It is fair to say that humans are very simple creatures. Part of this simplicity and at the core of us all is the desire to make things easy for ourselves. Because, why not, right? Why should things be more difficult than they need to be? We are alive today because our ancestors and theirs had the ability to make the challenges ahead of them as simple as possible in order to overcome them as easily as possible.

So, we can agree that we should thank our ancestors and evolutionary biology for that, right? Sure. But…

With that, comes a negative effect. We all want the quickest route:

• The panacea.

• The magic bullet.

• The one pill that will cure it all.

• The ‘secret’ that successful people know.

• The ‘routine’ that successful people follow.

Lastly, and what’s actually relevant here – is the fact that business owners and marketers think this way, too. Whether we like it or not.

This is particularly true in the case of search engine optimisation. Every* business owner or website owner knows that they need SEO in order to rank above their competitors and have their target market land on their website instead.

* I should caveat this with the fact that, yes, a lot of businesses are still not aware of the need for digital marketing. However, these businesses will regret this – period. There are zero exceptions to the rule of ‘evolve or die’. You only have to look at Blockbuster…

The difficulty arises here when a business owner knows that they need SEO, but at the same time don’t really want to do it. So, what happens?

What happens when you just ‘do’ SEO

They just ‘do’ SEO. Whether that be through foreign and cheap freelancers, getting their son or daughter to watch some ‘of that new app thing called TikTok’ about it, or by trying to do it themselves.

Well, what happens then?

Nothing, obviously.

The fact is, the big nasty algorithms that people hate are created to REWARD that which is the most DIFFICULT to do.

The rule put simply is this (though, yes, there are exceptions to every rule):

More difficult the task > More high yield the reward from Google.

So, when they just ‘do’ SEO, and see nothing instantly, their entire opinion and perception of it becomes tarnished and seen as a waste of time and money.

When, this obviously isn’t the case. What has actually happened is THEY have wasted their time and money, by not doing it right.

The common denominator in:

1. The websites that rank the highest

2. And subsequently the businesses that get the most new customers and business from their website…

Is that they KNEW they couldn’t get away with just ‘doing SEO’.

That’s why folk like Neil Patel there, bless him, and those like him, have people lining up and lapping up their content.

Whereas the genuine SEO strategies are left going cold on the kitchen counter.

Food for thought. Before it goes cold.

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