Sunday afternoons and warm summer days growing up in my house meant two things. One, it was going to be a great day of swimming, water skiing and boating on the lake and two, we were going to get some GREAT barbeque chicken for dinner. My dad was a barbeque chicken grill master and during the summer months he grilled chicken almost every Sunday afternoon. He prepared the chicken by pulling it out and seasoning it perfectly every time. He made his own barbeque sauce from scratch. He spent as much (if not more) time preparing the food and grill as he did actually cooking it. The grill had to be spotless and properly preheated. When it came time to finally start the grill the rest of us would start the panic phase. Our mouths began to water, our hearts beat faster and we could not sit still as we were filled with impatience and that was all before the food ever went on the grill. Once it did, the air was filled with the indescribable, yet very distinct aroma of chicken grilling over an open flame. The white smoke rolling off the grill traveled throughout the neighborhood and further fueled our hunger for that chicken. It was during this phase that me and my brother (and however many of the other neighborhood kids were with us) would begin to ask, "How much longer dad?"

He always had only one answer for us "5 minutes boys". The answer was the same whether there were 5 minutes remaining or 35 minutes remaining.

Sometimes those 5 minutes seemed to take forever. Almost as though during those Sunday afternoons time actually slowed down and 5 minutes would actually turn into 45 minutes. In retrospect, I am very glad it took 45 minutes (or more) to cook that chicken. Can you imagine serving chicken to your family that was only cooked for 5 minutes?

In many ways organic search engine optimization (SEO) creates the same desire, hunger and impatience for results. The problem is, speeding up the process can also have adverse effects. How so? Well, much like pulling chicken off the grill too early, if you try and rush your SEO process, you can get very undesirable results. Usually when people try and rush the SEO process they try and do it by using "black hat" or "gray hat" search engine optimization techniques. These techniques can yield results (in some cases substantial results) in the short term. The question is, just like eating chicken that was only cooked for 5 minutes, do you want to risk the possible repercussions of doing SEO the wrong way? Getting your site penalized in the search engine results or worse banned and removed from the Google indexing system is the chance you take. My suggestion is you take the time and do it right. Let the chicken cook, so to speak, and you will be much happier and healthier and your long term satisfaction will be much higher.