John Mueller of Google posted a set of posts on Twitter the other day that deserve to be highlighted around the concept of basic SEO and if that makes it easy or not. In short, just because some SEO is basic and easy to understand, it does not mean it is easy work.

John said “At its core, technical SEO is (imo) extremely “basic.” The basics are critical. The advanced part is doing that at scale, and combining the elements strategically. Also, “basic” does not mean these things are easy or always obvious.” He expanded on this saying that he prefers people ask the basic SEO questions than not. And also he sees basic SEO questions being asked as a sign that more people are getting into SEO.

Here are those tweets:

At its core, technical SEO is (imo) extremely “basic.” The basics are critical. The advanced part is doing that at scale, and combining the elements strategically. Also, “basic” does not mean these things are easy or always obvious.

— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) October 7, 2021

Also … more “basic” questions can mean that new people are getting into SEO, which is awesome to see. More new people doing SEO means that it’s still an interesting & evolving field — and that you have room to level up (because others can do the “basics” too).

— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) October 7, 2021

Sadly, in our industry, and I assume others as well, even basic principles are misunderstood and misinterpreted. So hearing the answers from the source, again and again, I think is helpful. Even if it is not new…

Most of the concepts in SEO are fundamentally basic. But like John said, on some sites and some configurations, implementing those basics can be a huge and complex challenge. The implementation is part of the SEO skillset you need and often that requires asking questions, if you don’t have the experience.

Forum discussion at Twitter.