9 Critical SEO Mindset Reminders

Everyday I come across situations where someone has a personal beef with their website rankings and they shake their fist at Google in a vain attempt to get Google to do the "right thing" and fix their rankings. 

Or they complain about some young upstart who has only been online for a year and their website has shot past them in the rankings and they cannot understand why.  It's as if Google should give their website credit for being online longer.  Well it does..a little but there are other issues that you need to get right.

The following is a list of SEO Mindet reminders that will help you approach your SEO campaign with the right perspective so that trials and hiccups that you will inevitably face along the way don't force you off your path to high search rankings, traffic and conversions.

1) Ranking Is Not Personal

The reality is that no one at Google knows who you are or cares.  No one has taken the time to select you out of the hundreds of millions of websites that exist and keep you down in the rankings to "teach you a lesson".

If your competition has got high rankings then you can get them as well. Don't let your current rankings get you down.

An old time SEO practitioner I follow often drops the following pearl of wisdom on a regular basis.

"If you do what they did you will get what they got"


2) Ranking Is Not Voodoo

When you first start learning about search engine optimisation much of it seems like magic.  The reality is that a large percentage of the factors that are important to achieving a high search engine ranking are known.  A simple analysis of your website as compared to the sites ranking above you along these factors will give you an idea why your website is not on Page 1 of the results.  It will also give you a plan of action to improve your search engine rankings.

Google has its algorithm and processes the math and out comes the rankings.  Focus on where you are weak and your rankings are bound to improve.


3) Rankings Define What Is Right.

You can complain that the rankings are wrong but all that means is that you are not happy with them.  Recognise that the rankings define what is right and remove your personal feelings about those rankings.  Focus all of that energy and frustration with your rankings on fixing where your website is weak.  Whether that is on site optimisation or in the number of quality back links.


4) Rankings Don't Matter. Money Matters

You often see examples of people chasing a ranking for a keyword phrase that they absolutely want to be # 1 for. Many times it is an ego ranking where they are seeking to rank higher than their direct competitor.  

Everyone is #1 for something and top rankings don't matter if they don't also come along with increased sales.

You can't eat a # 1 ranking or pay your rent with it.  Focus on what is important, measure what matters and that is the sales or money a ranking can generate for your business.


5) You Can't Measure Your Way To Higher Sales

One of the huge benefits we have in the modern online marketing space is that we can measure so much about rankings and our user engagement with our website. 

With all of this data comes the danger that you can spend all of your time measuring things that really don't matter and you end up in the measuring business and not in the making money business.

When you choose to measure a website or search engine optimisation metric ask yourself whether that item you are measuring can change what you do.  If the metric does not have the power to effect change in your business behavior then it should not be something you are focusing on.


6) Focus On What You Know Works And Ignore The Rest

If you spend any time in online marketing forums you will see long debates about the relative importance of a million different variables that everyone has an opinion on as to their relevance to search engine rankings.

Rather than wasting your time in the forums debating the impact of the 30% of the Google ranking algorithm that we don't know about you should be spending your time on those elements that we do know work. 

That is, writing good content, building  back links to your website, fixing duplicate content issues, writing compelling title tags and meta descriptions.

Stop debating and start doing and you will win in the rankings race.


7) Give Thanks That SEO Is As Hard As It Is.

Realise that if search engine optimisation and getting high rankings was easy then the level of competition you would face would be much much higher.

You need to internalise the idea that if it is too hard for them, then it's perfect for you and that with your new mindset you are working on winning in the areas that matter.


8) Any Action Is Better Than No Action.

There is a flaw that causes many people to never deliver or never take action.  Seth Godin discusses this and uses a concept he calls "being the artist that ships"

Focus on doing the things you know work on your website.  Do them 80% right.  You can always come back later if you want to make them 100%.  You will get more benefit from a link building campaign that is 80% complete rather than one that is never started.

You will get more benefit from a web design that is ugly rather than a pretty web design that never gets launched because you are still tweaking the design.

You will get more benefit from optimising 80% of your title tags, meta descriptions and website copy than never starting a website at all.

Any action on your website is better than none.  Be the "Artist that ships"


9) A Tight Keyword Focus Wins

A #1 search ranking for the right keyword is far more important than many page 1 rankings for a number of keywords. 

A #1 rankings receives close to 50% of the traffic for a specific keyword phrase and it drops of quickly so that position 10 on Page 1 receives only about 3% of that search volume as traffic.

Thus a laser focus on keywords and rankings that matter is more likely to get you those leads or sales that will make a difference to your business.

This is why those "100 keyword rankings" and "page 1 guarantees" you see offered by so many seo companies are simply hollow guarantees.

Don't Get Distracted
If you keep these SEO reminders close at hand they will help you focus on what is important and not get distracted or put off by things that do not matter to your success.

This article was posted by Edmund Pelgen. Edmund is Director of Search Optimisation at Traffika. You can follow Ed on Twitter @edmundpelgen