The SEO industry has a dirty secret: 90% of the advice you're getting is absolute garbage.
I've been doing SEO for over 10 years. I've grown websites from zero to 200,000+ monthly organic visits. I've fixed sites that were destroyed by "SEO experts." And I've seen the same terrible advice recycled over and over again.
Here's the truth nobody wants to tell you.
The Problem with Generic SEO Advice
Walk into any SEO Facebook group, read any "SEO tips" article, or attend any digital marketing conference. You'll hear the same recycled garbage:
- "Create quality content"
- "Build high-quality backlinks"
- "Optimize your meta tags"
- "Improve your page speed"
- "Use long-tail keywords"
This advice isn't wrong. It's just completely useless.
It's like telling someone who wants to lose weight to "eat less and exercise more." Technically correct, but so generic it's meaningless.
Why Generic SEO Advice Fails
1. Context is Everything
The same tactic that grows one website can destroy another. I've seen:
- Content strategies that work for B2B SaaS completely fail for local businesses
- Link building tactics that boost e-commerce sites get service businesses penalized
- Technical optimizations that help news sites hurt membership sites
Your industry, audience, competition, and business model all matter. Generic advice ignores all of this.
2. Most "SEO Experts" Have Never Done Real SEO
Here's a harsh truth: Most people giving SEO advice have never actually grown a website from scratch.
They've read other people's case studies. They've watched YouTube videos. They've taken courses. But they've never sat in front of Google Analytics watching their traffic tank because they made the wrong call.
Real SEO experience looks different:
- You've had sites lose 50%+ of their traffic overnight
- You've spent months on strategies that completely failed
- You've had to explain to a CEO why organic traffic dropped 30%
- You've built systems that consistently work across different industries
3. The Incentive Structure is Broken
The SEO industry rewards content creation over results.
Bloggers get paid for clicks, not for growing businesses. So they pump out "SEO tips" articles that sound helpful but are completely generic.
Agency consultants get paid monthly retainers, not for hitting traffic goals. So they focus on activities that look impressive in reports rather than strategies that actually work.
Course creators get paid for enrollments, not for student success. So they teach tactics that sound exciting rather than fundamentals that actually drive results.
How to Spot Real SEO Advice
After a decade in this industry, here's how I separate the wheat from the chaff:
1. Look for Specificity
Garbage advice: "Create quality content"
Good advice: "For B2B SaaS companies targeting enterprise clients, create 3,000+ word technical guides that solve specific implementation problems your prospects face during software evaluation"
Garbage advice: "Build quality backlinks"
Good advice: "For local service businesses, get featured in local business journals by offering expert commentary on industry trends, then use those mentions for additional PR opportunities"
Real advice is specific to your situation.
2. Check for Battle Scars
Anyone giving SEO advice should have stories about things that went wrong:
- Sites they accidentally tanked
- Strategies that completely backfired
- Months of work that produced zero results
- Penalties they had to recover from
If someone's only sharing success stories, they haven't done enough real SEO to give you advice.
3. Look for Systems, Not Tactics
Tactics are individual actions: "Write a blog post," "Send an outreach email," "Optimize a title tag."
Systems are repeatable processes that consistently produce results: "How to identify content gaps in your industry," "How to build relationships that naturally lead to links," "How to structure technical audits that actually get implemented."
Real SEO experts think in systems because tactics stop working. Systems adapt.
What Actually Works in SEO
Here's what I've learned actually moves the needle:
1. Understand Your Business Model First
Before you touch anything SEO-related, understand:
- How your business actually makes money
- What actions on your website drive revenue
- Who your real competitors are (hint: it's not who you think)
- What your customers actually search for (not what you think they search for)
Most SEO fails because people optimize for vanity metrics instead of business results.
2. Fix the Foundation Before You Build
I've audited hundreds of websites. The same fundamental problems kill SEO results:
Technical debt: Sites that take 8 seconds to load, have broken internal linking, or aren't properly indexed
Content problems: Pages that don't match search intent or solve real problems
User experience issues: Sites that look like they were built in 2010 or are impossible to navigate
You can't build sustainable SEO on a broken foundation.
3. Think Like a Publisher, Not a Marketer
The best SEO content doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like journalism.
Bad SEO content: "10 Benefits of Our Product"
Good SEO content: "Why 73% of Companies Fail at [Specific Problem] (And How the 27% Succeed)"
The second approach naturally attracts links, social shares, and repeat visitors because it's actually useful.
The Real Secret to SEO Success
Want to know the real secret to SEO success? It's not a tactic or a tool or a strategy.
It's thinking long-term in a short-term industry.
While everyone else is chasing the latest Google update or trying to reverse-engineer viral content, successful SEO practitioners focus on building systems that work regardless of algorithm changes:
- Creating content that would be valuable even if Google didn't exist
- Building relationships that naturally lead to mentions and links
- Optimizing for users first, search engines second
- Measuring business results, not just traffic metrics
Stop Playing SEO Roulette
The SEO industry wants you to believe that success is mysterious and complicated. It's not.
Good SEO is just good business:
- Understand your customers
- Create something valuable for them
- Make it easy to find and use
- Build relationships in your industry
- Measure what matters
Everything else is just tactics.
The next time someone gives you SEO advice, ask yourself: "Is this specific to my situation? Does this person have real experience? Are they teaching systems or just tactics?"
Most of the time, you'll realize you're getting garbage advice from someone who's never actually done the work.
Stop listening to the noise. Start building systems that actually work.