One of the largest setbacks during the SEO process can be from webmasters or owners inadvertently making changes to a newly optimized website or overwriting changes once they have been completed.
Let SEO Grow
There is a process which each site must undergo to gain authoritative ranking power; like the evolution of a caterpillar when the chrysalis occurs and it transforms into a beautiful butterfly. This delicate process takes longer if the natural order if events are disturbed.
Would you pull a plant out of the soil every few days to see if it’s growing? What about changing your oil yourself after taking it to a mechanic to get an oil change? Sounds ludicrous right? In all sincerity SEO is very similar…
While we would all like to think of SEO as set it and forget it, however, it’s not always that simple. There is a chronological sequence of events that are often required to culminate and season over time in order to harvest the degree of trust needed to cross the tipping point in search engines.
If those delicate sequences are disrupted and not cultivated properly, it is the same as spoiling a harvest and having to plant the seeds again.
Often, similarly, there is often a difference of opinion between the DIY (do it yourself) webmaster and SEO professionals. Is it a contention of delegation, trust or the fact that there is joy in making tweaks and adjustments on legacy code and pages?
While the reason remains unclear, the fact is, your aged pages are your strongest signals of trust to search engines, so doing anything to change them can tank your sites rankings fast.
Changing pages out of folly or discontent is ill advised, as you could jeopardize that earned website authority (which is the basis of all rankings). The context may seem exaggerated, but this is a daily reality for SEO service providers who experience clients inadvertently disrupting the SEO process and having to start again.
If you must make adjustments, keep this in mind.
- make frequent backups to databases and or files
- be careful modifying robots.txt or .htaccess files
- use Google Webmaster Tools to evaluate website performance
- upload a sitemap and update it after each series of revisions
- expedite crawl rates with inbound links from authority sites
- use one link per keyword anchor per page, not several
- don’t change titles without understanding off page factors
- instead of modifying old pages, create new ones instead
- allow changes to settle before jumping to premature conclusions
The moral is, ranking for lucrative keywords takes time, and patience is a virtue for SEO. Remember, those who embarked on a keyword quest before you (the websites above you) have to be overcome by either relevance or popularity. Creating rankings with brute force is not always a long-term solution.
Competitive keywords are just that, “competitive”; and take time to acquire. Rankings boil down to the relevance of the page, the quality of the content and finesse (not just how many links can I get and how fast).
Think of SEO like a plant, you have to fertilize the soil, pull the weeds, keep the plant (website) healthy as well as ensure that nurturing and sustenance are implemented daily.
As a result, the keywords you only dreamed about become a reality, as your website ages with dignity. That is, if you have the patience to let the organic rankings emerge as a result of proper cultivation.
lol, over-writing and changing things by webbies is THE biggest challenge we face, in fact possibly as much as 1/4 of our workload is “remedial SEO” i.e. putting things right again, – although you could also call it “SEO for remedials” which in some cases might be more appropriate :)
that’s why all that time ago we wrote this and direct all new webbies we start working with to it to read and hopefully get.
An Open letter to web designers / developers
but you can never account for the client working with new employees or people without telling you, so its an endless task.
You nailed it on this one Kev, great write up you have, I may have to borrow a few lines for our contract.
All the best
The task of the SEO Professional is to put the things right for his/her website. The article has interestingly elaborated the fact by providing a real-life example of tree formation. Great attempt!
Attempt at the tree structure? Just type in SEO in Google, when you get to the top 10 like our site, then we can talk about attempts.
Our tactics work…
But, thanks for commenting “SEO Company”…
Very nice post I have come across. Its one of the nice post which I really like a lot.I really appreciate your site.thank you so much.keep blogging.
Excellent site, It was pleasant to me.
nice..keep it up :)
Thanks Resa, will do…
I am here for about two months. Shares are truly beautiful.