Sometimes in order to grow your business, you’ve got to face up to what’s holding you back, and that’s not always easy.

Trying to get your business to rank highly on Google Maps or the SERPs can be frustrating, especially if you’re a business with a lot of local competition. That said, there are some themes we see over and over where businesses are not doing themselves any favors with how they’re handling their SEO. Some of this may be hard to hear, but the sooner you accept the reality of the situation, the sooner you can start evolving your approach to get the best results possible.

You Have to Stop Looking for Shortcuts

SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. A lot of business think they can game the system, cut corners, or even violate the guidelines and somehow come out ahead. If you are trying to dominate local search by circumventing the rules, you are taking a lot of risk for very little reward. Here are some of the most common offenses:

• multiple Google maps listings for the same business location
• fake reviews written by family and friends
• extra keywords stuffed into your business name on your Google Business Profile
• artificially-inflated authority through purchased backlinks or social media followers

These shady tactics are easily spotted by Google, and when they catch you, you can lose your entire Google Business presence. It’s not worth it, and your energy and time would be better spent working on legitimate ways to optimize your profile.

This carries over to your website, as well. If you’re using AI tools to churn out endless amounts of generic automated content stuffed with keywords, don’t be surprised when that approach hurts your page rankings.

Treat Your SEO as an Investment

There’s no way around this: You have to commit to a solid SEO strategy for the long haul. This will involve time, effort, and money, but the ROI will be worth it. When you start seeing your SEO strategy as an investment in the growth of your business, you stop looking for clever tricks and start focusing on these key areas:

• establishing yourself as an authority by publishing helpful and relevant website content
• building relationships with your customers so that they want to write you good reviews
• creating engaging social media posts that will help grow your channels with real followers
• using ads and other paid tools where necessary to help boost visibility
• monitoring your progress so you can pivot and make changes as necessary

This may not be the sexiest advice, but it’s what works, and in the end it will actually be easier (and much less risky) than constantly trying to find tricks and loopholes. If you want more tips to increase your online visibility, download our free guide with 35 game-changing tips to boost your Google Business Profile.

Our team is ready to help you build an SEO strategy that will grow with your business from year to year. Contact us for a free consultation, and we’ll help you create an action plan to gain SEO traction not only in 2025, but for the long term.

COGO Interactive is an award-winning digital marketing agency specializing in online marketing strategy, web design, SEO and social media marketing. We work with clients in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC and across the nation.