This Spring I started a little garden on my front porch.  I have no green thumb by an stretch of the imagination, but I decided that it couldn't be that hard.  So, I bought some of those herbs from the dollar section at Target.  I planted the herbs, placed them outside and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited some more.  Finally, after a number of weeks, some things began to grow.  Of the six things I planted, five of them had shot right up.  The strawberries, however, were quite reluctant to show their faces.  Eventually, they began to come up as well.  Then, last week, a couple of the pots blew down and I had to replant.  I don't really know if they'll ever come back again.  So frustrating.

SEO is a lot like gardening.  One of the worst things about SEO is the waiting period.  I like to be know when something is going to get done.  Often, Google will take quite a long time to reindex my site and move me around.  Just last week I redid a lot of my site (text and mapping).  The work of writing and organizing, in themselves, take a long time, but you want to do it as quickly as possible so that you don't miss the chance for Google to index you and for the results to be reorganized sooner.  Just like the herbs I've been growing, all that I can do is wait.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to see the results of all of my hard work, but if I made a mistake I may not know for a month or two.  In the meantime I can continue to build links, tweak content, and blog. 

What is your most frustrating experience with SEO and Google?  Are there big mistakes you've made?  Have you waited for months only to discover that your hard work was in vain because you forgot to do one little thing?  Feel free to leave comments below.