6 necessary things that SEO tools won’t tell you
As SEO professionals, we tend to rely on SEO tools to make our lives easy.
Often, we dig deep into these SEO tools that claim to save time while providing some valuable insights.
We’ve trusted these tools for so long. We can’t even imagine what we missed until recently when we were working for a client and things started emerging from the dust.
These are just tools. They are trained and programmed to understand a pattern and create a report based on that pattern.
For new updates – the tool will take time to analyze it, and in some cases, these SEO tools won’t even tell certain things.
1- Your Future Goals
SEO tools might help you to analyze the engagement of users, whether the keyword is performing or not, perform competitor research, or tools that will help you to give you a clear insight regarding the technical aspects of your website.
The Google Keyword Planner and all other SEO tools rely on third-party data tools to get all the relevant information.
We analyze the data and often use the data to set goals for clients and our brand.
Unfortunately, no matter how much data these SEO tools provide, they cannot set goals for brands. The real goals like traffic, conversion, and impressions with numbers won’t be any good. That’s why you must use those numbers to create clear goals for your business or your brand.
2- Exact Sales or Number of Leads
I use several tools to do keyword research, traffic on the website, and conversions on my website. What I can do is to take the data and estimate everything else.
We all need to justify our efforts, but the best approach is to gather as much data as you can and don’t just rely on one source. The more variables you get, the better it will be for you.
I am not at all against these tools. I am just informing through my experience that only relying on these tools is not wise.
The tools are not that smart, but we humans have this ability to make decisions based upon the data we get. Use that wisely.
3- Adopt new technology
Every tool is based on the search algorithm. The data in those tools are approximately 90 days old.
The tools might be practical if you’re a startup. You contacted a professional web design agency to develop your website. They developed and launched your website. Now, you can use these tools to analyze the trend and inform you about what is happening in the market.
However, while doing all of this, ranking factors might change. Your ads might be blocked by Google, fraud links by your competitors or even bots.
The competitors are already doing manual SEO. The content, the SEO updates, and even keeping an eye on the moving targets.
For you to succeed, you must step out of these tools and adapt what is left out by these tools.
4- SEO for Business
Regardless of how much advanced these SEO tools get, there will still be some things that the tools cannot figure out.
Sure. You’ll be able to know the ROI numbers, the traffic on your website, or even the conversions that you had. The tools might also create a detailed report for you.
However, one thing that these SEO tools won’t tell you is the leads that come directly from manual feedback or stakeholders. It is impossible for a device to connect all those dots and come up with a conclusion. That customer conversation that you had which converted into a lead is something that you must remember and keep aside.
5- Which Content Strategy to follow?
Content is just like a fuel for your SEO.
The tools can quickly provide the data about which content is ranking high in the search engine or how many mentions your brand gets on various platforms of social media.
What the tool won’t tell is the exact answer regarding what is working best for your company or your clients.
You cannot simply copy the content of the competitor and expect to get away with it.
You must take all the content, the engagement, triggers, and even CTA to drive meaning out of it. Use the tools to gather all the data, the insights, and everything that you can get to drive meaning out of it.
6- How to maintain Focus?
Although, there is much content out there that can teach you how to prioritize your work. Some tools will analyze a website and recommend updates.
However, the majority of work cannot be prioritized. You cannot automate the focus and the pace of the project.
SEO takes a lot of time and the right amount of patience.
Tools are excellent to manage the work, take insights and organize it.
The most significant number of on-page report misses the image alt attribute text, focusing your efforts on a handful of things and just one category is a complete waste of time.
Over time, everything that has been done with these tools will be done with the help of smart AI which is already catching up with the human brain and decision making.
Conclusion
I cannot even imagine traveling on those old times and do all the SEO work by hand.
There are many tools that can research, analyze, measure, and create a benchmark for me, saving much precious time. I can then create a fool-proof strategy with all the insights with me.
The technology is undoubtedly being at our disposal but how we use that technology is all up to us. We can take whatever we feel can help us to make the decision. However, we cannot rely solely on technology to fill the gap.
The best approach, in this case, is to maintain the balance between manual work and technology. For data and insights take help from technology, but when it comes to making decisions regarding SEO I would suggest seeking advice from your mind.
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