Many like to compare the thing they love to many other things. It is also known that the comparison between golf and the business space is not new, and that many theories and ideas about the links of golf and business have been suggested through the years.
Angry Golfer - Are You One?
However i feel that there is a real connection between golf and SEO, not in the sense that golf is an exact (sport) replica of SEO work, but that a good and disciplined golfer would make a fine SEO expert, not too make this claim too serious I will try and go over a few points that I find similar in both fields.
The tee – this is the place it starts, you need to set you initial goals and the distance you want to get to, are you going to get risky try and fly the ball 250 yards over the fairway bunker or play it safe, use a 5 wood to land the ball in mid fairway, making it possible to use an iron to get to the green and a very possible par?
SEO – start of work – are you going to blast the site with in links and over optimize, win fast traffic (some of it not targeted) for a while and risk hitting sand box like filters, fighting your way out of zero search engine traffic for 5-7 (maybe even more) months? – OR – are you going to play it safe, build a long planned SEO strategy, start spreading links and optimizing pages, consistently grow the property to get targeted traffic in a few weeks (or even days?).
The Tee
Golf shows you the results of your behavior pretty fast, within a few minutes you know if your risky approach left you with a (surprising) birdie or you spent 20 minutes playing army golf around the course to finish with a triple bogey (or worst), even more important is how you leave the green… are you exhilarated, inspired and fulfilled, or are you tired anxious and nervous…
SEO takes months to show you the fruits of your labor and in most times SEO experts do not let themselves enjoy the par they just made (or even birdie) because they are too frantic looking for new things…
More about golf and SEO in the next weeks…
