Patience in Life as in SEO

My first born is now officially 3 days overdue. Am I patiently waiting? Heck no, not in the least. I’ve seem to have turned into a hyperactive child in need of his Ritalin at the end of a three day candy binge waiting for his habitually late sleeping parents to finally get out of bed on Christmas morning. Except I’m not even sure what day my Christmas is going to fall on. Yeah, I really am that bad off.

Yes, I know that my son is certain to arrive within the next week; I know that at any moment my life will change forever. Yet despite this assurance all I can focus on is the fact that he isn’t here yet. His room is ready (complete with giant robot wall stickers; he’s got one heck of a crib), I’ve cleaned the entire house, stocked it with food, and quite frankly I’m running out of drawers to organize and chores to do in preparation. I’m beginning to think that my frantic male nesting activities might be driving my wife a little crazy. It is either that or her fear that if she doesn’t deliver soon, she will be giving birth to a first grader.

Trust me, we have done everything we can think of to induce labor; long walks, acupuncture, marital relations, spicy foods, pressure points, etc. We have even briefly considered castor oil as a last resort, but neither of us happens to be huge fans of explosive diarrhea.

So with each passing day, I seem to have slowly wound myself up into one giant ball of nerves. I’m not sure how much longer I can take the anticipation. And then it dawned on me… maybe I need to start taking some of my own advice. Advice that I have constantly given to our SEO clients. I’m fairly sure that right now some of them are reading this and getting some small satisfaction from my current angst, because for years I have been the one telling them about the importance of being patient when it comes to the arrival of their babies…their websites.

It’s true; the guidance I have been preaching non stop is the same advice I need to take to heart. Just as these clients have purchased a domain, designed their website, hosted it and put it online, I too have chosen a name, furnished the nursery, and made sure everything is ready for the arrival. While they have optimized their site for the search engines, I’ve optimized the house for the baby (and the visiting in-laws). And just like most expecting online businesses, a tremendous amount of love, care and dedication has gone into the preparation, and we find that we are all anxiously waiting for our new “babies” to arrive.

For the business owners this arrival means online visitors through organic exposure; for me these visitors are family and friends. We are all ready for our pride and joy to be seen by everyone who has the slightest amount of interest. We are ready for the big day.

But while we have done everything in our power to prepare for this big coming out party, it still comes down to the fact that no matter how much prep work has been put in, the arrival date still depends on someone else’s timetable. As I frequently remind new clients, websites needs to gain tenure, the optimization strategies must be developed and put into place, pages need to be indexed by the search engines, and quality inbound links must be developed before a site can hope to gain organic exposure and truly arrive on the organic front. Even then analytics need to be reviewed, additional links may need to be developed and tweaks to the optimization may be required before the site maintains that high level of exposure.

For me, at this point all I have to do is wait and try to keep my wife from going insane. I guess this expectant father really doesn’t have it so bad after all, although Tom Petty was on to something when he said that the waiting is the hardest part. But with a little more patience and the heeding of my own advice, the big day will be here before I know it.

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