Unsolicited SEO Advice

If I could give people coming into the SEO industry any advice it would be.

1. As you learn SEO always run a couple of hobby sites of your own to test things on.

2. Do not use client sites for guinea pig tests - if you aren't sure about something test elsewhere.

3. If Google says' it's releasing an update to tackle something, take it with a pinch of salt.

4. SEO isn't easy, do not fall for the marketing tack and flashy videos claiming that you can hack Google SERPS with easy steps. SEO can offer quick wins, but they are often conditional.

5. Clients can be brutal and totally NOT understand the work you do, don't take it personally, educate.

6. Google updates are a fing headache - whether you've done things right or wrong, sometimes sites just suffer, sometimes they sail through.

7. Following best practice doesn't always work, you have to test everything.

8. SEO doesn't always work unless you are given support in the right areas. If a clients site has shit content but the client doesn't provide you with a content solution or if you cannot get content past the client then things will quickly break down.

9. Copying what the top ranking sites do quite often doesn't work. There are often so many other factors at play.

10. Don't spend 90% of your time focusing on things that contribute to a small part of what SEO is, those 500 alt tags can wait, sort content and page layout/experience first.

11. If you inherit shit work / shoddy work from previous agencies/consultants then be prepared to be in the firing line if a G update hits the area where previous tactics were downright spammy/unethical - again, educate the client on findings as early on.

12. SEO as a whole requires good organisational skills, you need to focus on being able to implement, test, organise the creation of new content, benchmark, evaluate, orchestrate technical fixes / dev interaction and more - broadening your skills really helps.

13. Do not put up with rude or abusive clients, most clients will be great, but some will simply be too impatient or will expect every penny to be accounted for, which, in SEO can be difficult - time is money.

14. Third party tools = third party data, only use for guidance, it's not gospel, heck even Google ads keyword data is notoriously vague and unreliable.

15. DR / TF / DA and other metrics are VANITY metrics. If you want to evaluate how good links are, look at the traffic the website gets - that counts for more value than DR/TF etc. in isolation.

16. Shit links don’t work, so don't be tempted if you see competitors nailing the ranks by using mass spam and tiered links. It likely won't last for them in the long run.

17. Google isn't always smart, if you have similar pages on a website GET RID with consolidation.

18. DO NOT promise rankings or traffic, just do good work and eventually it will come. Sometimes it may take a lot longer than you initially expected. Again, educate the client where possible.