In 1970 Honda unleashed the N600 sedan on the American consumer. The car featured front wheel drive and an air-cooled, four stroke, 31 horsepowered two-cylinder engine, which was borrowed from the Honda CB450 motorcycle.
Honda didn’t think the N600 would replace the Chevy Impala, but they had to start somewhere. It’s the same on the web.
Every SEO gets asked the dreaded “how long until I’m number one on Google” a lot. At that point our job becomes one of teacher. Ranking first on Google means that your web page is better than any of the other 40 trillion pages on the web. That’s a pretty high bar right out of the gate.
So you spend a year making your site more responsive, adding better content, optimizing for conversions and building out your community. You still have very little traffic. You start to think you’re doing something wrong. You start asking around and looking at your competitors. Amazon makes it look so easy.
As you start to slog your way through year two you see some progress. You are starting to attract some links, a few people start to leave comments on your blog posts. Now you can feel your expectations start to rise. You feel like something good is right around the corner. Okay, maybe the next corner. Damnit, maybe that next one.
This is where half of the population gives up. Â This is what Seth Godin refers to as “the dip“. Seth’s main point in that book is knowing when it’s a dip that you have to power through, or something you should quit all together and move on.
I love the graphics that Rand Fiskin uses to illustrate this exact point. It’s the Google Analytics traffic line of his wife’s blog.
I’ve heard it said that it always feels like you’re losing, right before you win. If you still love what you’re doing and it feels right, I implore you to stay on the treadmill a little bit longer. Real success doesn’t come overnight.
I still remember the impact of Chris Brogan’s blog post about overnight success from way back in 2009 and how it made me more determined than ever.
Great insight and in some ways a reminder. It can be a long slog and can certainly get frustrating. I will remember this post for those low moments. Thank you.
I like to think of this post as my web pep talk 🙂
Awesome … I like your statement above “I’ve heard it said that it always feels like you’re losing, right before you win. If you still love what you’re doing and it feels right, I implore you to stay on the treadmill a little bit longer. Real success doesn’t come overnight.”
It was horrible process to gain success …
Love the Honda analogy. Blogging success is no different to any other success path. Keep doing what you love and eventually you’ll hit that point in the road where good things will occur naturally. Main thing to keep in mind is to not give up no matter how daunting it looks. The weak get weeded out while the more determined ones succeed – simple philosophy to life in general.
Thanks Daniel. I think you’re right that the weak will give up sooner than someone in it for the long haul.
Hi Phil. I work with a lot of small clients so this is a fantastic post I can put to them- That there is no such thing as quick success; it is a long hard battle! Thank you.
Maria
Thanks for the helpful feedback. Things can take ages sometimes!
Hi. Thanks for all of your efforts. Your articles really helped me to apply SEO to my website. I hope I would be able to develop my site better and better in future as you said: “it always feels like you’re losing, right before you win”. That’s true.
Can you please provide a plan which describe things to do daily to get ranked first in 3 month.
Really inspiring to read this. But wow, what a dramatic surge in traffic after that dip!
it’s very inspirational for me ,thanks sir to share with us your exprience .it’s proves that success is possible with our hard work ans smart work.i like this website also.
Thanks Phil to share a useful post for all beginner bloggers. my website still not get enough traffic and i’m trying to improve it. thanks again!