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- [00:00]
A
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 87. SEO is a competition, not a checklist. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because people think that SEO is a checklist of changes that you can make to your website, and if you do them all correctly, you will be in the top position. Guys, this is probably. And I can't guarantee it, but this is probably going to be the most important episode that we've made so far. Like. Like, actually not kidding. I don't know how long this episode is gonna be, and I'm not. I'm not trying to, like. To, like, advertise it like crazy. Like, guys, you will not believe what I'm about to tell you. But, like, honestly, this is probably going to be the most important episode I've made so far. So what's funny is. Is, like, occasionally I will produce an episode that's not nearly as long as the other ones, and I think it is literally, like, superb.
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B
Okay.
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A
There's one episode specifically. It's called how to Think About SEO if youf Want to be in the 1%. And it's a very short episode. It's episode 34, other than episode 21, which is called Everything youg Need to Know about SEO in 38 minutes. And if you have not listened to that, go listen to it.
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B
Okay.
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Other than that episode, and maybe even including that episode, I think that is the best episode so far. But, like, people don't like it because it's not like, four Simple Steps to Rank Any Keywords. Okay? Which actually is a perfect example and brings me to the topic and my next point. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or Any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical. And based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. SEO is a competition, not a checklist. I'm gonna say this one more time. SEO is a competition, not a checklist. Okay, let's take the question that somebody might ask me. Here's a question. Hey, grumpy SEO guy, How do you know if somebody's going to be successful in SEO or not? Okay, if somebody asked me that question, my response would be this. Let's say. Let's say I'm talking to 10 people. Okay, I'm talking to 10 people. They're all SEO consultants. Okay, let's say I'm talking to 10 of them, and I ask each of them, explain SEO to me in one sentence.
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Okay.
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Okay, so 10. I'm talking to 10. One at a time. Obviously, I'm talking to 10, actually, all of them. That's. Nah. One at a time. And I'm talking to 10 SEO consultants, and I ask them, explain SEO to me in one sentence. If they said something like, well, SEO is about following best practices for technical. Nope, that person is not going to be successful in SEO if they were like, well, it's about the content. Nope, that person is not gonna be successful in SEO if they're like, SEO is about having H1 tags. Nope, that person is not going to be successful in SEO. And anything. Any answer that suggests that this person thinks that SEO is something you do or a checklist that you follow, or, like, a project or homework that you're given in school where if you follow guidelines, you will be rewarded with good results or, you know, in the case of homework, like, a great grade. Right. Okay. And this is probably where I'm gonna lose people. Like, I would actually not be surprised if people a didn't even finish this episode and be unsubscribed. Like, I'm actually not kidding, and I'm not trying to be, like, a contrarian or an edgelord or something right now. But truthfully, SEO is a competition. It is not a checklist. Okay, so back to these 10 SEO consultants. Any of them who say anything that even remotely comes close to a set of recommendations that you follow, a list of things you need to do. I have to have images and H1 tags and a title tag, and my keywords have to appear this. No, that person is not going to be successful at SEO. Like, yes, all of these things that people are saying except content Is king are like valid points, but it's such a minuscule part of the whole thing. But people, for some reason, always focus on it, and they always think that that is the way you do SEO. And the reason they think that is because people like simplicity and checklists and steps. And so I know, for example, if anybody is offer offering or selling or whatever, a manual or a guide or a course, that is anything along the lines of 10 easy steps to rank any website, I know they're a scammer. 100%. I know they're a scammer. I know they do not understand SEO. Probably have no business teaching SEO. I know that anyone who buys that will be frustrated. They're going to find it very unhelpful. Because this would be treating SEO like a homework assignment, not a competition anyways, because that's not. I'm gonna explain it, don't worry. Like, those of you that are, like, getting annoyed right now. Cause I haven't explained it yet. First of all, you're probably not annoyed. Cause you probably listened to the other episodes and you probably know how I'm going to explain this. But just hold on for a second. So look, okay, look, I know. I guarantee you, if I made an episode that was called like five easy steps to rank, any website, I guarantee you that episode would get more downloads than any other episode, okay? And by the way, that episode would be a lie because there is no whatever number of easy steps to rank. Why? Because SEO is not a checklist, okay? We're kind of summarizing, like, a lot of the episodes in this episode, okay? I have an episode that says how to tell if something is a ranking factor, right? And there's two criteria, okay? One of them, is it easy to do? If the answer is yes, it's not a ranking factor, okay? I don't care what it is. If it's easy to do, it's not a ranking factor. Why? Because all people would do it if it was easy. And if everybody does it, guess what, it loses its value. Okay? So like, whatever, you know what? Go listen, that episode, if you want. I'm not even gonna explain it now. Look, and number two, okay, Is it valuable? Right? A thing has to provide value, and it also has to be scarce. So if something's easy to do, by default, it's not scarce. Because if it's easy, anyone can do it. Anyway, look. So anyway, so a checklist. If there was a checklist, that would be easy to do, right? And everybody would do it, and therefore it wouldn't work if. Let's say there's a check, right? Because let's imagine a hypothetical SEO checklist, okay? And what would it say? Probably say like, have H1 tags, have your keywords in your H1 tags, have a title, tags, right? Have a fast loading website, have some pictures on your site, have your blog posts be at least this many, this long, right? Like steps that you can follow. And if any of those steps made a difference, everybody would do them. And those things are so easy that you would now have every website on the Internet doing them. And they can't all be on the first page. So those, those things will not get you to the top of the search engines. Because they are easy. They are not scarce. They may or may not be valuable, but it doesn't matter because they don't even pass the first test, which is, is it scarce? Okay, I'm sorry. Truthfully, if you don't understand this concept, which is like an economic concept, like, if you don't understand this, I don't know another way to explain it. I would recommend re listening to that episode and maybe re listening to this episode. Like, honestly, honestly, if you do not understand that SEO is not a checklist, you probably will not ever be successful in SEO. And I'm not saying that to be mean. I'm saying it because it's true. There are so many people that are trying to find the next thing. What thing do I do to my website? What do I do to rank? SEO is not about what you do to your website because if it was, everybody would do that thing. Does that make sense? I'm going to say that again. SEO is not about what you do to your website because if it was, everybody would do the thing and everybody would rank.
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Okay?
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So, like, it's not okay. Let me, let me give you, let me give you another example really quick, right? Let's talk about, let's talk about cars for a second. Right? Thinking that, like, this isn't the best example, but I think it will make sense. Like, all the easy things that you can do to your website, okay, are like putting stickers on your car and thinking that makes it go faster. Or like changing the paint job on your car and thinking that's going to like, make your race car faster, right? Those things do not make your car faster. Just because some race cars have a cool paint job and they have stickers. That's not why they're good race cars, okay? They're good race cars because they have powerful engines. Guess what? Powerful engines are difficult to Build. They are scarce, they are expensive, and not everybody can do it, okay? That's why they work. Anyway, okay, let me. So let me. So let's talk a little bit. Let's talk a little bit more, okay? In the episode how to think about SEO, if you want to be in the 1%, and I'm actually not kidding when I say if you're serious about SEO, go listen to that episode. Probably one of, if not the best episode, maybe excluding this episode, okay? But nobody likes that episode because it's not. Oh, little. Here's little. Here's a secret trick that they don't want you to know about. There are no secret tricks. There aren't, but it's not a. Okay, look, I'm getting. I'm getting off topic. So the second half of the subject for this episode is SEO is not a checklist, okay? The first half was. SEO is a competition, right? So you have to assume that everybody is doing exactly what they should do on their website, okay? Everybody is doing exactly what they should. All of those. All of those cool books about SEO and guidelines and cool checklists. Here's the 10 things you should do to rank in the search engines, okay? Assume that everybody is doing those because they are simple and quick and easy. And it's not hard for the most part to make changes to your website to change the title tags, right? So assume that everybody does that correctly. There has to be something else that separates the people at the top of the search engines from everybody else, right? Okay, before we talk about that, let's talk about weightlifting for a second, okay? Now let's just talk about a single lift for a second, okay? Let's just talk about squat. Let's say that you can squat 600 pounds, okay? So you show up to a competition, and remember, we're only talking about squatting. We're not talking about everything. So you show up to a competition and you can squat 600 pounds if you win or lose. It has nothing to do with if you can squat 600 pounds, but it has to do with whether or not your competition can squat heavier or lighter weights than that. You could squat 600 pounds and lose. You could also squat 600 pounds and win, okay? It has nothing to do with the fact that you can squat 600 pounds. That is how SEO works. That's how SEO works, okay? It's not about doing things according to a guideline or a checklist, okay? So the equivalent of that would be like, step one, lift weights until you can squat 600 pounds. No, that doesn't matter. Unless all the lifters can only squat less than £600, then you will win. Okay, I hope that makes sense. Look, SEO is not a project. It is not a homework assignment in school, okay? It's not a paper you write where, like, if you do everything the way the teacher told you to, you'll get an A, okay? You'll pass and you'll get a 100%. That's awesome for homework, but that's not SEO, okay? You do all the things, right? And it doesn't matter because maybe someone else did the other things that are more important better than you. That's how SEO works. People are always like, oh, man, Man, I need. I need. They're basically asking for, like, the, like, what would be extra credit, right? Like, I wrote this paper, but I need extra credit. I need some extra credit so I can get to the top of the search engines. No, no, that's not how it works, okay? You want your extra credit? Do a better job than your competition, right? Who's your competition? The websites that are ranking for your keywords. That's your competition. Figure out what they're doing and do it better, okay? You want to. So are you saying that you squatted £600 and you still lost the competition? Well, look at how your competition is training. How are they training to become stronger than you? Do you know how much weight they're squatting? Find out what they're doing and do it better. It's not the best comparison, but you get the point, right? You can do everything perfectly on your site and not rank on the first 500 pages, right? Because your competition is better. And it's not that they did something better on their site, okay? It's not like they wrote a better article, because we all know that that is not a ranking factor, right? Unless you're talking to scammers who try to sell you content and telling you that it will rank because it's good content and it's not how it works. But that's a different episode. And guess what? I'm not going to rant on that right now. Anyway, look, so in that 1% episode, and this is. This is the most important, like, of everything discussed so far in Grumpy SEO Guy. This is literally the most important thing, okay? I'm actually not kidding. Like, yeah, authority. That's super important. This is the most important thing, okay? SEO is not. And I said this, by the way. I said this in that other episode, but I'm gonna say it again. SEO is not about what you do to your website. SEO is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. SEO is not about what you do to your website. SEO is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet.
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Okay?
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Winning a weightlifting competition is not about if you squat 600 pounds. It's about how much do you squat and how much does your competition squat, Right? So the people you're competing with with your website are the people that are ranking for your keyword, and the people that you're competing with in the squat are the people that go to the event. You have to understand who is your competition. I don't know. I don't know how else to say it. So remember those 10 consultants? And I'm like, hey, guys, explain SEO to me in one sentence. The person who says that to me is the person that I know will be successful in SEO. The person who goes, hey, SEO has nothing to do with what you do to your website because it's about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet. This guy is going to be successful in SEO. He's going to be super successful, top 1%. And all of those other people are going to be unsuccessful and make no money. Well, they might make money if they, like, tell people that they can write content that will make them rank because it's so good. But that's wrong. So I don't know. Anyway, look, that person, that one guy out of the ten. And in real life, it's not one out of ten, it's probably less than one in a hundred that understand this. Actually, not kidding, it is probably. Look, look around. Read, guys. Read SEO books. Read SEO forums, okay? Like, go to conferences, okay? Like, seriously, like, don't, don't, don't pay for any courses. Because, like, I pretty much guarantee you that they're all, like, not gonna help you. My inbox is full of people. That's a slight exaggeration. My inbox has many messages from people telling me that they spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on SEO courses and did not learn as much from them as they learned from this free podcast. Because most people that are producing SEO courses have no SEO experience, are not qualified to teach it, and are just trying to scam you by repeating the same nonsense that everybody else says, like, content is king. Use your title tags. Backlinks are bad. Negative. SEO is not real. Like, seriously, guys, literally look at all of the SEO resources you can find. Please don't pay for them. But, like, look at Them and tell me if you think it is actually more than 1% of people that understand this concept. Everybody is basically providing you a checklist of stuff that is not gonna make a difference. And it sells because people want that simplicity. And 10 easy steps to rank your website, which does not work. Okay, again, feel free to disagree with me. I have plenty of haters and trolls, alright? But I can tell you, I've been doing this for 15 years. At this point, I feel like I'm at least somewhat qualified to talk compared to the person who's selling courses because, oh, I heard SEO is a good way to make money. Oh, content is king. Buy my course. So let's say it. Let's say it one more time. Let's say it one more time. SEO is not about what you do to your website. SEO is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet.
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Okay?
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You don't have to do good SEO. You have to do better SEO than your competition. That might mean awesome SEO. That might mean terrible. Your competition might be terrible. They might actually be horrendous, and it won't take very much effort for you to beat them.
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Okay?
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There's no checklist. You don't have to do A, B and C in order to rank because your competition has probably already done A, B and C. What you do have to do is have A, no penalties, B, content, C, relevancy, and D, authority. And by the way, that is discussed in detail in episode 51, which is called the four things you need to rank.
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Okay?
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But most of those things involve getting authority, okay? It's not changes you make to your site. And let's go over this really quick. This is again discussed in the how to think about SEO episode, okay? Which for some reason, like, nobody listened to that episode. It is literally the best episode, excluding this one and maybe episode 21. Actually, not kidding. Like, for people that aren't just like, I need a quick, easy guide on how to do SEO. Like, for people who want to understand SEO, it is the best episode, excluding maybe this one and maybe episode 21, but probably not, because I think this one is the best. Look, okay, here's. Here's an example from that episode.
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Okay?
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This is how you have to think about SEO. And this might not be the exact example because I remember what I was talking about, but I don't remember, like, the exact words I used. Okay, listen, let's say there's three websites. Website A, website B and website C. Okay? So three websites. Website A links to website B, okay? And Website B links to Website C. Let me say that again. Website A links to Website B and Website B links to Website C. Now, if your job is to rank Website B, okay, your job is to rank that website. Do not be thinking, what can I do to my website to make it rank higher? Because that's not how SEO works. You can do all the things you want. You can make better title tags and better H1 tags. And actually title tags are actually very important, but you get the point. And you can write better content.
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Okay?
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And ranking might plus or minus 1 or 2. When you start making changes to the site, it's probably going to start bouncing. It's very, very common that if you rewrite articles, your website drops significantly because you made a change and the algorithm is confused about what to. So it's very common. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It just means you changed something. And I have an episode about that too. It's episode 63, so you should go listen to that one. If you want to know why you should not change something unless you have to. Anyway, your job is to rank Website B. Now let me say this one more time. Website A links to Website B. Website B links to Website C. Okay? Got it. Your job is to rank Website B. How should you think about it? You should be thinking, if a change is made to Website A, how does that affect Website B, the one I have to rank? Why? Because Website A links to Website B. If something happens to that one, what will happen to your website or Website B? Right? You link Website B. You link the website you're supposed to rank to Website C. If something happens to Website C, what happens to your website because you link to it. Do you understand? If Website A gets a penalty, what happens to Website B, the one you're supposed to rank? If Website A gets more authority, what happens to Website B, the one you're supposed to rank? If you get more authority, what happens to Website C, the one that you link to? That is how you need to think about SEO. And truthfully, I have done everything I can to explain how this works to you. I've said that. I have said that sociology is the best model for SEO, right? Like the study of human behavior and such. But SEO is like sociology on websites instead of on people. That's the best way I can explain it. It's not a checklist, it's not a formula, okay? You do all the checklist things. So did everybody else. So they probably aren't going to matter much, right? Like there has to Be another thing that matters that is scarce and useful. That thing, by the way, is authority. And I'm sure you comprehend that already, because that's what like, probably, like, at least a quarter of these episodes are about. But let me say it one more time. SEO is not a checklist. It is a competition.
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Okay?
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And here's the last example.
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Okay?
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Cause let's go back to the project or to, like, the homework example.
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Okay?
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You get homework from your teacher and you do everything properly, and then you get 100%. Good work. But here's why that doesn't work for SEO. Ready? Because in school, everybody can get 100%.
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Okay?
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Everybody can get 100%. But in SEO, only one domain can be at the top.
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B
Okay?
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So you can't just follow guidelines and do everything correctly and get 100% and then you're at the top. Because it doesn't work that way, because everybody could do it exactly the same and they can't all be at the top, unlike in school, when possibly Everybody could get 100% if they do the homework correctly. In SEO, you cannot all be in the top position. So it's not possible that there is a guideline to follow of all the things to do correctly to get a good grade.
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Okay.
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Or a good rank, like, whatever. Again, this. This episode is so. I don't. I don't. I don't even know. I don't even know what word to say here. This episode is so, like, groundbreaking that I could literally end the podcast. I don't mean this episode. I mean, I could end the entire podcast right here. And you would, as in, like, not make more episodes. And, like, you would. You would feasibly have what you need to know to become super successful, if you understand the concept. And I really hope that I have done a good job explaining it, because it's very frustrating to me to see people selling SEO courses that are wrong and see people confused and not understanding it and paying money for courses that don't actually provide any useful knowledge. I have lots of messages, both in my Reddit inbox and in my email, when people told me about all the courses they buy, which I'm not going to say who they're from, but I'm sure you've heard of some of them and how there was huge waste of money. And it basically said, content is king and all this other stuff. And in some cases, they spent a lot, a lot on these courses. And then they tell me that my free podcast is better. Yeah, Because I have experience doing SEO. I'm not just trying to capitalize on the trendiness of it and sell courses to the gullible. Right? I'm trying to teach you to not be gullible so you don't get scammed by this nonsense. But the point is, you guys, literally, this is. Okay, I get asked this question a lot. I get asked this question a lot. And it's. It's a. It's a. It's easy for me to answer, but it's very difficult for me to explain the answer to somebody. And the question is this. How do I find a good SEO consultant? Right? That's a. That's a. That's a good question. Okay. I think what you need to do is make sure that that SEO consultant understands that SEO is not a checklist, and SEO is not about what you do to your own website. And SEO is a competition. And SEO is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet. And for that reason, I'm fired up about this topic. And for that reason. Okay, any. Okay, I said in the beginning, I don't know how long this episode's gonna be. I'm gonna try and keep it under an hour. Okay? Cause, like, seriously, I'm really, like, frustrated about all this stuff. Okay, look, I'm, I. I'm not really being honest when I say that I'm gonna end the podcast. I'm probably gonna keep making episodes. I literally, I literally could end it with this one, though, and it would be like the greatest mic drop moment ever. Because I've just. I've just bestowed upon you, like, the key main thing of SEO.
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B
Okay.
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Which I'm going to say it again. SEO is not about what you do to your website. SEO is about how your website relates to every other website on the Internet.
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B
Okay?
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Just take. Take a week and think about that concept, okay? Like, literally think about it.
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B
Okay?
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And I know I said this like 50 episodes ago in that other one, but still, I'm saying it again, so you're not hearing it for the first time, but this episode is still probably the best one ever. So, anyway, so far, so far, we got some cool stuff to talk about. But anyways, look, if you're talking to an SEO consultant, look, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be telling you what changes to make to your website. Look, we tell people to make changes to their website all the time, okay? And no, that does not mean content is king, okay? But if they're provided, solution to your problem. And let's, let's be very clear about this right here, there is only one SEO problem, okay? And that is you're not ranking at the top of the search engines. Nothing else is an SEO problem, okay? And I have other episodes on this too, okay? Number of clicks is not an SEO problem. Number of visitors is not an SEO problem. Impressions is not an SEO problem. And and most importantly, conversions is not an SEO problem. There is one SEO problem that exists, and that is your ranking somewhere other than the top of the search results, okay? That is the only SEO problem that exists. With that said, again, we tell people to make changes to their website all the time. It's not. It doesn't mean that that's not part of SEO, okay? But if somebody's provided solution, if you hire somebody or are thinking about hiring somebody and they send you a document or something, they did a scan of your website, they did a scan of your website and they found that you need to make the following changes. Like, if their solution is make changes to your website and that's it, do not work with that person because that person does not understand SEO, okay? That person is the same as someone telling you, well, if you want the title, you have to be able to squat 600 pounds. But what if someone else can squat 602 pounds? That. That's not the right solution, okay? I mean, unless, like, literally. Okay, the only way that would be the solution is like, if you have, like, is if you have, like, lots of authority and like, for some reason you like, accidentally like, no indexed your page or something like that. Like, then yes, then it would be a page change that would get you to the top of the search engines. But, but like, the solution involves other websites, okay? It is more than just making changes to your website. So anyway, I hope, I hope I got. Got some weird, some weird comparisons in here, like SEO and weightlifting. I hope, I hope they made sense. But seriously, think about it. Like, think, think, think, think of SEO. It's not. I'll say this, I'm gonna say this again because I feel like this is the best point and I need to repeat it. SEO is not an assignment in school where if you do everything a certain way, you will get rewarded with 100%.
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Okay?
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Search engines do not reward you with the top position just because you did everything a certain way on your website. It does not work that way. And people are gonna think that and they're not gonna believe me, and that's fine. And those people, a, will not rank their own websites unless they happen to work for websites that already have lots of authority, which is a different topic and b they will not be successful in SEO. You have to understand this. If you understand that you have to be able to squat more than the other guy regardless of how much he can squat, then you probably understand the concept. Okay, if you do not understand that and you think that you can just arrive at the contest and squat 600 pounds and win because somehow that was the threshold, you do not understand this. You will not be successful at SEO and you'll probably also lose to the guy who could squat 602 pounds. I hope this makes sense. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about what can you expect from SEO next year.