Search engine optimization is constantly in flux. With search engines optimizing their own algorithms more and more with each passing season, it can be hard to stay ahead of the curve and maintain search engine dominance. Even harder, newer websites and blogs that wish to rise the ranks of search will run into dozens of complex SEO facts and realities that can make the process seem insurmountable. Many lessons of SEO have to be learned through experience, but there are some lessons that are best avoided. We’ll talk about a few terrible SEO facts that you don’t want to learn the hard way.

Relying on Plugins = Failure

SEO gurus know that there are many different plugins available for WordPress and other content management systems that can help improve overall SEO performance. You’ll see many people recommending various plugins for pinging URLs to search engines, finding keywords, optimizing elements like tags and meta data, and much more. What they don’t tell you is that plugins are not a substitution for practical SEO techniques. Complete automation of basic SEO tasks can create plenty of issues and failures along the way; don’t make the classic novice mistake of thinking that these plugins are providing all of the same benefits as careful, manual improvements to content and website infrastructure.

Ignoring Analytics Can Lead to Disaster

Every website needs some form of analytics or metrics in order to improve SEO over time. Unfortunately, many new brands fail to understand the vital importance of analytics in the fight for better SEO. Analytics help shed light on various trends as they relate to improvement (or the lack thereof) regarding SEO tactics. Without a comprehensive understanding of how your clicks, traffic, bounce rate and rankings are changing over time, there is no way to learn from your mistakes. In short, the lack of analytics keeps those who are new to SEO in a perpetual state of novice behavior. Additionally, sudden changes in algorithms that lead to ranking changes cannot be noticed without concrete analytic data that shows such changes.

Your Pitch, Product and Position Can’t Be Fixed by SEO

There have been many brands who – after a round of failure when it comes to adequately marketing or selling a particular product or service – turn to SEO for solutions. While SEO definitely can help increase exposure and boost overall performance in search engines, it cannot work wonders on something that is inherently inferior. If what you are offering is not something that has inherent benefit, then SEO is not going to produce better results in the long-term. Likewise, if your marketing techniques are inferior or your targeted audience is out of sync with what should be your ideal target, then SEO will not create any meaningful difference in your brand’s performance. Just because you suddenly start pinging URLs to search engines in a more efficiency way doesn’t mean that your brand’s position will necessarily improve.

Learning these lessons the hard way can be time-consuming and frustrating, but now you don’t have to: what are some other lessons you’ve learned from working and perfecting your SEO routines?