Fitness and SEO are not generally inter-related terms, but if you are amused enough, you can find the underlying similarities between the two. Fitness trainers and SEO experts can relate with each other on various things, like producing guaranteed high quality results. Both need time, dedication, the right amount of knowledge and proper guidance to achieve desirable online presence
Let’s find out the correlation between the two, and learn what we can add to enhance our Search Engine Optimization(SEO)expertise, deriving from our fitness principles:
1. Be at the Steering Wheel
There are no guarantees in life. You might have the best shot at winning, and still end up falling short at the very last minute. On the other hand, you might be the underdog and still win with the greatest stroke of luck. With SEO, as with fitness regimes, you need to work at improving in baby-steps and need to be involved in every step of the way.
Since planning and execution are the main pillars of SEO, the first–step is always initiated by the client. For instance, when you join a gym, your trainer doesn’t force you to exercise or abducts you from your place and brings you to the Gym for training sessions against your will. You always take that step. The same is the case with SEO, as your voluntary involvement is crucial for your business.
2. Stamina
Either it’s SEO or gym training, both need long-term planning and incredible stamina to stick with the goal. One should have the determination to bear fluctuating results.
If you see the stamina of marathon runners, you will understand how hard you need to train yourself to have a considerable amount of power to stick with what you are doing. Stamina can either be physical or mental.
Sometimes, you need to sit for hours in front of your laptop and find ways to optimize the web pages for higher ranking. Sometimes, you need to sit with your team and brainstorm ideas to drive targeted traffic. Either way, you need to keep training to be there for the long haul.
3. No Shortcuts
If you read about great Olympians like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, you will understand why they are the best in their respective fields, regardless of having so much competition. They had intense training days for years before the Olympics, and they continue with their training plan for years after they win, too.
Now consider yourself as an athlete who wants to win a world cup championship or an Olympics, what you are going to do first? Find an excellent trainer who will help you to achieve the stardom and the end goal? Sure.
But the work will begin with you. It might take you weeks of SEO optimization to get your website conversion rate up a notch. There are no shortcuts to achieving online success. You have to put in the long hours to produce high conversion websites and outstanding SERP rankings. In this way, Olympics teach us about how to get success in business.
4. To Field Competition
In sports, its stamina, agility, passion, motivation, health, physique etc. elements that decide the future of an athlete and how likely he can win a good sporting event by defeating his rivals. Sometimes, it’s measured how ahead he was. Was it a close competition, or he won by a long shot? These stats help an athlete to train for the next event by knowing his rivals’ strength and figuring his weaknesses to work upon.
Athletes like M. Phelps are gifted with a mesomorph body that gives them an advantage over their rivals. But that happens very rarely. Not all sporting legends have had it easy. They worked hard what it took them to be number one.
Unfortunately, not even one in the SEO world has the kind of talent to stay ahead in the game.
Since Google works too strictly, it’s nearly impossible to get to the top just because you are gifted. You need to hone that gift with years of practice, right knowledge and need to have enormous managerial skills to win the game. Didn’t you hear that phrase, “Success doesn’t come easy”? It’s very accurate if you ponder it for a while.
5. Psychological Upkeep and Motivation
Motivation is highly important. It helps to build a mindset that leads to face unwanted challenges and setbacks. Imagine yourself as an athlete who has to wake up at 4 a.m. and have an intense workout for the entire day. That may look like a good thing at first because it will keep you healthy, but when you try to do it every single day, you become bored in repeating it and find the lack of motivation and probably start snoozing your alarm clock.
As discussed earlier, it’s not easy to continue what you are doing because a lot of people lack motivation or fail to get inspired. This also differentiates between a successful athlete and an ordinary one.
In SEO, the motivations work when it’s hard to get strong backlinks. Moreover, Google’s updates like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird ruin entire hard work and the results disappear to back pages where no one ever comes. The inspiration works to survive in such a competitive industry, where everyone is trying to optimize the page for the Google page one rank.
And again, success isn’t guaranteed. Only you can learn from the failures to apply until the success doesn’t come home.
6. Measuring Progress
Until you don’t measure your progress, you will never understand what you have achieved and what has still left. You need metrics to determine how long you still have to go.
Not every day is yours. Sometimes you perform well, and sometimes you don’t even want to see your metrics. It happens.
SEO is similar to a sport. It’s hard to know the success until you don’t measure your success metrics. Since SEO is an on-going process and needs activity daily, it helps miles if you keep a success record and find out what’s working and what is not. It will give you a clear glance to see the real picture and may eventually become your shining armour.
There’s no pill ever invented that can turn a couch potato into a world-class athlete. It needs intense training and the right approach to match the excellence of another athlete who has successfully proved his worth.
Similarly, in the digital world, you need to continually work on updating optimization and keywords in order to maintain your conversion rates and sustain a successful business website.