There used to be a time that improving my search engine ranking of my sites was a bit of an addiction. I was spending hours and hours every week to learn from the SEO gurus with variable success. What currently frustrates me the most is the overgrowth of people who claim to be the most skilled SEO expert in the world. On top of that, SEO is changing faster than ever before and almost all SEO gurus will share their “secrets” while in reality it feels more like an opinion because another guru says the complete opposite.

Why Improving My Search Engine Ranking Is Not A Priority

“So what after yet another Google algorithm change that makes you lose search engine rankings?”, that’s what I have been thinking a lot lately. Should I give up on trying to figure out how to beat Google? No, I won’t give up, but I also don’t believe that it should be a priority for online marketers. Read on if you want get to hear my arguments. There’s so much information about SEO, but a big part will never be anything more than just speculation. I don’t see a reason why I should keep breaking my head over it. (let alone that an internet dummy who wants to make money online will ever do the effort to read a 100 page SEO eBook)

3 Reasons For Why I Don’t Care A Lot About Improving My Search Engine Ranking Anymore

1. SEO Guru Confusion

For starters, I’m kind of tired of the lousy marketing that some SEO gurus use to sell products that I can use to improve my search engine ranking. I understand that this is their job and helping you with your SEO is exactly what they are being paid for. BUT look, I have never paid just for SEO advice and I will never do it. In some cases it’s better to divide your attention and get information from different sources instead of just paying “someone to do your SEO”. You would be amazed at how much you could do yourself (almost all of it) without spending a dime and in just a few minutes a day extra. The only money I have ever spent for SEO purposes was to buy tools that helped me to improve my search engine ranking. Some improved my search engine ranking, while other online marketers sold me hot air. You win some, you lose some I guess.

I’m not advocating for an internet without SEO because that would be impossible. For a long as the internet exists, there will be websites, SEO experts, online advertising companies and much more. Learn the basics and start from there

2. The Power Of Backlinks

Backlinks used to be a very important (probably still are) aspect of off-page SEO. However, the effect that backlinks have on your search engine rankings will always be questionable. For instance: I have been using a blog network to create backlinks for a while now. It was costing me $67 per month (luckily that’s peanuts money) and creating a huge amount of backlinks. The issue I have with this is that most of these backlinks where coming from crappy, low-quality-no-design WordPress blogs.  As a result, the referral traffic from these kind of backlinks was close to 0. So even if they do have some SEO value and play a role in improving my search engine ranking, I’m not getting direct traffic from it. So I’m done with it.

If you’re focusing on backlinks these days, I suggest you to create high quality backlinks by hand and never pay for them because you just don’t know what you’re going to get. Spend your money wisely. If you want to pay someone to do your SEO in general, make sure that he or she can show you the results. Some people will say that there are no guaranteed results in SEO, but that’s just an easy way to say that they won’t pay you back if you’re not happy with their service.

3. Dependency

Google is like some people: it doesn’t know what it wants, so it constantly changes its mind (algorithm in Google’s case). People who change their mind all the time are unreliable, so is your SEO strategy when Google messes around with your rankings again. Some people’s businesses are even totally dependent on Google search engine rankings. So when their sites suddenly lose their top ranking, financial drama can be lurking around the corner.

Moreover, we’re already making a killing in online advertising, so why would I spend time on playing a game that nobody can win? Online advertising will still be a very lucrative niche and will always keep making us money. So no worries there.

Improving my search engine ranking has always been fun and it will always be fun, but I think that some people are also caught up in the hype marketing of the SEO industry. I wanted to learn everything you need to know about SEO. But when Google comes up with yet another algorithm change, you feel like being stabbed in the back. You have to understand how the internet works, but it’s not necessary to become Google’s slave and do a dance every time they release a press note.

Yes, I Still Care About Improving My Search Engine Ranking

So in conclusion: SEO is still very important if you want to generate targeted visitors. There are some general rules that you will always have to follow if you want to build a high quality website and find methods for improving your search engine ranking. You can check them out here.

I still care about improving my search engine ranking of course, but you could for instance also share this blog post on a social network and drive another kind of traffic to this blog for me.

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