SEO Workout: 10 Tips For a Leaner, Healthier Marketing Campaign

Online marketers and SEO’s aren’t always the most active of beings, especially between the hours of 9am and 5pm. We don’t spend all day pumping iron, blasting our biceps and putting in a half marathon on the treadmill, in fact staring at Google searches, HTaccess files and outreach emails whilst sipping from energy drink cans and munching on biscuits is probably the polar opposite. Despite this though, there are actually a fair few theories born in the gym which can be transferred to the web marketing office and vice versa to make sure you get the very best results.

Running a successful SEO and marketing campaign is quite similar in a way to trying to get your body into optimum condition, albeit a little less sweaty. So below are our top 10 tips for running a leaner, healthier marketing campaign for your business – plus a few oh, so motivational quotes from some of our guys – which you can understand whether you’re a marketing expert, a gym fanatic, or like the Dijitul team, a little bit of both!

“Pace yourself, don’t just try and sprint out of the blocks and expect the world or you will fail very quickly” – Ben Lumley, Web Guru and Runner Extraordinaire

• Be Realistic With Your Goals –

Realistic aims are paramount to a good marketing campaign and getting fit. The truth is you won’t be running like Mo Farah with muscles like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson after a week, and you won’t be top of Google for all of your ultra competitive keywords in that amount of time either. Take it steady, work your way up, don’t lurch straight for the 220kg bench press, start out with something achievable and go from there.

• It’s About Actual Strength, Not Just Muscle Size –

It’s easy to get over confident when you start ranking well, and you may want to go around showing everyone your bulging biceps and so forth, but the truth is, it’s not just about appearance, it’s about actual strength and what you can do with those muscles. There’s no point in ranking highly if you don’t have the strong content to back it up and convert traffic into sales/enquiries/whatever your overall aim is.

• Don’t Overdo Your Reps –

Building the body like a Greek god, and achieving web marketing success are both long term processes which need to be properly paced and worked out. You need to be aware that success isn’t going to happen overnight and rushing things could actually hurt you rather than help. If you go blasting into the gym and think that lifting weights for 12 hours straight is going to get you success, you’re wrong, all it’s going to get you is some very sore, damaged muscles, and the same applies to link building, if you just charge into things and think getting 5000 new links to your site in the first 3 days is going to help, you’ll soon be hit by a very unfriendly Google penalty and end up worse off than when you started.

• Be Natural, No Steroids! –

Steroids are a big no no for working out. Yes they may get you to you’re overall aim that little bit quicker in the short term but they can be extremely harmful and leave you off in a much worse position when the consequences kick in. Similarly, buying links in bulk will have the exact same affect, you may be riding high in Google for the short term, but it will catch up with you eventually, and you’re looking at a stiff penalty and rankings obliteration. Good old fashioned hard work will be much more satisfying and sustainable in the long term.

“Make sure there’s balance to your marketing campaign, don’t over focus on one area” – Danny Watkinson, SEO Expert, Works Out So He Can Eat Junk Food

• Work Every Muscle Group –

Just like when working out, when it comes to SEO you need to spread your efforts evenly and make sure you work on multiple areas. No one wants to have huge arms and puny legs, and the same applies to your website, make sure you do not focus all of your efforts on one area, make sure you give enough time to target different keywords, areas of your website and sections of your customer base otherwise you’re going to end up being exposed and looking quite silly.

• Don’t Plateau –

Like with most things, it can be easy to sit back and ease off once you begin to see some success, but the truth is you can always do more! Don’t plateau, turn up the intensity, increase the reps and keep pushing to improve and further solidify your web marketing successes.

• Get Someone To Spot You –

You can lift all of those weights on your own without someone to just help you out that little bit along the way, and in a similar fashion, playing the lone ranger won’t help when it comes to SEO and marketing either. Build relationships with others in or around the industry, engage with influencers and partner with those who can get into areas that you can’t, there’s no shame at all in getting that little bit of help, and it’s going to work wonders for you in the long run.

• Look In The Mirror –

No, we aren’t saying spend 3 minutes working out and then 57 minutes admiring your own reflection whilst grunting, but with both working out and marketing it’s important to regularly review where you’re at, how you’re progressing and what needs work. Once you’re solid in one area you can tone down – but not completely stop – work on that and focus on a different section which needs a bit more bulking up.

“Don’t give up as soon as you start to see some progress, make sure there’s actually some strength in those muscles, work hard and push yourself” – Tom Caulton, SEO Pro and Avid Gym Goer”

• Recovery Sessions Are Vital –

If you ever pull or strain something, it’s important to give it time to rest and recover, as trying to push through it unrealistically could cause real long term damage. Similarly, if you’ve been penalised by Google or had any type of SEO setback, make sure you properly recover from it before trying to push on. Doubling the number of links you get isn’t the way to recover from a penalty, make sure you reassess your current links, remove those which are bad, tweak the content of your website to help it recover, and of course, learn your lessons from it too before continuing on.

and finally…

• Keep At It For Best Results –

It’s all well and good lifting every day for 2 months straight, but if you then choose to completely lay off of it for the next 3 months, when you return to it some of your previous work is going to have eroded itself and you won’t be as strong as you were before. SEO and marketing works exactly the same, you can make great progress, but if you then completely cease in your efforts for long periods, your website will lose authority and strength, people on social media won’t recognise you as much and you’ll have taken a backwards step. We aren’t saying overdo it, but to properly maintain success then regular action has to be taken.

So, there you have it, 10 tips to give you success in the weights room, or on the web. Now what are you waiting for, get out there and pump some iron, gyms can be scary, but digital marketing doesn’t have to be!