The Curse of SEO: Challenges and Recovery Strategies

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seo

Discover the hidden challenges of SEO, effective tools, and strategies to recover from setbacks while navigating search engine optimization.

Author

kareem

Published

July 31, 2024

Definition: SEO is optimizing your website pages to appear in the top results of search engines like Google and Bing.
- Why is this important? It makes you visible to more people who are interested in what you provide—products, services, news, etc.
- Enough of the basics. I assume you already know what SEO is about. Now, let’s explore a darker side of being involved in SEO.
How to Track Your Changes
- Since SEO revolves around ranking, how do you track your position?
- There are multiple tools I enjoy using, such as:
  - I love to manually search keywords and track their ranks myself! :)
    - I do this often when I need a break at the gym or during study breaks.
  - SEMrush
    - I use it to check domain authority, organic keywords, and traffic increase.
    - Seeing green in increased Ref. Domains and Authority Score brings joy.
    - I don’t use it for anything else! :)
  - Ranking Math
    - Say hi to the overrated WordPress SEO plugin “Ranking Math SEO”
    - It claims to simplify content optimization with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted practices.
    - I use Rankmath Pro on a website I manage, showing impressions, total keywords, average position, and clicks. GSC offers all this for free!
    - This post isn’t about Rankmath; that’s for another time. In short:
      - AI tools
      - AMP
      - Analysis from Google Analytics
      - Instant indexing
      - Backlinks count
      - Local SEO
      - News sitemap
      - Podcasts
      - Schema
      - SEO analysis
      - Sitemap
      - Video Sitemap
      - WooCommerce
      - Google Web Stories
    - None of these significantly impact SEO and ranking; there are other effective methods.
    - What matters most to me with Rankmath is:
      - Top 5 performing posts
      - Other keywords
    - I mainly use Rankmath for its focus keyword section in each article.
  - Mangools
    - My preferred tool! Its UI/UX is excellent, and it’s fast and efficient unlike other tools.
    - With the free account, I get:
      - 5 keyword researches daily
      - 8 SERP checks
      - 1,000 backlink analyses
      - Domain profile checks for 2 domains daily
    - For Arabic, its keyword ideas aren’t as good.
  - Google Search Console
    - A free tool by Google offering most SEO tools’ functionalities for free and accurately.
    - You get:
      - Performance of your website for any keyword at any time in any region!
      - Page indexing status
      - Backlink analysis
      - Page experience and more
    - You might notice a recurring theme:
      - Charts
      - Changing numbers everywhere, numbers galore!
  - Neil Patel
    - Rank tracking
    - SEO opportunities
    - Site audit
    - Keyword research
    - Traffic estimation
    - Backlinks
  - Keyword Tool
    - For Arabic, it provides the most related suggested keywords, though many aren’t quite relevant.
  - GuinRank
    - New and more tailored for Arabic, gaining power.
    - I use its content and keyword tools for Arabic, providing helpful recommendations and statistics for choosing useful keywords.
  - Moz
    - They even blocked my IP -__-
Starting to Lose!
- What’s going wrong? I hate losing after investing time, money, and mental health into something. If you’re like me, SEO can be crushing.
- “SEO is like gambling” ~ Kareem

Losing Backlinks
- Spam backlinks (like Khamsat, Fiverr, and Upwork)—most are harmful.
- PBN Network
  - This service claims safe PBNs for backlinks from Web 2.0 blogs, profiles, social bookmarking, social likes/shares, etc. I tried it, and none appeared in GSC after 3 months; worse, my site’s rank dropped.
- Manually Added Backlinks
  - This package offers 70 PR10 backlinks from foreign websites, 60 Arabic guest posts, and 10 EDU backlinks, etc.
  - It worked to some extent, but the impact was minimal. Four backlinks from specific places helped more than these services.
- Other services are mostly spam backlinks; some guest posts might help, but aim for real backlinks spaced out from related sites.
Losing Ranking
- This month, a home services website I manage improved from 65th to 9th in rankings, then disappeared, and later ranked 40th, etc.
- This cycle repeats—a page gains rank, then drops.
- It’s stressful; don’t check daily. Weekly (or every 2-3 weeks) is less stressful and gives fairer results, focusing on what’s important.
What’s Going Wrong?
- Watching page changes from these tools is like social media’s new “like” button!
- My mind loves the green and red numbers.
- Ultimately, most analyses aren’t critical. Whether 23rd or 80th, if not in the top 5, what’s the use? Daily checks yield nothing; reaching top 5 goes unnoticed until notifications and calls confirm it.
- If SEO is your sole income source, it’s a tough job—even though it can make you a millionaire sometimes.
How to Recover
- Here’s what helped me recover from this addiction:
- Create barriers for easy access:
  1. Separate Google accounts/tabs into another browser profile. Using Brave or Bing makes this easy.
  2. Remove bookmarked tabs for these tools and clear browsing history.
  3. Use extensions to block these sites; Chrome Store has many offering motivational quotes.
- Delete Chrome and YouTube from mobile using ADB.
- Move tool emails to spam except weekly updates from Mangools and GSC.

Final Thoughts!
- As a programmer, I initially thought a fast website and quality content were key in SEO. I later learned that choosing keywords and acquiring backlinks are crucial.
- A nice Arabic book which will give you true information about SEO دليلك إلي تحسين محركات البحث
- Feel free to DM on Linkedin
- Ultimately, backlinks boil down to how many you buy and from whom.
- منصة صناعة المحتوي العربي
- كم كالوري في الموز
- صيانة افران غاز بالرياض
- شركة تنسيق حدائق بالمدينة المنورة
- شركة تنظيف منازل في العين

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