I know I’ve talked about how SEO is a commitment, I’ve compared it to a gym, but today it feels a little more like steam train, fast, powerful and unyielding. It’s the forward momentum of SEO that pushes us all to keep learning, go further, try harder, and achieve more.
Being in a relatively young industry means suffering, enduring and trying to learn from the growing pains. Pains which come from changes, updates, testing and failure. It challenges us to give each day, and each client our best as we hope we become experts, thought leaders and even sometimes achieve guru status. No matter what road we take in an effort to reach that destination, we all share one common thing; the drive to move forward.
SEO in particular means forgetting what you knew yesterday. As each day closes, we must put away the failures of the hours passed and get ready to turn the knowledge gained through those losses into tomorrow’s success. Sure that’s also a truth of the human existence, but here in SEO when each day brings a new chance, new rankings, new data, we can never look back. Ranking #1 yesterday means nothing to someone who finds themselves gone today.
That’s why the greatest SEO’s I know, with thriving companies, and having achieved rock stardom amongst their colleagues are never satisfied. I just returned from SESNY where I have seen these people up close. They share a hunger and a love of the business but most importantly, the desire to continue to create and re-invent. What’s new is passé. It’s what hasn’t been created yet that is exciting.
Climbing Higher
Running an SEO campaign is, on a smaller level, no different. As one part of a project draws to a conclusion, the first steps of the next phase should be underway. We never really have time to stop and enjoy what we have accomplished. SEO is not a staircase, it is an escalator, it never settles at a pinnacle it is a continually revolving conveyor that when it reaches its height simply and without fanfare begins again.
If you stop moving in SEO you are falling. An on-site overhaul will likely reveal immediate results, either good or bad. But after the dust settles there will be a new status quo. Today’s actions may bring some immediate results and can even have ramifications in the following months; but expecting to propelled upward for the long haul as a result of one initiative, often results in disappointment. There will inevitably be a plateau, a leveling and a call for a new action. Without continued development we face stagnation. In a competitive niche there may even be a back slide as those you’ve passed begin to outpace you.
One of the many questions surrounding the link building process, is when is it enough, when can I stop link building? And each time, the answer remains never. When sharks are not swimming, they sink. When you stop link building, you may sustain for a while, but inevitably a cease in action will end up causing a cease in progress as well.
The entire essence of SEO is forward motion. Search engines are putting a greater and greater emphasis on new information, trying to grab the latest headline in “real time”. It’s not a technical fad either, it’s a philosophy. One that demands we all strive to continue to be relevant and are never satisfied with letting something we created in the past be our Pièce de résistance, our greatest achievement should be our next one.
There is an ever growing demand on all of us to keep up with new information, to follow changing technology and concepts. It is one of the more difficult aspects of SEO. The constant influx of new information, and the many voices adding to the din. New theories, tools, plug-ins, programs, companies, publications, techniques, analytics…it never stops. This causes us to move forward at a loud, break neck speed. It is a challenging road, to say the least, but it is one fraught with excitement.
The speed of the SEO world and its relentless demands may be difficult to embrace. But there is only one way to truly endure in and succeed in SEO and that is to adopt a mind set that centers around one single question. What’s next?”
