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Many search engine optimizers are still stuck in the past.
These old school practitioners fail to adapt.
They struggle with the new social media driven environment of Search Everywhere Optimization!
They attempt to apply rules of the legacy Web to the new reality.
To encourage some self reflection of the people in the search industry I compiled a ruthlessly honest set of mistakes.
These are the reasons why SEOs still often fail on social media.
Of course not all of them do, but still far too many.
We can do better than that. Social media is about socializing for real.
When you recognize yourself in some of these traits take a step forward and change your approach.
I offer some solutions below each paragraph.
They are not about rocket science!
Common issues SEO people face on social media
So what are some common ways SEO people fail on a social media driven Web?
How do SEO beginners and experts self-sabotage on social networking sites and niche communities?
Why do people get banned all the time on Reddit and the likes?
SEOs love to automate.
Search engine optimizers loved to automate from day one.
Especially low level and spammy ones! Yet also legit experts.
Social media is about conversation, conversation between people.
Now how would you automate that?
Ever tried automating conversation with your wife or kids?
Good luck with that haha!
You can’t automate conversation without annoying and ostracizing people.
Automate tedious tasks like research.
Use tools to get insights you would not be able to obtain manually.
Speed up or streamline processes.
Use the time saved that way to engage in actual conversations!
ChatGPT won’t help you on social sites.
It will most likely hurt you as people detest AI slop.
Even influencers who use LLMs to “write” popular posts for Instagram all sound the same.
“It’s not x, it’s y!” and other standard AI hooks are way overdone!
SEOs are treating social networking like web directories
Do you remember social bookmarking? Or Web directories?
When was the last time you used bookmarks for research? People use search engines or chatbots instead.
Although some sites revive the social bookmarking model with modern concepts most social bookmarking sites are gone.
Many SEOs assume that social networking sites are the directories of the social Web.
They sometimes still think Facebook, X/Twitter, Reddit and the likes are mainly a means to share links.
Thus instead of submitting to 2000 directories or to 200 social bookmarking sites they share links to 20 social sites.
They also love to automate that process.
Social networking is not about the number of sites you share to
but about the number of users who engage with you on one site or two and the authority of one user who recommends your site.
You might sleep with 200 women but I guess none of them will love you just for the act.
Your wife probably will love once you make a commitment to her.
Also your friends will like it when you tell them stories but not strangers on the streets. These people might assume you’re a nut.
SEOs start yelling at people instead of listening
Hey you, want to buy SEO services?
I have 1000 dofollow links for you!
Imagine yourself shouting this sentence on the street.
Shouting at people you have never seen before.
Why shout at people who are not interested in you at all?
This is exactly what SEOs often do on social media.
Again, imagine yourself and your wife or friends. Instead of listening you start shouting at them.
Do you expect them to listen and fulfill your wishes?
The less you shout, the calmer and more self-confident you get, and the less you say the more impact each word has.
You can even whisper sometimes.
Long time bloggers like Seth Godin or Leo Babauta proved this over the years.
Being wordy like AI slop these days does not help much!
Use fewer words to express more ideally.
Be actionable and make every word count!
Remove redundant words and add white space instead!
SEOs do not share
When I started to optimize for Google in Germany in 2004 I was amazed by the clandestine atmosphere of SEO.
It felt more like 007! I didn’t want to be a secret agent though.
Insights and links were scarce and everybody was stingy with them.
Sharing information could give your competitors an advantage.
Thus it was important to keep as much of your know how for you as possible.
The SEO experts at Moz were already famous for the knowledge they shared.
Yet the German SEO forums were still full of people who wouldn’t tell you anything.
They would “reply” trying to scare you off or ridicule you instead of sharing what they know. They acted shady out of habit.
Imagine yourself on a party and someone asks what you do for a living.
You reply “I can’t tell you” because you’re afraid the person could get in your way as a competitor.
Also hoarding “link juice” was very important while linking out to somebody who does not link back a sign of idiocy.
Why give away your Google juice?
When you do not give away anything, even things that do not cost money, nobody will like you.
Just share your insights. Prove your expertise by showing it off.
Do not hide behind NDAs. Don’t claim you need a competitive advantage.
You think your SEO techniques are so easy to replicate that your competition will crush you?
Maybe it’s time to step up the game and go for advanced SEO (whatever that means for you).
SEOs are sneaky
It’s 2026 and I am still apalled by some people in SEO!
Their first thought on encountering a new service or medium seems to be:
How can I sneak in and exploit it?
The way man people in marketing “leverage” Reddit for the SEO benefits is a “good” example.
Imagine this in real life: Yes, it resembles crime.
Do not game social media! Play by the rules.
Show up. Contribute! Add value!
It’s not that hard really.
SEOs focus on bling bling and fetishes not actual results
Do you think your size of your traffic, car or IQ makes you better than others?
It was very strange to see people in SEO forums talking about PageRank back in teh days.
They literally fetishized PageRank.
Nowadays many do that with third party metrics like Domain Authority/Rating.
It might be the ranking on Google or it might be the silly traffic numbers.
They are all just signs of success, but signs that often are misleading.
You can be #1 in Google and have 100.000 visitors one day without gaining any real authority or making real sales.
Now just think of a braggart like that boasting. Would you like and respect that person? I don’t think so.
Focus on something more tangible.
How does this and that contribute to the overall business objectives?
Do you get more conversions and sales by speeding the site up by another millisecond?
SEOs obsess about numbers instead of value/s
Even the SEOs who care about conversions and ROI tend to consider only one value: money!
I assume that in western countries you at least share some core values.
You are fond of things like
- democracy
- freedom of speech and movement
- peace etc.
Yet how many SEO firms display any commitment to these issues?
Also I assume that most people love art, music, literature and cherish nature.
How many SEO companies speak out on behalf of the environment?
How many support artists, sponsor concerts or invite poets to perform on their behalf?
People on social media are real people.
Most people are not interested in what you want to sell them!
Yet they love the green grass, they love to listen to music, read great stories and look at beautiful or intriguing artworks.
Remind people of what they love instead of pushing something you want them to buy.
Combine both to get them on board!
SEOs treat “content” like filler material
When you read why some SEOs recommend blogging you may cringe.
You get the impression that it’s just about content that is only filling in the pages with keyword rich nonsense.
This got even worse due to the rise of AI slop and scaled content abuse as Google calls it.
Do SEO people care whether anybody reads it all?
It’s like having stuffed animals in the park or ZOO. Fooling people into visiting your site is not enough.
Would you like a park where the birds that tweet are recorded or a ZOO where the animals are displayed on large TV screens?
When there is no life in the “content” nobody will want to look at it let alone read it.
Don’t just write content.
Write poems. Create art. Compose music.
Or at least make it actionable and helpful when you’re not mainly a creator.
SEOs don’t get design
Many SEOs still think that design does not matter.
They assume that getting found is enough!
Or they assume UX means placing keywords prominently in the content so that Google can find them.
People just take a look at a website and leave instantly when the design is not appealing to them.
Social media users behave even more like this.
No great visual on the page means bouncing off it.
Realize that SEO is also SXO or Search Experience Optimization.
You want people the enjoy the “customer journey”.
SEOs are selfish
Many SEOs do not give away anything that matters to others.
They want to take without giving. If they take, they take for themselves.
Social media is all about giving.
Many people assume that giving and sharing is the only acceptable way to act on social media.
I do not agree with that, because this way you would only work for free for companies who own these social media.
You need to give to be able to take though.
When people know you, got attention from you, or something else of value that counts on the Internet.
It might be links, recommendations or feedback.
Then they are willing to listen to you. Some will also give back.
Why share mistakes SEOs make on social media?
Why am I pointing out these common mistakes made by SEOs?
Am I just ridiculing an industry that gets a lot of criticism already?
Isn’t it awkward to poke fun at socially challenged individuals?
Who the hell am I to tell you these things?
Well, I’m into SEO since 2004 years!
And I still don’t believe that SEO is all that I described above.
Indeed I want to make the Web a better place.
Plus I strive to improve the SEO industry as a whole while at it!
How to avoid these mistakes?
These ways SEOs fail on social media are aberrations.
They are the mistakes people are making on the Web in general.
Not only SEOs make them!
I see plenty of people outside of SEO doing these things!
Just take a look at what you do online and then do not make these mistakes again.
Make sure to to double-check the actual metrics you are using.
I’ve made some of these mistakes myself like obsessing with
- PageRank
- traffic
- rankings
Yet mostly I was able to avoid these. How?
I went online back in 1997!
That’s 7 years before starting with SEO.
Thus I knew how to act on the Web without alienating people.
Be a human being first and then a SEO on top of that.
Do not approach people as a marketer on social media. This is the most important thing.
I want to thank some of my X/Twitter friends who provided some answers for this post: edelabar, tibipuiu, sweetsfoods.
*(CC BY-SA 2.0) Creative Commons image by su neko
