Why Search Engine Experts Treat SEO Like Gardening

Do you have a green thumb? Do you love to garden?

Then you might know a thing or two about search engine optimization.

Believe it or not, gardeners are a lot like search engine experts.

Sure, one may involve dirt, while the other involves computers. But growing plants shares many of the same processes as growing a website.

Here are 3 ways that gardening is like SEO.

Preparation

Gardens take careful planning. Because of the time it takes to grow plants, you need to make good decisions up front.

You need to choose where the garden will be. Then you need to pick which plants to grow, when to grow them, and how you’ll arrange them.

Growing a garden requires strategy.

SEO works in the same way.

Search engine experts must do a lot of preparation before a website can “take root” on search engines.

The website itself is like the gardening area. It needs to be well-placed, well-built, and include features that help the “plants” to thrive.

The framework of a site’s design must be optimized for search engines. They need to have good URL navigation structure and correct metadata. They should be built for a great UX on all devices and have fast load speeds.

Gardeners need to research what plants they can grow based on the climate and time of year. In SEO, the “plants” are your content.

Doing keyword research and persona analysis helps SEO “gardeners” create curated content for the correct audience.

Nurturing and Growth

You don’t grow tomatoes the same way as potatoes.

Potatoes grow in the ground. You plant them, let them grow, and pull them up when they’re ready.

But tomatoes grow on vines. They need additional support, like wire frames.

In gardening, each type of plant needs specialized care. Your SEO work also needs customized attention.

There’s no easy, one-size-fits-all method to build individual pages or create content.

Evergreen content isn’t made the same way as news updates and current events. Your company’s site may need certain features and pages that aren’t as important to a business in a different industry.

To plant and grow your website, your SEO work needs individual specific care for it to be properly optimized.

Maintenance and Upkeep

Planting seeds and getting sprouts isn’t the end of your gardening. Gardens need ongoing care to remain sustainable.

You need to add fertilizer to the soil and set up Easy Garden Irrigation to keep the plants watered. You’ll also need to prune off dead parts of the plant and watch out for weeds.

For search engine experts, maintenance of a website is about longevity and consistency. Stay active, keep adding more content, and edit your old content if it’s needed.

SEO “pruning” means to watch out for broken links on your site. These can be damaging to your SERP ranking and need to be “trimmed” as soon as possible.

Also, stay updated on the “weather reports” — meaning news about changes in SEO best practices. The system is frequently changing.