites. These updates are designed to ensure that users receive the most relevant content.
The problem with constant algorithm updates is that they can affect rankings. You might be ranking well for certain terms, and then suddenly those terms might get dropped off the list.
As a result, you’ll have to adapt quickly to keep your site top-of-mind.
Some development practices that don’t lend themselves well to an agile approach can leave your site falling behind, and becoming a victim of said updates.
If you made significant recommendations months ago as part of an audit, but it takes 6 months for the developers to get around to implementing them, then you have already lost.
You could get dinged by a core update, which looks into site quality quite heavily.
JavaScript Issues Are Often Not Easy to Resolve
JavaScript errors are not a good thing. They can cause many issues, from crawling to indexing. If JavaScript on the site is too complex, then Google may not even see much of your content.
If these issues are present in certain types of content, it can cause Google to not see all of it, because Google cannot parse complex JavaScript.
These types of errors include things such as:
- Scripts that slow down loading speeds
- Errors that prevent visitors from using the site
- Errors that prevent the site from being indexed correctly
- Errors that prevent Google from being able to crawl your site
- Errors that prevent Google from even being able to read your content
It’s important to note that while JavaScript errors can cause problems, they aren’t always easy to resolve.
In fact, many times, the only way to fix them is to rewrite the whole script or remove it entirely.
It’s also important to note that some browsers (such as Chrome) allow you to disable JavaScript altogether.
However, this can cause issues with site functionality, so it should be used sparingly.
This is why it’s crucial to ensure that there are fallbacks in place, should this JavaScript not be used anymore.
Thus, we use noscript. Noscript can be used to insert fallback HTML if JavaScript is not supported – or is turned off – on a particular browser.
And, if it’s not used correctly, this can cause issues with certain aspects of a website.
SEO Professionals Sometimes Take The Easy Route, Shooting Themselves In The Foot
There are many ways to optimize a website. Some methods work better than others. However, the one thing that doesn’t work well is taking shortcuts.
Sometimes, SEO professionals will take shortcuts when optimizing a site. This can lead to issues with crawling, indexing, and other aspects of SEO.
One common shortcut is to use web 2.0 as a backlink generation method. While it used to work years ago, nowadays, Google is smarter than this. Putting in extra time and effort towards earning better quality links can pay dividends in your site’s rankings and traffic in the long run.
Another common issue is the use of rel=”nofollow” attributes. While nofollow attributes are useful for making sure that links from your site are not counted editorially, using them too much (especially with noindex, nofollow) can actually cause internal links to not be counted on your site, which is what we don’t want.
Another common mistake is to use thin content. Google is clear about their expectations when it comes to content in their webmaster guidelines. Furthermore, generated content is not something that should be used on a site.
While there are many different ways to optimize a site, sometimes it’s best to just stick with the tried and true methodologies.
More experienced professionals will be able to tell you what can and won’t work in certain scenarios.
Is It Even Possible to Believe or Trust What Google Says?
There has always been a rift in the SEO professional’s relationship with Google. Google has had missteps in the past, such as when Gary Illyes came out and said that rel=next/prev is no longer a viable ranking factor, despite Google having said that rel=next/prev is a viable ranking factor for years.
Google also ranked Lorem Ipsum content because of Kyle Roof’s SEO techniques.
Because of these incidents, It’s hard to trust anything Google says anymore. But if you’re going to believe or trust what Google says, then you need to know how to read between the lines.
Google’s webmaster guidelines are very specific about what they expect from websites. They don’t want spammy sites, nor do they want sites that are filled with low-quality content.
They also don’t want sites that contain duplicate content. Their webmaster guidelines are clear in that duplicate content refers to “body content, or substantial sections of content that are duplicated from page to page.”
If you follow all of these rules, then you’ll find that Google will reward you with higher search engine rankings.
So, if you want to get ahead in the game, you need to learn how to read between the lines, between what Google says and what SEO professionals have to say.
In addition: you must test things yourself.
SEO Tools Are Cost-Prohibitive Unless You’re Rich or Run Your Own Agency
The cost of industry-standard tools is prohibitive unless you’re rich, you have clients banging down your door, or you run your own agency.
Many SEO tool companies charge $200 or more per month for tools that contain even the smallest smidgen of functionality for all of their tool’s features.
Just $100 per month gets you the entry-level deal, which is often missing critical functionality (Semrush and AHREFs are examples).
Add that up over several tools you have to use every year, and this could easily lead to $500 a month that you have to spend just on SEO tools alone.
This is a car payment for most people.
And even if you’re willing to spend that much money, you still need to buy them on a monthly subscription basis.
You may think that you can save money by buying cheaper tools. Unfortunately, cheaper tools usually mean poor results.
Cheaper tools are usually made by amateurs who lack experience. These tools are generally buggy and unreliable.
If you try using one of these tools, you might end up wasting hours of your time fixing issues that could have been avoided had you bought a more expensive tool.
This is yet another reality that SEO professionals in the industry face regularly.
Just Doing SEO Constantly Evolves and it’s Always Changing
It’s no secret that SEO always changes. Google makes sure of that. What may be valid one year may be entirely different the next year.
They also make hundreds of tiny tweaks to their algorithms daily.
It’s not like a field such as Law or Accounting, where things mostly stay the same for 20 years or more.
Every year, you have to update your skill set with new knowledge and expertise, or you risk falling behind.
For example, one of the latest technologies is machine learning and AI. This is an emerging field that will likely become fully developed over the next 20 years (or more).
Neural networks, deep learning, natural language processing (NLP) and other types of AI technologies are at the forefront of Google’s algorithm nowadays.
These skills are constantly evolving and changing, and eventually may be required learning if you want to understand how Google’s framework operates.
Explaining SEO to Some Clients and Executives Can Be a Challenge
Depending on your industry, you may have an easier time explaining things to clients in some niches than others.
For example, if you have clients who are tech-savvy, they may already know something about web development or SEO. And it will be easier explaining these topics to them.
If you have clients who don’t understand anything technical, then it will be harder to explain SEO concepts to them.
You have to learn how to boil things down to their simplest components in order for your clients to understand exactly what you’re doing and why.
It’s not as simple as saying “I did this” anymore.
You have to align “I did this” with the specific KPIs and performance metrics that will help shed light on the context of your efforts.
Despite the Dire Nature of This Post, SEO is Still A Lot of Fun
SEO isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s actually a lot of fun when you get into it. That’s when it ceases to be “just a job.” Instead, it becomes a career.
Whether you are agency-side, in-house side, or consulting side, the longer you are in SEO, the more it’s possible to enjoy.
And yes, there are many aspects of SEO that make it enjoyable.
One of the best parts of SEO is being able to work directly with clients and helping them achieve their goals.
Another great part of SEO is knowing that you’re making a difference in someone else’s life.
When you’re working with clients, you can see the impact that your work has on their business.
And when you’re working with clients who are happy with the results that you have achieved, it feels good.
On the other hand, when things don’t quite go the way you were expecting, it can be a bit personal because you want to make sure that things get back on the right track again.
When you’re working with clients whose businesses are struggling, it’s even better because you feel like you’re saving lives, and because you can deliver on results to those
clients who need them.
The bottom line is that there’s nothing wrong with SEO. There are good things and bad things about it, just like any other business or field.
That doesn’t make it terrible. In fact, variety is a great addition to the spice of life.
When do you plan on making the leap into SEO (if you haven’t already)?
