John Mueller, Google’s Senior Search Analyst, answered questions about why SEO best practices might have a minimal effect on a site’s search rankings.

The question arose in the August Google SEO Office Hours podcast, where Mueller acknowledged that SEO best practices don’t always produce the desired results, even one year after implementing them.  

Mueller also explained why many best practices have little effect on a website’s day-to-day SEO performance and gave tips on what site owners should do when experiencing minimal results. 

SEO situations with zero effect

John Mueller replied to a frustrated site owner who had implemented SEO best practices over a year ago and had yet to see any improvements in Search.

John Mueller read the question:

• “I changed my website a year ago and did a lot of work on SEO. Should this be affecting my website’s traffic by now?”

Mueller responded by first saying it’s hard to answer the question without the webpage specifics:

• “It’s tricky to say much here. I don’t know what specifically you did to work on SEO, and I don’t know if that would have resulted in significant changes.”

Mueller then explained that many best practices have zero immediate effect, saying: 

• “There are many best practices which have a minimal effect on the day-to-day performance of a website. For example, having a clean page structure helps search engines to better understand the content on a page, but it might not necessarily result in immediate search ranking or traffic changes.”

SEO elements differ across websites

Mueller also explained that SEO varies across websites and topics, which is in keeping with recent AI Overview appearance statistics for specific subjects, showing more for medical search queries than hard news topics and sports that require up-to-date and factually proven summaries.

Location could also affect a site’s SEO efforts. Google recently acknowledged this when it said local ccTLDs now get priority in some regions over non-country domains. 

Mueller hit on this when he replied, saying the most effective elements of SEO vary across websites.

Mueller’s reply:

• “The most effective elements of SEO will vary across websites; it takes a lot of experience to go from a long checklist of possible items to a short prioritized list of critical items.”

Mueller finished his answer by saying experience is essential for understanding SEO and advised asking for advice in help forums.

Mueller wrote:

• “Your experience here will grow over time as you practice. I recommend getting input from others and practicing by helping with challenges others post in help forums. Good luck!”

Google`s advice for struggling website

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, recently gave some SEO advice to site owners experiencing ranking difficulties. 

While those difficulties were primarily due to Google`s recent algorithm updates, his advice also applies to SEO best practices.

Danny advised site owners to think beyond Google when implementing SEO and to instead focus on diversifying their traffic sources, building a relevant audience, and creating content specific to their needs.

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Terry O'Toole

Terry is a seasoned content marketing specialist with over six years of experience writing content that helps small businesses navigate where small businesses meet marketing - SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc. Terry has a proven track record of creating top-performing content in search results.
When he is not writing content, Terry can be found on his boat in Italy or chilling in his villa in Spain.

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