SEO is not a cut and dry process, and today, we are going to delve into why this is.

Most of the time when a client purchases an SEO service they expect an an expert in a lab coat to climb into their metaphorical SEO machine, clean out some obstructions, dust himself off and announce “voila! It now works”, and then have their rankings zoom to spot one because it works.

It’s much the same problem as in your evening commute, when you cannot for the life of you see all the other cars as anything but a single mass obstruction, instead of other individuals exactly like yourself. You are traffic.

Optimization does not remove your competitors. They also have SEO staff who fix their websites. You may not rank for anything because your SEO is terrible, so you hire an SEO expert to optimize your website and make everything work. Should be a piece of cake right? No.

That SEO expert can do a perfect job of making your website communicate its purpose and message clearly to the Google bot, but your website still doesn’t rank. Why?

Many clients get very upset at this point and think that they have been cheated. This is everyone’s fault, because often the SEO agency fails to communicate what their service does, and instead simply promises to make you rank in the search results, with no discussion of the reality of the situation.

The thing that interferes with success here is competition. The other websites are better than you. I know that’s a controversial statement that no business person will tell their client to their face, but it’s time for a little taste of truth. The other websites also have SEO experts. Think of your website like a very fuzzy speaker, trying to communicate a message. The SEO’s job is to make that message come out clearly. You cannot go infinitely more clear. At some point, your website communicates very clearly, just like your competitors do. At this point, to stand out you need to say something worth hearing.

Optimization is not infinitely useful. No amount of optimization will make a wooden knife superior to a carbon steel one. This is why many SEO companies have branched out into offering web design and on-page content writing.

Google’s ranking algorithm takes into account every aspect of your website, from backlinks, to content and grammar. Google is a business that wants to deliver to their users. They want to deliver the result that the searcher really wants to find.

If you want to rank, you need to actively search the phrases that your customers and visitors will use to find you, see who is ranking in spot #1, and do better than them at providing what the searchers are looking for. Not just better in your opinion, but better in the opinion of the public. Google tracks this using your bounce rates, time on page, and other metrics.

Take the time to understand how SEO works, and judge the quality of the service you receive by inspecting the work that was done. If it didn’t improve your ranking, you may have other problems.