The 12-Step Program, developed by AA, has been used by countless individuals and copied by many organizations to help people get their lives on track. Here, we present the 12-Step Program for business owners when dealing with their online marketing campaigns.
It’s funny that we use terms like “expert” to describe an SEO. When looking for someone to help us get us top search engine rankings, we often look to see who the experts are. Last time I checked, we don’t look for “expert lawyers” or “expert doctors” or “expert plumbers”. No, we look for professionals.
However, we do often look for experts at certain subsets. Such as lawyers that are divorce experts, doctors that are cancer experts, plumbers that are… um, clog experts, and so on. So why do we look for SEO experts? Can anyone truly be an expert in all things related to SEO?
Perhaps. Just like doctors can be experts in multiple areas, lawyers can be experts in multiple fields of law, and plumbers can be experts in multiple types of… um, clogs, SEOs can be experts in several areas as well. But an expert in all of them? Hmmmm, not likely.
SEO used to be all about getting top search engine rankings. While that is still a primary function of an SEO provider, that’s not all there is to it anymore. Or, at least… it shouldn’t be.
If you’re in the market for a (quality) SEO, you’re going to find providers that go well beyond services aimed at achieving top search engine rankings. In fact, if your SEO only knows how to throw keywords you want to rank for onto your site pages, I can tell you that you’re NOT getting your money’s worth (even if you are only paying a few hundred dollars a month).
SEO, in today’s world, is much more about online marketing than it is about manipulating a site to achieve top rankings for a few keywords. Here are some key components to a well-rounded optimization campaign:
A few months ago a long-time client of mine was launching a new site. They wanted us on board to manage the SEO efforts of the new site, so we had been actively engaged through the design/development process. As they got closer to a launch date, the client wanted to to get a handle on what their expectations should be.
Understanding expectations for business growth is important for any business owner. If you don’t have some idea of what to expect, you’re kinda flying blind. You can’t plan, budget, or hire, unless you have an idea of what’s coming down the way.
Setting client expectations isn’t easy. We live in a sales oriented world and people want to hear how you’re going to bring them vast sums of wealth with the magical arts of SEO. Unfortunately, it’s never that easy.
I recently heard about a company that was working on having their site optimized and wanted to increase those efforts. Instead of doing so, they dropped the idea due to “lack of funds” and transferred that money over to Social Media. Another company brought their PPC in-house because it was becoming too expensive to outsource. And yet another that I know of decided to have one of their minimum wage workers manage their Social Media campaign because they were already paying too much for SEO and PPC.
What do all of these companies have in common? They all want to grow, but are pulling back on their investments when they should be investing more.
Pricing out SEO services can be a challenge for any business looking to invest in their online marketing efforts. It’s difficult because there is no one-size-fits-all pricing metric. It seems that, no matter where you turn, you’re comparing apples to oranges when it comes to pricing and services offered between SEO companies.
Ultimately everything comes down to hours. How many hours are involved in doing the tasks at hand?
To figure that, you have to know what’s required in order make your site successful. And, that’s the rub. When comparing quotes between SEO companies, the price is only a reflection of two things: 1) What services are going to be provided, and 2) How much does the SEO get per hour. Each service will have an estimated number of hours attached to it. Some will be one-time hours, others will be ongoing hours, some tasks will require a lot of hours, and some only a few.
SEO can be a boring, monotonous job. But, it can also be an exciting detective trail of discovery. The hardest SEO jobs are those that are for websites that are already performing strongly and you’re trying to eek out slightly better results. The fun one’s are those that have lots of problems, which even the smallest SEO and analytic edits produce huge changes in the results.
Unfortunately, not all sites are easy to get results for regardless of how much improvement is necessary. Continuing on my theme of using traditional clichés to make SEO points, I hereby provide you with some clichés that will help you be a better SEO.
Note: Recently I’ve gotten some ribbing from friends and colleagues about my exceedingly numerous multi-part posts. In order to wean myself off my favorite form of not-having-to-think-about-what-I’m-going-to-write-about-next, I’ve combined all 12 parts of this series into a single post. Enjoy! 
Part 1: Guilty of Crimes No One Committed
A lot of people subscribe to the “Guilt by Association” theory in online marketing. This theory suggests that you are who you associate with. I agree there is some definite truth to this mindset, but, like a lot of things, it can also be taken to a paranoid extreme. This fear leads some people into a paralysis that ultimately hinders their online marketing efforts rather than helping them.
“Guilt by Association” extremists work hard to keep themselves squeaky clean. They tread extra carefully with who they associate with in an effort to ensure that they are never found guilty of crimes they haven’t committed. In order to stay “pure”, they avoid having online relationships with some who they believe may have broken some rule at some point that, likely, nobody even cares about.
The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.
Building Links
There are a lot of different approaches to building links. The different types of links discussed in the previous post in this series can gain you links in various degrees of goodness. But like most things, quick-fix solutions rarely ever provide excellent long-term value. That’s not to say quick fix solutions aren’t sometimes needed or warranted, but they rarely make a good long-term investment.
A link only has a certain amount of value, much like the value of a casual acquaintance. But like a true friendship, a link relationship goes much further and has a lot more potential.
The concept of building links is best when it’s focused on building relationships. You’ve heard it said, “give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” In the same way, build a link and you get a link. Build a relationship and you get a lifetime of links.
The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.
On-Page Optimization
A website can do just fine online without SEO. PPC, social media and other properly implemented off-line marketing efforts can really help a site succeed online with little or no SEO. But unless and until you begin to SEO your site it will always under perform, never quite reaching its fullest potential. Without SEO, you’ll always be missing out on a great deal of targeted traffic that the other avenues cannot make up for.
(Don't wait for the movie!)
E-Marketing Performance: Effective Strategies for Building, Optimizing & Marketing Your Website Online
