I wanted to share something that came up at a client meeting at Starbucks a few years back because I feel like it can help you fully understand the difference between SEO and other forms of digital marketing. I’m a web designer and there is one service that I get asked to do, every week: SEO. The thing is, I don’t do SEO… publicly… anymore. I love SEO… I’m AMAZING at SEO, however, one thing people need to understand about SEO is that it’s a long game. It isn’t like Facebook ads, where you can see results within a few weeks… days even (if you’re working with Sarah-Jane Gwira!)

It takes time and effort to create content like blog posts, research keywords, build backlinks etc. Another thing with SEO is that SEO really and truly works… IF you work it. If you’re not going to stick to a provider, and put in the time (I’m talking a few months!) to complete and go through with your SEO strategy, SEO may not be for you. Here are three ways to tell whether or not you’re ready to “SEO” your website or not.

1. You don’t really know what SEO is

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a lot more than just keywords. Shoot, Google doesn’t even have a keyword tag anymore! There is so much more to SEO than meets the eye and if you don’t really, and truly know about it, you may not want to invest in it. SEO professionals plague spam boxes like the Spanish Flu, however, this doesn’t mean you’re necessarily in good hands. Before you attempt to hire a freelancer or SEO agency to get your website ranked, read a couple of articles as to what SEO entails. Honestly, I’d advise doing this for any digital marketing service you intend on procuring for your business. Do the research, ask questions and then see if SEO fits into your overall marketing strategy.

2. You want positive marketing results… yesterday

We all can be a little bit impatient when it comes to our business. We want to cash, the revenue, the trips the Lambos now. Forget all of that if you’re planning on using SEO in your marketing strategy. SEO is – in my opinion – one of the slowest forms of digital marketing out there. However, I also believe it is one of the most long-lasting and reliable ways to market and drive traffic your business website. The thing is, this will not take 5 business days. It may not even take 5 months for you to see results, good results. One thing about SEO (for the most part) is that it is sure. I used SEO to get this YouTube video ranking and still driving in most of my traffic on YouTube. That video has been up since 2013 and it’s still driving traffic, still bringing in revenue in the form of Adsense for me and I haven’t made any changes to it in all that time.

3. You don’t have any loyalty… to service providers, that is

If you’ve had 4 social media managers, 6 Facebook ads specialists and 3 web designers that were all crap… the problem is you. This also sets a terrible precedent for your SEO strategy. Why? Well, if you keep on changing the course of a ship every few miles, will it get to its’s destination on time? Probably not. The same can be said for service providers. If you don’t have the patience to stick with a service provider, to be able to gather and analyze data, to be able to comply with their methods, SEO is definitely not for you. To be cliche, “you have to trust the process”.

Wanted to get this off my chest, because… well, it was bugging me lol  Also, if you disagree, please let me know by leaving a comment below! I’m always open to learning!

P.S – If you would like to learn a little bit about how you can take your SEO into your own hands, here’s a training I created that’ll help you do just that.