What exactly is SEO tunnel vision? It’s when only one factor of SEO is focused on, whether it be on page SEO or off page SEO. Not paying attention to the overall picture of a website’s SEO will end up costing organic traffic, keyword rankings or a competitor’s gains. Remember the 200 plus SEO ranking factors? Well when only a handful of those 200+ SEO factors are focused on, the other aspects end up going unchecked and eventually build up. Just like food can build up in your teeth, so can SEO factors if not monitored. Over time, the website optimization can become irrelevant and if not edited to reflect the current context, a webpage that was working, is now a problem.
Focusing on one SEO factor like backlink optimization, for example, might seem like a good strategy at first. However, if content isn’t added to the website, and user optimization improved, there’s a good chance that those backlinks are the only thing holding the site where it is. If something was to happen, and those same backlinks discounted or removed, that website is going to tank really fast and lose a lot of the keywords it currently ranked for. Just because many will say backlinks are a highly weighted SEO factor, doesn’t mean it should be the sole focus of SEO. Many websites rank rather well WITHOUT backlinks, it’s very possible, every other SEO factor needs to be excellent and have some of the best keyword research possible.
Narrow SEO Focus Harms A Brand’s Image
When agencies and freelance SEOs don’t consider all aspects of SEO, directly and indirectly together, company harm can be done. Many times an agencies prime focus to the client is about website traffic. Where this can become a problem, is the intent of this traffic. The website’s message matters, and speaks this message through the content of every webpage. That content, if researched properly and formatted for the users they wish to reach, will attract the users that will convert. When things like website traffic are focused on, intent often is what is forgotten, and then the brand message is lost. A companies brand is what users remember, and if most of the traffic to a website, isn’t being satisfied, then the brand will suffer.
Trust is lost when users are sold an idea or notion that a company has what they need or are looking for, only to find out they don’t. It’s important to get that right the 1st time, so brand repair doesn’t have to happen. Companies often have to leave agencies and freelancers in SEO, due to their message not reaching the end users. Overall company story matters in today’s age and the bigger a company is, the more important that becomes. Keyword research and content relevancy matter more than many will think when it comes to a company’s brand. The overall tone of a website’s content will attract that type of user. Without utilizing things like user profiles, competitor research, and search volumes, better ways to use better keywords to attract the types of users with intent.
Focusing On One SEO Factor Can Lead To Blackhat SEO
When website owners focus on one SEO variable and reach the eventual plateau in organic traffic, many get discouraged with SEO and resort to questionable services when progress falls stagnant. This is one of the pitfalls of trying to handle SEO alone and not relying on professional experience and skill, it’s easy to understand SEO basics, but that experience and skill comes in handy when SEO doesn’t do what it should.
Far too often, has a professional SEO had to problem solve why an aspect of SEO isn’t working for a website. Many times it’s small and something simple like a typo and other times it’s something that needs a customized fix. Unless the website owner has experienced such SEO pitfalls, many will think it’s the SEO and not the website. That’s where many website owners fall prey to smooth-talking salesmen, trying to pitch a backlink network or a domain purchase. It’s just not worth it, whitehat SEO can achieve much more SEO naturally allowing website owners to focus on their business instead of their service, that may or may not work next week.
SEO Encompasses Many Disciplines
Proper SEOs understand that every aspect of a website, plays a part, either directly or indirectly. Without that understanding, it’s easy to not see efforts result in improvement. If a website wasn’t developed correctly, it could add to load speed, costing SEO points right there, and unless web development was part of the website owner’s skill set, that load speed issue may not be understood. The same thing can happen with the way a website is designed, adding too many flashy elements that seem awesome at the time, can cause a searchbot to not view the webpage.
There are so many different scenarios that can be written out here, it’s almost endless. That’s why it’s important to incorporate SEO into every aspect of a website’s existence. Otherwise, unless all staff is trained in SEO, potential problems will be overlooked and will be a crack in the website’s veneer, just waiting to develop further. When SEO problems happen, it’s that knowledge of a website’s history that will save the day, since audits can showcase the issue, then backtracking the problem to the root. If a next step isn’t known to be a problem, it’s pretty easy to take it.
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