Why Doing the Bare Minimum Doesn’t Work in SEO
So often you hear people saying that they’ve got some content, links and a reasonable site structure but still aren’t getting any decent rankings. You look a little deeper into their site and often you’ll find that their content comprises of a couple of sentences, they have a few generic links and the site is barely optimised.
Now that’s fine if you have no aspirations to get a ranking on Google. If you are happy to promote your site elsewhere and get dribs and drabs through search, then the bare minimum is probably alright. However, if you want to get to the first page of any search engine, you’re going to have to be a little more concerted in your efforts.
Search engine rankings don’t just happen. Corporations invest thousands, if not millions in marketing their sites online, including SEO. Whilst small companies can’t afford to make this kind of investment, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t at least be doing something to compete. Accepting the bare minimum is like accepting defeat, you simply can’t hope to get decent rankings.
Let’s start with content. This is an area that seems to prove particularly unpopular with website owners for some reason. Some see it as a nuisance. Something that needs to be there but doesn’t serve any distinct purpose. But this simply isn’t true.
Content is vital for visitors and search engines alike. You can’t hope to be taken seriously if you don’t have anything on the site worth reading. People will move on and find something a little more professional.
Equally, search engines use your page content to distinguish what it is that you do. Whilst evaluating your site they use this information to accurately measure you against competitors. This is what will earn you rankings further down the line.
Link building can be a daunting process. It sounds easy enough, you just go out and request links and see how that goes. But actually finding sites that are willing and able to do so can prove challenging. This is why so many give up and simply rely on a few early directories and kindly souls to provide enough links.
Unfortunately this method is again hugely flawed. Links are central to building authority. Without links the search engines will never be able to work out if you’re a trusted source to send their users to. As a consequence, expect to languish at the foot of the search rankings for your keywords – if indeed you have defined any.
Online competition is too strong to simply leave your site’s success to chance. SEO might take time and effort to implement, but so too will any form of effective marketing. Work is completed with visitors in mind – firstly in attracting them through organic rankings and then secondly retaining their attention and inspiring them to convert.
SEO is all about effort. The more you put in, the more you should get out of it. If you aren’t prepared to make time to write a little content, improve internal navigation or earn extra links, then you have nobody to blame but yourself if you don’t manage to monetise your website.
As with most things, the bare minimum will only get you so far online. In most cases though, it’ll just mean that you’re wasting your annual hosting fee. Invisible sites are worthless sites.
