Every SEO has their strong points and their weak ones. For me, subjects like content creation and keyword research have always come naturally, but others like methodically using analytics data to improve and running manual link building campaigns have always been a struggle. Today, I'd thought it would be interesting to get a bit self-critical and talk about those items on the SEO-to-do-list that cause us the greatest struggles.
Perhaps if we indulge our catharsis, we can grow stronger.
In the comments below, feel free to describe your struggles - what gives you the biggest headache, which tasks you dread during the workday, and what processes are ripe for outsourcing?
As a start, I'll provide some of the checklist items that I find most cringe-worthy:
- Guessing at which website is going to be included for duplicate/licensed content when most of the standard metrics would indicate a near-tie (PR, inbound link counts, competitiveness of current rankings, etc)
- Determining which page to get links from when offered multiple pages with similar external metrics
- Identifying the cause of a rankings/inclusion penalty (Yahoo! is actually the hardest one, as they seem almost arbitrary at times, but Google can be a formidable struggle too)
- Measuring the success and value of a link building campaign
- Explaining why PageRank in the toolbar isn't a good metric for success (to a non-SEO)
- Competing against low-quality Wikipedia pages in the rankings
OK, now it's your turn :-)
Link acquisition when the site isn't worthy of being linked to :.)
Hahah, the "boring client" linkbuilding challenge. Is tough...but I find that I'm often at my most creative with what are apparantly the dullest clients!
Seconded! and also explaining the client why his site is not worthy of backlinks :)
I think mine is more of a "state of mind" challenge rather than a specific task that I find difficult, and involves combining creative thinking with grinding to deadlines.
Successful SEO (especially in terms of creating link bait) requires a lot of creative lateral thinking, while the demands of being part of an agency require creating a lot of content to very tight deadlines. It can be tough to make the time to be creative. The "gear change" from grinding out reports and articles to trying to be creative and original can be difficult to manage!
This is right on for me too!
Agreed. I'd say in the agency environment it's damn year impossible to stay creative. It takes a special kind of agency to cultivate creativity - I have yet to find such a place. SEO agencies in my experience have tended to feel internally much akin to what I imagine an insurance office would be like. Stuffy.
Evaluating the flood of SEO news, extracting the valuable content and always being up-to-date is IMO one of the most challenging (and time consuming activities) ...
<quote>Keyword research can be terribly boring. I like the brainstorming part, but trying to get search data from the free versions of Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery is a slow, painful process (ahh, the joys of a small budget). The only good part about that is getting to organize my MP3 collection at the same time...</quote>
I get bored doing keyword research too...it seems so disconnected from interacting with people...
Most business owners and managers I meet are totally focused on immediate needs. To them, long-term planning may mean 3 months from now. They all admit this is due to pressure to perform and time constraints.
The majority of SEO is time-consuming so I spend time managing expectations through education. Luckily, I enjoy teaching...but then that's time consuming and I need to get things done now.
Gee, did I just hear an echo? :)
I think we might need some 'External link building' White Board Fridays Rand ;)
Well not for my own sites per se but my main problem as an agency SEO is internal linking architecture. For an agency SEO, it is an impossible task to tell the clients that their cool flash navigation has to change or that their 5 level deep ecommerce site is simply not cutting for traffic. Of course most of the times, especially for bigger clients, the issue is to have no access to the site which means the client almost never moves forward with preagreed plans. I guess only a fellow agency SEO can understand my pain. You guys say external linking is pain, I say it is my only salvation.
I think the top of your list will probably be the external link campaigns. I do struggle with it too, but thats because small businesses dont usually have the budget to work on a good campaign.
Howeever, my biggest issue is convincing onsite (client side) to invest time in GOOD SEO practice. It takes a lot of time and teaching to get them to keep SEO at the forefront.
Voted for External Link Acquisition, which is really not primary challenge. If client writes valuable content, it becomes easy.
Primary issue is getting dedicated buy-in to make SEO an ongoing priority as Rishil stated:
Explaining the SEO process to those who do not want to take part in the process, and who only want to see results. For smaller businesses who opt into monthly contracts often want to reap the benefits without the proper understanding and patience. Justifying your own work after a campaign is only a month old can be like running around in circles with some clients. You tell them one attribute that can lead to a higher organic page ranking only as an example and suddenly they harp on that one thing. Or a client may read 5 SEO related articles written 3 years ago and think they're an expert.
Once a common ground for language and understanding is built, the process is much easier to explain and justify. But for those clients who want to take no part in the understanding, and only want to see results, that can be by far the most difficult part.
Coming up with good quality original linkbait is becoming a bit of a struggle these days, especially for those clients who have the misfortune of working in a really dull industry.
From a user-experience point of view it can be pretty difficult to convince website owners that their homepage should say something more interesting that 'The company was established in 1852......blah blah blah'.
I find keyword research to be very challenging. I haven't decided if it's difficult or just boring.
I do find whiddling the list down to the terms that will be targeted tough at times. Sorting through all the data like volume, competition and more.
And the worst part, organizing it all.Oh the required organization, it kills me.
Link building is tough for sure, but sometimes one will be lucky enough to do SEO for a site that has good links. I have yet to take on a site that already has keywords figured out.
Predicting ROI of possible SEO activities and prioritizing those SEO actions that will drive the most return at the lowest cost. Very difficult...
Another vote for external links here. I have some clients who don't have the time, motivation or business to create fresh, interesting content. Everyone seems to mention link building as a struggle but how do people try and get links?
For me, I try and submit good content to various social bookmarking sites. I also take part in link exchanges but I know that their effect is not particularly great anyone. I've also has the idea of creating a blog reviewing various websites. if the blog ever reaches a decent level of importance in the eyes of the search engines, it may prove very effective when I review my clients sites. Apart from those types of things, I am struggling to come up with effecttive strategies.
QUALITY external Links...
A lot of trouble
For me, it's definitely getting juicy external links. The sites I'm responsible for are somewhat on the dull side and firing up a webmaster's interest takes both persistence and great amounts of creativity!
same story here too... trying to get the external link juice pointing back. Not just the link, but having them link "correctly" to my site and not just throwing up some generic company name anchor text, when I'm trying to get a good "deep water anchor" pointing back at a deep page :)
yep, my linkees always seem to use the URL as the anchor text.
Toughest part: Explaining to a client's developer for the 500th time what canonicalization is.
I polled in with creating link-worthy content... mainly because I've found link building to be a lot less difficult when a site has a history or represents a company with a physical presence.
This is so refreashing. I thought I was alone having a hard time getting quality inbound links
Oh geez me too.
When I was picking my answer I really expected to see only 1 person had chosen that option...me!
So glad to see it's an overwhelming frustration for a great majority....not just lil'ol me.
quality I definitely have trouble with.
Yep, for me it's the external link campaigns too.
I think it's because it's the most sale-sy part of my job, and it makes me feel a little uncomfortable - it's just something I need to work on I guess :)
Rand, I think the problem could be divided into two parts:
A) Getting links for english sites isn't such a big issue like getting links for non-english sites. It has to do also with the amount of availble sites from which you could get a link. Not every country has a digg clone or good SB sites, then you can imagine how it looks like with related sites.
B) If there are not so many related sites out there on the internet, there is just one question which goes through our minds: How much do non-related links count? If I'm building links for Germany, does a .com link count less then a .de link? Estimating link value is very hard, so bringing some measurement parameters from experience in there would help much.
I'm not Rand, and I never played him on TV, but I've done a bit of work with multi-lingual campaigns. In most of the non-English languages I've worked with (French, German, Spanish mostly), the number of authoritative links you need to rank well is somewhat adjusted for the market.
Internal factors such as server location also play a role. In French search results for example, I see wikipedia in the top results far less often than in English searches.
In Google.fr, a search without language or country filters for "ordinateur portable" doesn't show Wikipedia anywhere in the top 10. A search for "laptop computer" on Google.com shows Wikipedia as the number 2 result, number 8 for the UK (may vary on searches from inside the UK). In the French results, all of the top 10 are hosted in Europe.
Only the 1st result has a .fr domain, so all things being equal you could interpret that as Google giving a little more weight to country level TLDs for country specific searches. Regardless of where your links come from, being hosted in or near the country you're targeting OR having a country level TLD can help with ranking. Having both is best, though if it's one or the other go with the TLD.
When it comes to building links, the same applies. Go after links from sites hosted in or around your target country, and those with country level domains. If you're building links for Germany, the most valuable (in my experience) would be one from a .de site hosted in Germany. A .de site hosted in Europe would be next, followed by a .com (or .net, .org...) hosted in Germany. A link from a .com (or .net, .org...) site hosted outside of Germany or Europe would be least valuable.
Especially for non-English results, my experience has been that off-topic, but country related links are still valuable in establishing a site's authority. Even if you look at English results, linkbait often attracts links from unrelated sites, but they still seem to help
Creating quality content, strangely.
I build websites for small businesses and generally the owners are slow with supplying web suitable info if they do so at all. I also do the SEO because the sites are small enough and have a limited target audience.
I can spellcheck and construct sentences but it's not my strongpoint.
Now one of my clients keeps hiring those shifty borderline blackhat SEO guys who are only spamming his visitor stats with keywords he thinks are interesting (but how many clients would search directly for the business name and not their main product?)
I keep telling him for that money he would be much better off hiring a copywriter, but I'm afraid he's caught up in the trend.
Dealing with inconsistencies across search engines. Watching my PPC fees mysteriously increase as I raise bids, always coming in right at budget, yet the CTR% stays regular, and sales don't go up...and measuring PPC fees and results against web logs, analytics, reports showing conflicting data...watching the natural - organic search result placement for my site and terms magically "raise" as I spend more on PPC, and watching it shrink back down when I suspend a campaign...which makes since it it is as of late all about link backs...working in content management systems with field, layout, and code limitaions...having to install multiple tracking codes for multiple analytics for different search engines...seeing competitor sites not get hurt from using black hat tactics. Having great organic search results - but still losing to the big guys who have bigger PPC budgets and can afford all the best keyword combinations...
Why can't I edit my own post?
There is a time limit on editing here.
One has to make all edits within a certain amount of time of posting.
Like many commenters on this thread, my biggest struggle is with external link building.
I find that the amount of time necessary to cultivate quality links is pretty high, and in a small agency it is difficult to find enough time to really dive deep into quality link building efforts.
Another vote for link building from me. It's by far the most tedious and boring part of the job. I really don't enjoy it at all.
Also getting and keeping links for smaller clients that don't have a budget of thousands of dollars every month to maintain their links. That's one of the main reason I hate paid links. It ends up being too expensive over time to continually increase. After a certain point, clients look at it as diminishing returns because their monthly budget will eventually outgrow their profitability.
So I'm voting for quality non paid links as the toughest part of the job for me. And maybe finding a good writer that doesn't charge an arm and a leg. That seems to be pretty tough too ;)
I have voted for "Creating High Quality, Link-Worthy Content". If i have a site with High Quality, Link-Worthy Content, "External Link Acquisition Campaigns" would be more easier for me ( I hope for everyone around here.)
- Explaining why PageRank in the toolbar isn't a good metric for success (to a non-SEO)
i like this one.. however i just google a few client's pages where the toolbar shows 0 or nothing at all..
NOTE: which by the way after last weeks discussion i now know why and how it happens and will find out after 11:30 today if i can duplicate it.. and if i can.. OMFG.. civilization will cease to exist..
muhahaha!
i picked external link building in your poll, but it's not really that hard, because i do so very little of it and still rank. Yahoo! and DMOZ might be good places to start.
then again i figured out a few things i have been could be considered link building but in more of a hacker way than the conventional way. by hacker i mean not on the radar as opposed to exploits of current holes. (that would be "cracker")
External Link Acquisition Campaigns !! M bad with it :-(
I would say that it's working within the parameters you get stuck with.
Inevitably, there are constraints or other considerations that prevent you from doing what you'd consider best practices. Or heck, effective practices.
Like the client who is under contract with an intractable software provider for their ecommerce solution. Or who absolutely refuses to pay for link-building (which is expensive because it IS hard, IS time consuming, and DOES often require effectively what amounts to a media buy), but demands to use rankings as a KPI. Or the site that's coded entirely in javascript, but the owner refuses to do a redesign, insisting you "optimize what I've got."
Very often, so many things are out of the SEO's hands, and yet really, they should be effectively the "webmaster" and in control of all of the pieces to really do the job right.
There are special case clients too. Legality is a huge issue for me. Different laws govening financial institutions in different countries make optimising two sites with near identical content across .ie and .co.uk tlds is a sod, frankly.
See also alcohol sites where the distillery is forced to use a splash page to ensure that, for certain countries, minors are excluded - and the definition of a minor is different across the globe.
I struggle with the duplication in these areas and with getting changes made when they have to be run past legal teams first.
I would say that financial clients are by far the hardest to work with combining, as they do, both highly competitive keywords and being the hardest to get changes implemented on.
I feel like I'm one of the only people that doesn't see link acquisition as that hard or complicated. Sure it can be tiresome and aggravating, but I feel that it's by no means difficult.
My biggest problem lies in the fact that I'm unorganized, so I don't keep very neat or clean records of things. I guess that falls under measuring success?
I keep a really detailed excel file with a sheet for each category and a workbook for each campaign - annoying but definitely worth it.
The PageRank guide (yep, it's on its way, people) will help with that :)
to me once you have quality content then it just mater of finding cretical spot to get backlinks, you are bound to get a lot of backlinks for quality contents, so to me is quality of content where i think i have to work more...
I'd be surprised if anyone didn't say external link acquisition.
It's the hardest part of building a site's search profile, which is why Google values it so highly.
I totally agree. Especially since they have started differentiating between quality links and spammy inks. Add c-block IP address analysis, who.is data, web-ring analysis, link anchor text, link source strength (domain strength, domain type - .edu, domain age, blog, comment, forum) etc. and it becomes pretty hard to beat the link juice based ranking.
And still SEO dark wizards find ways to beat the system. Aren't SEOs a ueber-cool bunch!
Also in the main post Rand said:
Also wouldn't it be great if somebody listed all the major factors which affect the quality of a link in one blog post? Or is it already out there buried under tons of SEO advice from experts?
O SEO wizards, I beseech you for guidance!
Update: formatting
getting external links is a pain xxxxxx.
why? because most of the times, the sites you would like to get links from are already linked to one of your competitors. Unless you can give them greater value (which means cash in the end), you have no real chance...
interesting - i've had some luck getting one way links from people who link to my competitors but only at about half my usual success rate.
Link aquisition by a long-shot. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to succesfully implement this crap. There are planty of resources on what NOT to do, but not much that explains how to do it.
Well i think this will be a white wash 'External Link Acquisition Campaigns' for me as well. Getting quality links is difficult if not expensive sometimes. Indeed Site analysis is another thing i don't love,maticuously scouring analytics for problems etc.
As stated previous it can also be extremely difficult to convince clients of the need to have a seo specialist onboard from the begining and than throughout the life of the website. But I still have to go back to my first option! Its hard.
As previously said, I think is harder to build quality external links...
External Links, oh the woe...
I'm glad other people struggle with this because I was beginning to think I was just lazy... Tracking down those quality links is a tough one for sure.
Without a doubt: linkbuilding is the most difficult for me, or if it is one of my own projects it is content generation (oh i wish content werent king)
Definitely External Linking Acquisition. Also on my list...
yes, can grow stronger.. do you here find the seo stranger...
The hardest part I have trouble with is actually not listed. It's having clients who pay you to do the work, but yet never actually follow through with anything and you never hear from them ever again.
I just don't understand how you can pay someone $5k, $10k, $15k etc and yet you never do anything to make sure you get a return on your investment. :)
Also, when clients pay you to do the service and yet they pretend to know more than you do, but yet they needed your services.
Some would say your lucky. But that is good to know your not out there to just make money, your an SEO out to make OTHERS money. Which is a novel concept....sadly not all SEO's care about this. (I'd say that would be common for black hatters)
Duplicate posting - can someone delete this please?
The first is frustrating, the second I can live with.
I often have training sessions with technical leads and then get an email from the CTO complaining that Joe Dim has reported that I only taught him things which he already knew, generally despite his being the weakest participant and not having a clue.
These things add to my day as I remember how fortunate we are not to be so petty ;)
Like rest of the other 57% respondents so far, getting inbound links is the toughest part of my SEO work as well.
Even if you may have great quality link-worthy content on your website, it does not guarantee 100's of automatic links. Unless you know how to promote your content, you may end up getting absolutely 0 links for your greatest article. Ultimately it comes down to marketing what-ever you do. Be it marketing your services, marketing your website or marketing your content. If you can do it well - well then you are the King.
Convincing clients that my new 'thinking outside the box' off-site social engagement strategy incorporating huge viral potential could be a better long-term use of assigned monthly SEO budget over on-site H1 title and anchor text amends.
I had a 'phone call on Wednesday from an airline who wanted to know what sort of budget would be required for some consultancy on which words to hide in white on a white background for their site.
I am not surprised by ignorance, but I am surprised by ignorance from CTOs.
I would have to say finding high-quality links that don't ask for reciprocals, money, or other odd requests. I try to combat that by asking my clients to add a link or blog page to their site if they don't have one yet. Then I provide an exchange for related content that will hopefully not devalue my clients' ranking.
I find writing good content that also considers keyword placement challenging. After that, the arduous job of promoting and backlinks. It really is time consuming.
Creating High Quality Links or Link Building is the hardest seo process for me. Link Building for high quality traffic is a continous process
External Link Acquisition Campaigns
This has to be the one for me too, as no matter what kind of emails you send, people you call, comments, notes, articles, etc etc you target you ultimately are waiting on a yes or a no from the other side. This often is closely linked with what your client is offering (service? product?) and whether its interesting or useful etc.
I have worked with clients where its like getting blood from a stone, and then other clients where it comes naturally, easily... Its incredibly frustrating and often I find myself getting down because the amount of time I spent trying to do this looks silly compared to what I get out of it at the end.
I guess its just a fundamental part of SEO though, as with most things in this sector of the SEM industry, the absolute final say is out of our hands, be it in the hands of other webmasters or the search engines themselves. We can do everything in our power and our repertoire to benefit our clients, but sometimes that just isnt enough...
Yeah, really frustrating sometimes (but does mean that when its good, it feels real good!)
It's definitely the external link building for me, too. I wasn't surprised that it led the pack by a big margin in the results. That would suggest there's a wide open niche out there for quality link builders, but it's become so difficult and time consuming, what you'd have to actually charge would send clients running to offshore link houses to get 1,000 crappy links for $25.
I don't have any problem with copywriting and creating link worthy materials - it's how I got started in this business in the first place. And while I'd certainly like to add several arms and legs to my collection, I find I can't "charge an arm and a leg" for copywriting either.
When you create link-worthy content, the links don't just appear magically - sure, it can be the gift that keeps on giving, but you generally still need to do some promotion to get it noticed in the first place.
External Link Acquisition is definitely the hardest part. People just don't link easy...
External linking campaigns are what I find the most challenging. I'm glad I have some extra time right now. Maybe I can improve upon what I currently do.
And I'm so glad I'm not the only one!
Definitely external link building also - Particularly if you have a small mom-and-pop type travel or online sales type site that is targeting an international market rather than a local market.
While there seems to be lots of options for small businesses targeting local markets using local yellow pages and the like, what about if your target is beyond that to the greater world - where massive corporate sites are in abundance?
I think mine has been Keyword Research but I lean more towards of understanding analytics and modifying a well-oiled machine, more.
I new to this field, so all of it could be considered difficult but in time. I think those two will be my largest hurdles to jump.
I definitley think it is getting recommendations implemented by clients.
I also struggle not to hack godaddy polls, although in this instance there is no humerous option worthy of false promotion ;¬)
Sometime with client who is not ready to change contents & having some extra ordinary knowledge , big challenge is link build.