SEO is a tough business. Google keeps changing their algorithm. The rankings are not an exact science. There is a lot we don’t understand and that we can’t explain. Also the industry is saturated with self proclaimed experts who tout their own methods. It is hard to know what we should be doing to best help our clients.
With so many things screaming for our attention it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Here are 6 common ways that SEO’s go over the edge.
6 SEO Diseases and Disorders – An infographic by the team at Infogenix Web Design
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6 SEO Diseases and Disorders – An infographic by the team at Infogenix Web Design
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6 SEO Diseases and Disorders
Rank Anxiety
The irrational fear that your rankings will inexplicably fall.
Symptoms
- Opening browser tabs with SERP”S for each keyword
- Checking Rankchecker.com 3+ times a day
- Then running rankings manually just to be sure
- Obsessing about obscure long-tail keywords
Overheard Saying:
“How the $*@#$ did I fall from 43 to 49 for ‘chelated mineral supplements for horses and other quadrupeds?”
Dysciplepsy
Blindly following industry thought leaders.
Symptoms
- Radical strategy changes after every Whiteboard Friday
- Watching every one of Matt Cutts’ videos
- Reading the entire backlog of SEOMoz posts
Overheard Saying:
“New post on SEOmoz, Must implement! Rand Fishkin – I want to have your babies!”
Widgetitis
Downloading every possible tool available.
Symptoms
- Subscriptions to SEOMoz, Majestic, Raven Tools, Ahref, SEMRush…
- Accounts with Hootsuite, SproutSocial, Buffer…
- 20+ Chrome extensions and Firefox add-ons
Overheard Saying:
“I already have 10 site scraping tools, what’s one more gonna hurt?”
Metricide
Spending all your time analyzing metrics.
Symptoms
- 3+ hours a day in Google Analytics
- Measuring success using personalized metrics from algorithms that you have developed
- An extra hard drive full of Excel spreadsheets
Overheard Saying:
“What can I do to make it look like I am doing a lot when I am actually doing nothing?”
Chronic socialgia
The overwhelming need to update social networks.
Symptoms
- Active accounts with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Myspace, Friendster, Weibo…
- Multiple profiles and aliases on each network
- Tweeting 30+ times an hour
Overheard Saying:
“Must Tweet!!!!!! More tweets means better Rankings”
OTD
Obsessive Tinkering Disorder.
Symptoms
- Changing meta descriptions once a week
- Clicking “fetch as Google bot” 10 times a day in Webmaster tools.
- All 5000 pages on your site have an A in On-Page Report Card
Overheard Saying:
“If I can just find the one magical keyword then I am sure we can get you ranking everything.”