What’s something you wish you knew before starting SEO?

Kakashi Hatake said:

Most beginners waste time chasing backlinks & tricks seo is 80% picking the right keywords plus matching search intent get that wrong & nothing else matters,

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I agree completely, there are many instances where linking is done to pages which don't fulfill the needs of the user. Keyword research and content optimization should be the first priority before any off-page effort.

One thing I have learned recently is not to chase every volatility spike Google is constantly making smaller ranking changes, so I look for sustained movement across pages and queries before reacting.

james.johna said:

Looking back, what’s one thing about SEO that took you way too long to figure out? Could be something small or a mistake you made early on. Curious to hear what others learned from experience.

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It would be nice if I had figured out search intent much sooner. So much tym were spent chasing high volume keywords with no result. In my opinion the search engines results page tells you more about whats to target than the keyword tool.