[Build Backlinks Online] How Failure Can Make You a Better SEO

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How Failure Can Make You a Better
SEO'


Posted by HappyBrooke
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

Itâs been three months since the good Mozzers allowed my SEO from a
Newbâs Perspective to see the light of day, and Iâm back for another
round. Except now HappyBrooke has had a dose of reality.




Thatâs right â Iâve hit some potholes. And I found out that
Brooke's list of essential qualities SEO pros need (which I listed in the last
post), though it didn't claim to be comprehensive, lacked one: the ability to be
resilient. Props to Heather Baker for noting this in the comments. In this post,
Iâll share my fledgling thoughts on how to cultivate resilience in the
face of failure. As Heather pointed out, if you want to do SEO well, you've
gotta be resilient.


My friends who are, like me, "newbs" to SEO will probably find my epiphanies
more helpful than those of you who are old hat. But no doubt veterans have
developed strategies on how to stay resilient in your daily battles to rank. If
youâre willing to share your strategies with me in the comments below, I'd
be tickled.

Why SEO is a bumpy ride

As you and I both know, SEO done right can pay off in tremendous ways for our
clients: through website traffic, conversions, brand awareness, loyalty, and
retention (just to name a few perks that come from online marketing success). If
you can rank, you can reap the benefits.


But there are no guarantees.


In my first four months on the job as an SEO, Iâve not experienced a
major Earth-shifting Google algorithm update (yet), but I have experienced the
daily joys and challenges of our field. You all know how it goes.


Since starting my job at Happy Dog, this has all happened to me:


I gained clients, and I lost a client.
I created content people liked, and I created content nobody gave a rip about.
I watched rankings skyrocket, and I watched rankings drop it like it's hot.


Boy-oh-boy am I realizing that to do SEO, you need a healthy dose of
Doryâs âjust keep swimmingâ resilience at times.




Credit: Tumblr


Watching the analytics and the SERPs, just waiting for traffic and rankings,
feels awfully like trying to get a fire going at a summer night's bonfire
(without the fun of hot dogs and s'mores). You stare into the flames and wait
for a spark. Add another log. The fire dies down. You shiver. You frantically
run to find twigs. Finally: a tiny blaze! Hallelujah! Then suddenly, a major
gust of wind blows it out. Nooooooo!


I donât know about you, but my emotions follow a pretty specific pattern
when Iâm idling in no-rank-land. First, Iâm frustrated. My client
has a great business. He/she deserves better rankings. But then I feel a sense
of entitlement: I'm putting in the hours, so it's maddening that my work isn't
paying off. I feel desperate. My client is paying me to achieve results. Am I a
failure? Stricken with grief, I eat candy bars and slump in my desk chair
drinking straight from the coffee pot.


What comes next? Well, Iâm hired to help our clients optimize their web
presence. Iâm expected to drive traffic â my clients will not
twiddle their thumbs and wait patiently. The pressureâs on. What am I
going to do?


The eventual outcome of this whole emotional journey is that I get a grip
(finally) and muster up whatever resilience I have. Then here's what I'm
learning to do: to take a marker to the good olâ proverbial drawing board
to see what can be done. This moment, my friends, is the essence of what we do
in SEO.

Itâs not easy being creative

The reason SEO is so challenging/exhilarating/frustrating/tiring/overwhelming
is that, as many experts have already pointed out, thereâs no secret
formula to earn links, start ranking, and succeed at search engine marketing.
There are literally as many ways as your creative mind can dream up, which means
you could see astounding results if you climb out on a limb or you could see no
results at all and completely, totally flop.


Thereâs a risk to every creative endeavor we undertake. When we do it on
behalf of someone else, the risk increases. In the face of all this pressure, we
have to learn how to embody resilience â every day, every hour, every
minute, no matter what the analytics are saying.


Iâm learning that just because I try a tactic and it doesnât work,
that doesnât mean I have failed. Iâm going to be honest for a minute
and shed some light on three of my âfailuresâ in the hopes that you
will a) realize youâre not alone, and b) get some ideas of how to move
forward.

Brookeâs SEO Blunders



I'm still learning Photoshop. Please don't judge.

1. Nobody wanted my content

Problem: I spent hours pouring research and creativity into blog posts for a
client and then pitching them to appropriate platforms. For weeks, nobody bit.


What I did next: Tweaked the ideas, made tiny edits, and re-pitched the
content. People were unimpressed, so I created more content with gusto. Then I
set aside the content nobody wanted for the time being and revisited it when
Iâd had a little space to see if I had any new ideas to improve it. Turns
out, I did.


Reality check: Failing to attract an audienceâs attention is an age-old
dilemma for artists (which we are). Hey, if thereâs anything I learned
from my college creative writing classes, itâs that if you expect a
standing ovation for everything you write, get ready to be disappointed, hon.
Plenty of writers spent years writing and pitching tomes that nobody wanted to
publish (poor Jack Kerouac had On the Road done in three weeks, or so he
claimed, but it took the guy years to find a publisher). Unless youâre
already a smashing success, youâre not entitled to anybodyâs
attention.


How to stay resilient: Learn from the rejection and tweak your overall
strategy. Was the content too shallow or too technical? Did you choose an angle
or approach that didnât jam with your audience? Was the platform you chose
to publish on the wrong fit for the content? Try something new next time.
Donât fret. You canât hit it out of the ballpark every time.

2. I lost a client

Problem: All throughout the first few months of their campaign, my client
seemed wishy-washy, always about to give up. I played cheerleader on every phone
call and email, promising that the rankings for their brand-new, beautiful site
were going to improve. But the client, waiting for the leads to roll in, was
getting antsy. Just as things were getting exciting on the SEO-side, they
bailed.


What I did next: My boss and I did a âWhat went wrong?â analysis,
and we affirmed that the campaign had been solid. The rankings had been slow to
come by, but forecasting a month or two down the road, we saw that things were
looking up. However, we realized how important it is to check in with our
clients and make sure they are happy â this client had had questions but
never raised them with us. This experience made us resolve to check in more
often and create that opportunity to talk about our clientsâ concerns.


Reality check: Even if you perform high-quality work, clients often expect to
get leads and see results in a shorter time period than it may take to achieve
them. It is important to clearly articulate to your clients that in SEO,
âslow and steady wins the race.â In our case, we should have
communicated more with our client and made sure they did not have unrealistic
expectations of us.


How to stay resilient: If you do a good job but still lose the client,
donât hang your head in shame. The thing is, there will always (or at
least often) be a better strategy you could have used. Losing a client can be an
opportunity to reflect on how well your strategy worked. With SEO, even the best
strategies take time, and you canât force your clients to be patient. All
you can do is focus on providing the best quality SEO services that you can.

3. I couldnât figure out how to market a client in a boring,
âblahâ industry

Problem: The day they called to request SEO services, I couldnât even
wrap my head around their product. Wait, so what do you guys do again?


What I did next: I changed their entire keyword strategy three times, didn't
sleep, and tossed idea after idea out the window. Honestly, this was a tough
one. One thing that helped (at my clientâs suggestion) was having learning
sessions with them on the benefit their product provides. When I started to
grasp that, it was easier to drum up ideas (I'm still drumming).


Reality check: Not every client will be easy to market. Some industries are
just doozies.


How to stay resilient: Nick Stagg from Lemonpromotions brought up a great
question in the comments on my first post: âHow do you make a plumber
sound sexy?â How, indeed? There are probably hundreds of ways to go about
it. Overall, I think promoting the plumber will involve four steps:


Understanding the unique value the plumber provides,
Knowing who needs his/her services,
Succinctly articulating his/her value, and
Creatively sharing it.

As marketers, these are challenges that can inspire and push us. Ultimately,
every industry has a need and a purpose, and you can (and will!) find strategies
that will work.
Takeaways

If you're stumped or failing:


Talk to your clients. Keep the relationship strong. Share your resilience with
them. In no-rank land, they'll need it, too. Let their enthusiasm for and
expertise in their field revitalize you.
Try new things. Be adventurous. Experiment with new content or approaches.
Sometimes failure propels us out of the box we were stuck in when nothing else
can.
Give yourself a break. Don't make yourself miserable by wallowing in continual
blame and guilt. Everybody fails! But dwelling on it for too long will prevent
you from moving forward.


Whatever you take away from this reflection (I hope itâs not just
dissatisfaction at my attempts to provide solutions to common SEO ailments
â comment below with your better ideas! I long to hear them!), remember
that weâre all still learning how to do this business in an ethical,
effective, exciting way. If you fail once, or fail again and again, cultivate
resilience. Return to that drawing board. Remember that at the end of the day,
your integrity and the connections you make with your clients are the most
important things - not your ability to make them rank.


My impression of the SEO community after just a few months of reading blogs
and forums is that you people are hungry for the tools and tips to do your jobs
better. You donât want to just do an okay job. You want to succeed, and
you want to do it in big, beautiful, bold ways. When you experience
discouragement, consider J.K. Rowlingâs words in her commencement speech
at Harvard back in 2008 (they apply to SEO and to life in general):


âIt is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live
so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all â in which
case, you fail by default.â


Fail, but do it resiliently. And get back up. Youâll do better next
time.

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