In the 1980s, American car manufacturers “shifted gears” in a big way, by frantically trying to catch up to Japanese competitors that offered highly desirable fuel-efficient vehicles.
It almost put them out of business. Although they eventually produced cars with great gas mileage, the overall products were mediocre at best. In their singular focus on fuel efficiency, GM, Ford and Chrysler forgot about design. They forgot about quality control. They forgot about improving the customer experience at the dealer.
In the end, American car manufacturers recovered their strength only when they started paying attention to everything that goes in to making a great vehicle.
Singular SEO Focus Spells Disaster
The same type of thing happens in SEO when companies have a singular focus; usually, when this happens, the focus is on links.
Links are great for SEO. But if link acquisition is the only component of your SEO campaign, you’ll soon run out of gas — possibly before you get out of your driveway.
The problem with a 100 percent link acquisition campaign is it ignores other aspects of SEO that are essential, just as design and quality control are essential for selling cars. In particular:
Keyword research. If you optimize for the wrong words, your links will buy you high organic visibility for search terms nobody uses or irrelevant to your products/services.
On-site optimization. If Google crawlers can’t make heads or tails out of your website, it won’t award you with high visibility no matter how many links you have.
High-quality content. The Google algorithm is getting smarter all the time when it comes to identifying and rewarding high-quality content. If yours is subpar, lots of links are not likely to make up the ground you’ve lost.
Local search. Global organizations as well as local businesses need a local SEO strategy. Why? Because a great many searches have local intent, especially mobile searches, which are growing exponentially. Links without local is loco!
Balance Your SEO Efforts
A balanced SEO campaign delivers results, just as a car with quality, design and fuel efficiency will outsell a vehicle that gets 50 miles per gallon but looks and sounds like a cement mixer.
Need help finding the right balance for your SEO campaign? Please contact us now — we welcome an opportunity to learn more about your objectives.