If you're a small business owner looking to do your own SEO, there are a few things you need to know before you start. Here's why SEO is not for the lazy.
Reason #1 - It makes sense.
If everyone could just write a few articles, optimize their meta titles and then sit back and enjoy first place rankings for their chosen keywords, SEO wouldn't work. For any keyword, only one company can occupy the first place ranking and quite rightly, it takes a lot of consistent effort. The search engine results pages (SERPS) would be a pretty horrible collection if any lazy Tom, Dick or Harry could come along and get a place with the minimum amount of effort.
Reason #2 - It's a marathon, not a sprint.
I've worked with clients who have unrealistic expectations of SEO. Quite a few have dabbled with SEO for a month or two before I've worked with them and quickly given up because it's not worked as quickly as they hoped.
It's the equivalent of buying one 30-second TV advert and wondering why millions of people haven't gone out to buy your product. Your message will take time to get out there, and Google rewards relevant, high quality and consistent effort.
Reason #3 - You need to know what you're doing before you start.
Another reason that SEO is not for the lazy is that you need to find out what you should be doing before you even begin. Assuming you don't have the budget to outsource your SEO, you will need to read up on what legitimate SEO tactics you should be using.
Many people either don't have the time or just can't be bothered to do this. This usually results in one of two things: they either waste their time and don't make any improvements in their rankings, or in the worst cases, their website gets penalized by Google and they end up in a worse position than when they started.
If you don't have the time or inclination to learn about SEO and do it yourself, you can of course use Google Adwords to get on page 1 for your chosen keywords, but this can be very costly.