SEO and Weight Loss
I ask people all the time, what are the two most important things in weight loss. Of course, we all know the answer. They say diet and exercise. That’s obvious. But then I ask them the most important part of diet and exercise. Then they look a little puzzled. Reluctantly, someone usually raises their hand and says, “diet?” I say, “nope.” Then everyone in unison says, “exercise” as if they confidently know the answer. I say, “nope.”
What? If it’s not diet and it’s not exercise, then what is it?
It’s the word “and.” Diet and exercise. You have to do both, simultaneously.
How many times have you failed to lose weight? If you think back you’ll probably see that you neglected to exercise and watch your diet at the same time. Many people go one diets. But if you’ve ever tried it, it’s tough to cut your calories and exercise. Every time you exercise, you burn calories and you get more hungry. You eat a ton and get discouraged with your results.
Here’s another common scenario. You work out like a mad man so you can still enjoy all of your favorite foods. Do you think you’re actually going to shed those pounds if you’re still drinking the soda pop and munching on those chips? Of course not. You can’t just exercise and not watch your diet. You have to do both, simultaneously.
There are a million scenarios. But it’s been proven time and time again that if you can stick to a low calorie diet and exercise a few times a week, you’ll lose weight.
So what’s all of this have to do with SEO? Well, I see people all the time struggling to get first page search rankings. They are madly blogging and building tons of links but they ignore the other important aspects of good SEO. Or they have built thousands of links into their site but they haven’t had the time to add any new content to their site in months because they’ve been so wound up with the link-building campaign.
It’s just like weight loss. You have to look at the best practices and then do them simultaneously. There are dozens of tactics that most search engineers employ, but in reality, you have to work on the top 3 or 4 ranking criteria simultaneously. Get those right and you’ll get better results than any focused effort that ignores the other tactics.
Hope that helps.
Chadd Bryant
