The Tools You Use Don't Determine Your Success
Don't fall for the trap
People in the SEO community are completely obsessed with tools.
As you can imagine, I get a TON of questions. The vast majority are some variation of “how long is it going to take”? But once I toss those out, the remainder are almost exclusively asking me about tools: how to find them, which ones I recommend, which one is “best”, etc.
Yes, I use SEO tools (I have a list of which ones I use here).
But I don’t think obsessing over them is the most important thing you should do as a beginner.
Here’s why.
You want a crutch because you hate yourself
The reason why you’re obsessed with tools is because deep down inside you don’t think that you have what it takes. You want an easy “hack” that will let you succeed without putting anything on the line.
If you fail you can blame it on not having the “right tools” rather than the truth. Which is that the reason you failed is because you didn’t take the actions that you were supposed to take.
The fact is that anyone who works hard AND makes sure that they’re constantly improving after each iteration of whatever activity they’re partaking in becomes MASSIVELY successful over time.
That means that you don’t keep writing articles in the exact same style every single day like a dumb mule. Instead you should constantly be finding ways to improve each time. When you look back on your site a year from now you should CRINGE at your first few articles. That’s the sign that you’re on the right track.
If your early output doesn’t embarrass you then you aren’t improving. If you aren’t improving, you aren’t succeeding. If you aren’t succeeding then what’s the point?
The reason you’re doing this is to make money. That’s it. It’s not to preserve your ego. It’s not to impress your dumbass friends. It’s not to have something to brag about when talking to chicks (they won’t get it or care).
There isn’t a single SEO tool out there that will make the hard work go away. Yes, they are useful and some of them are even necessary. But there are TONS of site owners using these tools yet only some of them are successful.
Why is that?