Mark Murnahan's SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog

Here is That Extra Time You Asked For

I am excited to hear from you if you can relate to this. Have you ever had somebody ask you to do something and use the phrase “when you have some extra time”? It may be just fine if a friend says that, while asking you to go and do something fun. When it attacks your profession, there is a line to be drawn.

I get this “extra time” concept thrown my way almost every day. I am not joking or exaggerating about this. I know that a lot of other professional service people get this, too. It is hard for a lot of people to understand that when your product is knowledge or time, it still has a cost.

Yes, even those intangible things like rubbing brain cells together to create a spark, blowing on it, and turning it into a flame actually have a real and measurable cost. So, how can we deal with this, and make it understandable to people who think there is some magical “extra time” laying around to hand out for free?

It seems apparent that old sayings like “time is money”, “you get what you pay for”, and “time is our most valuable resource” have outlived their usefulness. They have become as cliché as a passing stranger asking “how are you doing?” They don’t really want to know how you are doing when they utter that. Try it out the next time you hear it, and give them a big earful and you will see what I mean. People often overlook respect for other peoples’ time with a similar disregard.

I suppose that free time can be a touchy subject for a lot of people, but not for me. I am going to share my responses when people slip me this sort of “give me free stuff” proposition. If you are a professional who deals with this, I hope it will help you to manage your time. If you are a time-beggar, I hope this will help you to be more understanding and respectful the next time this absurdity begins to spew forth from the vile and disrespectful hole between your lips.

Defending Your Extra Time

If you are ever faced with similar matters of requests for your free time, think about what else you could be doing with it. These are just a handful of thoughts which stomp loudly through my head when people ask me to provide professional services in my extra time:

Extra Time? My Kids Would Love That! – When I am asked for my extra time, the first thing that comes to my mind is how much my wife and kids would really love it if I had some extra time to share with them.

Have You Tried This at a Restaurant? – I imagine it like this: “Hey waitress, when you have some extra food back there in the kitchen, can you do me a favor, please? In return, I will send my hair stylist in to see you, and I am sure he will make up for all of the free food I gobble while I keep you from earning your tips. He is a great guy, and I am on my way to see him for a free haircut as soon as I leave here.”

Doctor, My Toe Hurts! – “I know that you usually charge people for this, and you have huge liability and licensing in the balance, but since we are not in the office, could you do this one as a freebie?”

I Want a Free Car, Too! – This is funny for me, because I have had car dealers offer to trade me very nice cars for my work. This always reminds me to say: “You want my extra time, but you would like it for free? Let me think about that and get back to you when I have something really large with which to hit you over the head.”

Motorcycle! – See the 47 second video … Enough said.

Misconceptions About “Extra Time” Are Worse in Some Industries

I realize that in some industries, the lines are a bit more blurred than others. In my job role, I find that a lot of people want me to simply “look it over” and to give them a “quick estimate”. Although it may not seem to be a big deal, performing marketing asset reviews and building marketing strategies puts food on my table. It is not just the act of implementing what I know that I am paid for, but also the research and strategy.

Researching, planning, and “looking it over” are things which most people expect to pay for in the accounting, legal, medical, and many other fields. Those of us in the marketing industry are also paid for that time we spend doing the things you may imagine to be “quick and easy” for us. Otherwise, it would be common for us to waste enormous amounts of our time writing boilerplate marketing plans for people who are not serious enough about their business to do what they really should be doing. Worse yet, if we provide a plan and you decide to try and implement it yourself or have an inferior marketing person do it for you, we look stupid for a plan that failed but could have succeeded with abundance.

Drunken Sailor Coming Through!

I could really go crazy with some drunken sailor language on this topic, because in my world it is easy to see it as theft of my goods. It is hard to describe my struggle to be diplomatic about this. Any shred of diplomacy I display comes to me because I understand how people may view this from the outside. After all, the vast number of semi-professionals on the fringe of the marketing industry make it appear so “salesy” and like marketing people are all begging people for their money. It creates an absurd illusion that marketing people earn more money for themselves than they earn for their clients.

The reality is that for true marketing professionals, our time is worth just as much as that iPhone you are holding, that car you are driving, or that house you live in. You see, this is because our time and knowledge is what we earn our living with. We don’t sell items … we help other people to sell items. Our job is to earn more money for our clients.

If I had some extra time, wouldn’t it make sense that I would use that “extra time” to work harder and to sell it at its fair market value? Yes, that’s right … that is exactly what I would do. So, here you go:

Dear Friend:

I appreciate your show of confidence by asking me to look at your business and give you recommendations to make it more marketable. I would be delighted to write you a researched marketing plan and proposal free of charge … if it was free for me, too. You see, my time and knowledge is what I earn money with, just like a shoe store uses shoes to make money.

This is my extra time, right now. I am using it to write this blog so that more people will know who I am, respect the value of my time, and pay me money for that extra time I had laying around.

Respectfully,

Mark Aaron Murnahan

All of my extra time is gone. If I find any more, I will use it to further my business reach. Fortunately, you also receive a benefit from it, because I am providing you with a constantly growing blog archive to teach you things that you can put to use in your extra time.

If you want some of my time to help you decide if it is worth paying for, I have already used that time, too. I used it to build a fantastic reputation, and an exemplary work history.

Whether this reaches you as a person who earns a living with your time and knowledge, or a person on the other side, I hope I have helped you see things a bit differently. I have tried my best to express consideration for both parties, and I hope you will do the same.

Thank you for your time.

Big Ben photo credit to peterpearson via Flickr

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“How Much Does SEO Cost?” is The Wrong Question

If you are in a customer-facing job role, you have surely heard the common question of “how much does it cost?” Many of us hear it long before questions of value even come into consideration, and it seems especially common in SEO (search engine optimization).

I consider the “how much does it cost” shopping approach a very worthwhile reason to scream at somebody and demean them. I usually try to hold back that urge, but it is definitely scream-worthy. I have very often answered it by hanging up the phone. That is because I take it as an indication that the person asking will only see a dollar amount and not what it represents.

When it comes to SEO (search engine optimization), “how much does it cost” is absolutely the wrong question to open discussions. I will explain why the cost of SEO is far down the list of things which will matter, and whether you are on the buying side or selling side of SEO, this should be useful to you. I will also explain why the question of how much the SEO will cost is not only a moving target, but also ways to determine an appropriate cost.

First, consider this: The topic struck me when I see how often my wife, Chef and Owner of Mad Eliza’s Cakes and Confections, answers burning questions about the cost of wedding cake. It happens very often that a bride-to-be will ask how much her wedding cake will cost, before even having a good idea of the design or even how many guests it needs to feed. I find a lot of people shop for SEO the same way. From now on, you will know better!

The SEO Cost Should Be Based on the Need

There is no practical way of answering questions of the cost of SEO until the variable of need is addressed. Assessing the need for SEO should be based on client goals and accurate marketing projections. To get to the right number, you must have a good fix on the overall market potential, and how much market share can be reasonably expected at a given level of action.

This is not rocket surgery, but it does require more than just guesswork. A good projection will be based on multiple variables, but a good start is to know how many people are looking for what you offer.

If you are not clear on how many people are looking for you, and what they are looking for, close estimates can be made using tools such as SpyFu, WordTracker, and Google’s keyword tool. These tools can help you find out how many people are searching for what you offer, and provide a glimpse of the overall market potential.

More useful information on this topic is available in the article titled “Improve SEO Return on Investment (ROI) With Simple Math“.

The Point of Diminishing SEO Returns

It is possible to overestimate your efforts and do more SEO than you need. I have never seen it happen in real life, but the theory makes sense. If you are spending more money on SEO than the potential for your entire market, there is a point where it would be wasteful. However, the ugly monkey which stares many people in the face is that in the beginning, most SEO efforts will cost more than they return. So, this brings up the point of how far you can see into your future.

Short-Term SEO Cost vs. Increased SEO ROI Later

Let’s look at this with a bit of logic. There is no return on investment (ROI) at the point when you write the first check for SEO. Having short term (30, 60, and 90 day) goals is important for most companies. When more effort is focused on short term SEO goals than long term goals, the expected overall ROI is lowered. There is a balancing point which is important to reach.

If you need to meet short term objectives in order to produce cashflow to achieve longer term goals, the end cost will generally be higher. This is because you are overemphasizing the short term objectives just to pay for the higher return long term goals.

Where SEO Cost Goes Off The Rails

While I was writing this article, I was distracted by the ding of a message coming from the live chat on my contact page. It was from a really nice guy named Eric, and here is how the chat went:

[11:04] Eric: Hi Mark I’m interested in asking you about some of your services if you have a few minutes

[11:04] murnahan: Sure.

[11:05] murnahan: You are welcome to ring me if you prefer. My direct line is *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* or my Skype username is “murnahan”.

[11:05] Eric: I came across your site researching SEO tips and first off, great information. I’m trying to gain an understanding of SEO, and it’s obviously very in-depth. I’m a vey tech savvy person but not really on the “up and up” for SEO. Anyway, I manage a national moving company, and we’re looking to increase our search traffic. What type of services do you offer that you think could help us out?

[11:07] murnahan: There are a lot of answers to that question, but perhaps the best one is this: I can make your company more attractive, somewhere along the lines of sex and bacon.

[11:08] Eric: Hm. I do like both of those things

[11:08] murnahan: When you make your company more attractive, the word spreads, and you get bigger pay checks.

[11:08] murnahan: See what I mean … most people do! LOL

[11:08] Eric: I would actually like to speak with you. can I call now?

[11:09] murnahan: sure … my ears are on.

Well, Eric called me and we spoke for a while. It was a good talk, and I listened to what his company does, and where they hope to go with it. As we talked, I was thinking … I do that a lot. One of my first thoughts was how important it is for a moving company to gain people’s confidence. I have heard a lot of nightmares about how moving companies break stuff, steal stuff, and scam people out of extra money once they have your stuff in their trucks. In fact, I have a friend who is in a lawsuit against his mover right now.

Eric asked me if I had any ideas on how I could help his company. Although this is the exact stuff I am paid to do, I thought I’d at least let him know I was listening and thinking. I discussed a few ideas with Eric about how we could make his moving company a little more sex and bacon-like.

Since his company has complete access to people’s stuff, I suggested that overcoming the potential customers’ fears about movers would be an important step to increasing their business. Of course, this is only one piece of a larger strategy, but a critical one.

I told Eric I thought it would be really neat for them to walk into each job and hang a half dozen IP cameras on the walls and provide customers a website login in case they want to look in on the progress. Then I pointed out that the cost of an 8 gigabyte SD card is under 30 bucks, and it may be cool to hand people a complete video record of their move when he hands them their bill. Not only could this set them apart as a more trustworthy company, it could also be a nice benefit for people to document all of their belongings for insurance purposes. It would provide customers with greater confidence, and give them something valuable, all at once.

OK, so it may cost a few bucks. It could easily have a one-time cost a thousand bucks or more per truck for wireless cameras and a laptop with a built-in Internet connection. That is not bad, considering it is a tiny fraction of the cost of a tractor trailer and other moving equipment. It would take them an extra 10-20 minutes (of a 4-6 hour job) to hang some stick-on hooks to place the cameras, and $30 for an SD card. The technology part would be a breeze, for me. Heck, I did a 6,000 mile live mobile webcast from a race car. This one would be a no-brainer, and the moving guys would only have to know how to turn on a laptop and click a “start” button.

Can you imagine how much that relatively small extra effort could pay them with customer confidence? Can you imagine what would happen if major tech blogs picked up the story of their success in using technology to overcome real-world trust barriers? It could make a nice press release for tech bloggers, television, and more. Can you imagine how that could affect their SEO?

How Much Does SEO Cost Now?

I never worked with a moving company, and this idea sprouted up fresh from a short conversation during a free consultation. It gets even better if Eric pays me for my ideas. Eric didn’t call to ask me about the cost of SEO. He asked the right questions, centered around value and calculated return on investment.

When he asked me about how much SEO would cost, it was more about how much he needs to beg, borrow, and steal to get the results that he wants for his company. He understands that good marketing is what makes companies bigger, and that bad SEO can cost a lot more than good SEO. That is a whole lot different than simply fearing the cost of SEO.

Get the SEO Questions Right

If you know the right questions to ask about SEO, you will have a lot better results. It will help you to avoid being taken advantage of by SEO lies, and to realize why SEO is a lot more than just technical geeky work.

I have always said that coffee and cigarettes are the best SEO and social media marketing tools. If that sounds crazy, please be sure to see this video explaining why I know it is true.

My Answers About “How Much Does SEO Cost”

Every search engine optimizer will have a different answer about the cost of SEO services. Some of them will be right, and some of them will be woefully wrong. We each work differently, and each have different skill sets and levels of marketing talent. In my case, I require a sizable investment, and I am not a good match for most companies. I prefer to only work with two to four clients at a time, and my projects come with a three to twelve month commitment. That should pretty well explain why I don’t do SEO for dog walkers.

Something important to consider is that until the other important questions are answered, the matter of cost will always be incorrect. This is simply not a commodity business, and everybody will have different needs and expectations. Throwing around dollar amounts is a waste of time if the purchaser and the provider do not fully understand each other, and the job at hand.

I want to leave you with these thoughts regarding the cost of SEO from my perspective:

Yes, I have a family of five, and each of them like to eat every day.
Yes, I do own a motorcycle that cost more than my first two houses, combined.
Yes, that is a real Picasso hanging in my living room (pictured above).
Yes, it will cost you a lot more than the money in my hand to get my attention.
Yes, my clients always earn more profit from my work than I do!
Yes, I will probably scream at you and hang up the phone if you call me to ask “how much does SEO cost?”

Some search engine optimizers will promise 1,000 links to your website and first page ranking in Google for $300. Isn’t that search engine optimizer a great deal?

Now, please answer me … do you really think that it is the same thing wherever you go?

Here are some related articles I have written regarding the cost of SEO and placing cost above value. I hope you will enjoy them.

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Google Apps Store: A New Surprise from Google Chrome 9

As a dedicated web geek, I have been a huge fan of the Google Chrome browser since the earliest beta release, and I consider it the only browser for surfing, while all the others are just there for testing new websites for things like stylesheets.

If you use Google Chrome, perhaps you have recently noticed something different when you opened a new tab. If you use the default settings for opening a new tab, you will be greeted with Google Chrome Web Store and a couple of suggested apps. Although it is not new (about a year old), the presentation of Google Chrome Web Store in the default new tab is new to Google Chrome 9.

I recall hearing many complaints about the lack of applications for Google Chrome when it first launched. A lot has changed since that time, and today there are roughly a squillion add-ons to make the browsing experience more “Firefox-like”. The updates in the newly released version 9 show that Google is really at the top of their game.

Here is a screenshot of how Google Chrome Web Store was presented to me, just a moment ago (click for larger view).

Google Chrome Web Store in Google Chrome New Tab

Since I normally have nice big thumbnail images with links to my most used websites, this really reached out and grabbed my attention. I suspect that I am not the only one, and this could create a huge surge for developers.

Will Google Chrome Web Store Be a Hit?

Google Chrome usage is constantly on the rise, and many of the available add-ons for the browser are quite helpful. If I was trying to promote a web application, I would certainly not overlook the Google Chrome Web Store for another minute!

If you are a developer, or you have an application to launch, this may be the best link you will find all day: Google Apps Developer Program: Getting Started

What do you think?

Google PageRank Changes and Fools Still Listen

Remembering Farrah Fawcett and Google PageRank

Google PageRank? Seriously, just get out your checkbook right now and write me a blank check. Don’t worry, I will go ahead and fill in the dollar amount. You just be sure to sign it.

I was thrown back into yesteryear by a blog article I read at Search Engine Journal that discussed Google PageRank. No, it was not something from deep in the bowels of their 2003 archives, but rather a real life demonstration of sad linkbait published only yesterday. I don’t need a pissing match with these guys, but it was sad to see a long-dead topic like PageRank being exhumed for public consumption.

It reminded me about who I write for, and why. I write for you, and I try to make useful facts and good ideas spring to life with a touch of entertainment value. Once in a while I will throw in my Murnahan Cheez Whiz style to keep you on your toes and make you say “what?!”

My objectives include reducing the abundance of blatant SEO lies and myths that search engine optimizers promote. Sure, I may not be able to fix the whole world, but I can do my part to blow the “bullshit whistle” on bad SEO information.

Since I want you to subscribe to my blog and come back, I try to overlook topics that will be genuinely useless and guide you wrong. You know, topics to scare you into putting crap in your brain like Google PageRank changes.

The article I am talking about brought acid to the top of my throat and reminded me just how easy it could be to scam people out of a blank check. It touched on just how “unknown” this SEO business I am in really is, and it made me feel like one hell of a nice guy for telling things straight.

I will go ahead and link to the article, so I guess their “linkbait” idea worked. The article is titled “New PageRank Formula May Change Your SEO Priorities.” Below is my comment, in which I replied to my friend and fellow long-time SEO who also criticized the article, Jim Rudnick of Canuck SEO:

OMG, are people seriously still writing about PageRank? Maybe we can throw some meta tags into the conversation. While we are at it, I want to break out my old Farrah Fawcett poster and leave my mom a “surprise” under the bed, too.

Agreed, very old news. It is funny to me that somebody recently mentioned the PageRank of my blog and my first thought was as nostalgic as my Atari 2600.

I have not even looked at the “Green Fairy” of PageRank in half a decade. If you are doing the things you should be doing, people will love your stuff enough to link to it. If it is relevant content for a given search, on a reasonably decent website, and other people crave it, the site will rank well. Isn’t that a whole lot easier than waiting for Google to give you a number?

The remembrance of Google PageRank brought to mind the different qualities of search engine optimizers that I enjoy just enough to squash them to pieces and bury them in a shallow grave.

It is easy to understand how people could get confused about SEO. It is an industry that begs for naivety, ignorance, greed, and dishonesty. Sadly, these things are in great abundance among website owners and want-to-be SEO providers, alike.

Lay Down Your Google PageRank Gun and Listen!

Don’t shoot the messenger, but if you are looking at measurements like Google PageRank as an indicator of progress, your efforts are a hot mess. Save yourself some grief. A far better answer is to create something useful, creative, interesting, and relevant to people. These are the things which compel people like crack cocaine. These are the things which cause people to reference you and link to your website content. These are the things which make a difference, and not some misunderstood 1-10 measure that Google itself tells you to ignore.

I do not even understand why there is still a Google PageRank measurement, because Google has made it damn clear for many years that the most important thing is to give people what they want. If you concern yourself a fraction as much about what you are delivering to people as you concern yourself with Google, you will very likely rank a whole lot better. Plus, your PageRank will go up, too!

Note: I am not one of those people who only preach the gospel of “Content is King” and that writing a bunch of stuff on a blog will make something rank well. There are a lot of things which go into good SEO. Google PageRank is not in my list of SEO lessons, and I don’t think it was anywhere in my SEO blog archive, either … until now.

OK, doubters, now that you have heard me out, go ahead and fire your PageRank guns and tell me how wrong I am in the comments section below.

Image via Wikipedia

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SEO, Social Media, and Marketing Balls

I often try to relate concepts of SEO and social media to things that people in other industries can use. After all, who really cares about all of this, unless it can help them do whatever it is they do for a living.

If you don’t have anything to sell, you probably aren’t very concerned about your marketing. But you do have something to sell, so let me give you a hand.

My challenge is to help you translate this into earning profit for your company. In the big picture, two important questions I must address are as follows:

What do you do to earn the food you eat?
How can I relate this Internet stuff to something that will help you eat better?

One way I hope to relate this into your line of work is to use analogies. This time, I will use tennis balls, but it could really be about anything.

Now let’s look at what others competing in your industry are doing.

How Others Sell Balls With SEO and Social Media

A common approach to social media that you may see with your competitors is to create a website and then start tweeting and facebooking things like “I have balls”, “Check out my balls!” After a while, they will figure out that people get really tired of the same old balls, and nobody wants to see them anymore.

This is a common outcome when companies neglect the people they are trying to reach, and overlook creativity in their value proposition. So, it will take a different approach, and they may turn their focus to SEO. They will often fill up their blog with a whole bunch of articles about their balls and hope that will work.

The trouble here is that it will take a lot of time and effort to produce all of that blog content. They may decide to outsource it to India or The Philippines but all of the sudden find themselves sending really mixes messages. Balls are different in other countries, and a lot can be lost in translation.

This is not the path you want to take, so put this out of your mind and let’s think about a better way to move your balls.

A Better Way to Move Your Balls

My experience in SEO and social media has led me to this: I have never found an industry that, with enough dedication, cannot be made more interesting when looked at from the right perspective.

It takes some research and creativity, but every industry has something that makes it interesting. Even paper clips can be more exciting … yes, paper clips!

One of the first things to do is to carefully research who wants your balls. You want to understand them, and what they are likely to look for online. You want to reach them where they are … on their turf. Then you need to get a picture of what drives them to take a desired action. In this case, you want tennis players. More precisely, you want tennis players without balls. In order to find them, you need to think more like them, and develop a sense of what will attract them.

Sometimes you have to look outside of the tennis-related industry to find your potential customers’ other interests. I wrote about this not so long ago in an article about customer modeling titled “Facebook Marketing: Pages, Customer Modeling, Promoting, and Awesomeness“. It addressed how to gather information to produce a better model of your ideal customer, and it is worth a read.

Get Others to Talk About Your Balls!

Once you know more about your model customer, you need to produce information that interests them. If you consistently produce quality information about their interests, it will be much easier to keep their attention. If it is compelling enough, they will subscribe to your blog, your Twitter, your Facebook, and etcetera. Now you have an audience that wants to hear about your balls.

With an attentive audience that likes what you do, it will be a lot easier for your balls to be ranked well in search engines. This is because your attentive audience will share your information with other interested people, in the form of website links. They will tweet it, facebook it, and even blog about it. Now, unlike your competitor who talks about his balls all the time, you will have other people talking about your balls.

This is a huge reward to you, because all of those links to your interesting website are crucial to making it rank higher in search engines than the competition. You will want to be good to these people, and keep them fed with more interesting and useful information. So you add more to your blog, and it grows bigger and bigger and eventually gets even more popular.

The cycle has begun, and you are on your way to greater things. You may even decide to grow your business with bigger balls, like softballs, volleyballs, and basketballs.

Selling Balls Takes Dedication

When I claim that this all requires dedication, it means spending time researching, and doing more than just the same old thing the competition is doing.

Before you put this all to use, it is best to develop some degree of marketing talent. Since you are not in the SEO and social media marketing business by profession, I want to recommend subscribing to my blog and reviewing my blog archive to learn about other things that can help you.

I do a bang up job of ranking in search engines for things in the SEO and social media marketing industries. I am supposed to, right? That way, new people can find me.

This was not always the case. I had to work really hard to discover what people want, connect with them using social media, and produce a lot of compelling information, just like I suggested for you. It does not happen overnight, but with dedication, it does happen in time. It will be worth it.

Now, back to those two questions I mentioned earlier:

What do you do to earn the food you eat?
How can I relate this Internet stuff to something that will help you eat better?

Since you can’t just eat your balls, you are going to need to sell them to buy food!

If you do everything just right, before you know it, people will be begging to play with your balls.

If you need more help promoting your balls, there are a lot of people in my industry who can make this happen for you.

I am always looking for people with balls. In my line of work, I encounter a lot of people every day who have no balls, and I will be happy to help you connect with them.

Balls image credit to shawnzrossi via Flickr
Old ball image credit to basykes via Flickr
Ball in mouth image credit to TCL8TO7 via Flickr
Splashing Balls image credit to ingridtaylar via Flickr
Bored ball image credit to greenkozi via Flickr
Begging image credit to sunsets_for_you via Flickr