search engine marketing Archives - Page 2 of 4 by Mark Murnahan

Outsource SEO or Hire In-House SEO: An Unbiased Perspective

This SEO Has Opinions — This SEO / CEO Has Opinions

Many companies will face the question of whether to outsource SEO (search engine optimization) or to hire in-house SEO professionals to improve, manage, and monitor search engine optimization and other Internet marketing efforts. Of course, some companies will overlook the need for search engine optimization, branding, and online reputation management altogether, but don’t worry about them. They will not likely steal away any of your market share, so whichever of these options works best for your company, it is better than overlooking the question.

I have witnessed many arguments on each side of this topic, but most do not give fair and unbiased consideration to each viewpoint. I intend for this to be useful to companies seeking to hire SEO services, freelance and agency search engine optimizers, and in-house SEO who may not be getting what they are worth. My goal is to remain as objective as possible and to discuss something of a potential trend in the online marketing industry.

First Consideration: Who Needs SEO, and How Much?

I want to address one very important consideration right upfront, and that is the question of “who needs search engine optimization?” I do not want to carry on with this part too long, because it should be obvious, and otherwise you would probably not be reading this. There is scarcely a company in existence that will not benefit from proper search engine optimization and Internet marketing. The benefits are measurable, and the factual data proves the importance. A challenging part of the question is in how the SEO efforts you put forth will most greatly increase the bottom line of your company. You would probably not pay a sales representative more money than they return for the company, and SEO is not so different in this respect. You should expect more profit.

In an unbiased fashion, I want to make it really clear that success mostly depends on the skill level implemented and dedication to the campaign. Even very small companies can benefit from either a full-time in-house SEO (search engine optimizer) or outsourced SEO if it is a skilled effort with the company’s interests at task. Believe me or don’t, but the real numbers bear it out that a well executed long-term online marketing campaign has the potential to make nearly any size or type of company very successful. The list of case studies and stories of success is longer than you will ever be able to read, because the list grows each day. I have witnessed it in my own corporation, and we turned a tiny company into a phenomenal multi-million dollar industry success. Proper online marketing should not be viewed as wasted cost, but rather as an investment. It is a very important investment which should not be taken lightly, because the list of failures grows even faster than the list of successes.

Why This SEO View is Unbiased

I have a sincere cause to pose questions about outsourcing SEO vs. hiring in-house SEO and base it on minimal bias. First, I will explain why my comparison is unbiased, and I hope you can see that it is provided for maximum value and not serving the agenda of one side over the other.

I have been a company president and/or CEO for a long time (over 20 years), and not just a CEO. For over a decade, I have been the CEO of a successful Internet company which offers SEO services. I look at this from the perspective of a corporate executive who seeks SEO talent, and also as somebody who has regularly been approached by “headhunters” seeking to bring me into their in-house staff. I was approached recently, and it was enticing enough to really make me consider the two sides of this topic and try to weigh them carefully.

I want to address the topic of hiring internal SEO versus outsourcing freelance or agency SEO consultants in a way that is as cost-aware and benefit-aware as I can determine from my viewpoint. I would also appreciate any input you may provide on the topic, because although I may wish to know everything, I still need people to help me prove it.

I will focus on eight segments plus a summary, and address the company needs and the employee or outsourced search engine optimizer (SEO) independently because I want to make a purposeful case for each. This format should help me to make these high-level pros and cons of each option as unbiased as possible. I will not touch on every point, because this could get very long, but I will address some of the top advantages and disadvantages. My arguments for and against outsourced SEO or in-house SEO will be categorized as follows:

Outsource SEO: Advantage to Company
Outsource SEO: Disadvantage to Company
In-House SEO: Advantage to Company
In-House SEO: Disadvantage to Company
Outsource SEO: Advantage to SEO
Outsource SEO: Disadvantage to SEO
In-House SEO: Advantage to SEO
In-House SEO: Disadvantage to SEO
Summary

So let’s begin to look at this from the standpoint of a company who wants to be more visible in the Internet marketplace, with a more effective message, increased profits … and to do this with the highest effectiveness and the least amount of failure.

Outsource SEO: Advantage to Company

The most advantageous aspect of outsourcing SEO is not what most people may think. It is not a way to save money, because let’s face it, the outsourced SEO has to eat just as much as an in-house SEO. The good ones eat much better. In fact, the expense to outsource comparable results is generally significantly higher than in-house SEO. I see what in-house SEO people are paid by many companies and I wonder how they can do it for more than a couple months without seeking a different field. Then I remember that the lower pay scale usually equates to experience, regardless of the level of talent. Fair or not, that is often the way it is. The underpaid SEO with significant talent should always be seeking more opportunity, because they deserve it. You cannot expect them to earn success for a company without enjoying some success of their own. It just doesn’t work that way.

The greater advantage of outsourcing is that companies can pull from a greater talent base of people who are more highly specialized in the field of marketing and SEO. They are often people who were previously in-house SEO and developed enough talent to fire their boss and go freelance or with an agency. With greater specialization, experience, and overall industry skill, it should be no surprise that the cost is higher (although it actually is a surprise to some). More skill equals more cost … just like it should be. When hunting success, it is best to seek success where it lives. If the SEO has a success record, they are not likely to put themselves in the pool of eligible employees to work for small earnings and punch a time clock. The real benefit here is in the selection, and being able to purchase talent that a company cannot otherwise afford. They may even be able to afford it, but they lack the means to justify SEO to other decision makers.

Another advantage to companies by outsourcing is the typically obvious concerns surrounding human resources issues (payroll, benefits, liability, and etcetera). However, it is quite clear from everything I have read and witnessed that those considerations, especially where they relate to a scale of cost for talent still leave the company with a higher expenditure for outsourcing SEO … but also a higher return on their investment.

Outsource SEO: Disadvantage to Company

Aside from the common disadvantage of budgetary concerns and how very hard it is to free up necessary marketing capital, the company has less perceived control. Much is perception rather than reality, but there is some basis to this. For a marketing director or business owner with a need for immediate action and accountability, an in-house SEO is an easier neck to strangle when something is urgent or if goals are falling short. Most outsourced SEO, if vetted properly and found to be reputable, will care very much to serve their clients. However, they also have their own company interests to address. In instances where resources are pooled and the top-level resources are shifted to another project or otherwise short-handed, a client may not have the level of immediate recourse they like, as they may have with an employee. This often comes down to the level of client you have placed yourself as, and if another client is more profitable and needs urgent attention, it should be no surprise how business decisions are made.

In-House SEO: Advantage to Company

I have not been an employee in decades. I have always been the employer, so I can see the advantages of outsourcing SEO from the company standpoint. A commonly perceived advantage to the company focuses on greater control over the SEO and their marketing message.

This is generally more a myth than reality, but many companies will see an employment contract as more enforceable than an independent contractor agreement. The greater control is not in the enforceability but rather the requirements. If somebody is your employee, you can require them to be in a specific place at a specific time. This can make it easier for some companies to feel relatively secure that their SEO is working a specific amount of hours per day, and help to assure that they are working hard on the company’s projects. To my notion, the most valued benefit of in-house SEO to the company is far more human in nature, and it includes pride in a job done well.

The greatest benefit of in-house SEO to a company will really rely on a much more human aspect of business. If employees are happy with their job and they have a passion for making the company successful, many other obstacles are averted. When they can share in a feeling of pride, their effectiveness is likely to reflect that pride. I saw this most profoundly when I was recently contacted to meet with a company in Chicago. I felt a real connection with the company objectives and I can say for certain that I would accept a much smaller contract with that company than I would accept from other companies which have reached out to me. This is not to say that I would work for any company without dramatically stretching out their SEO budget. What I can say is that the right company could offer me $100,000 lower salary than the wrong one and still capture much more of my interest. I know, some people will think it is crazy that I would take $100,000 less to do something I love and work with people I enjoy. This is far less than the huge number of prospective clients I turn away each year because I would rather choke them than make them successful. Oh yes, SEO with a heart and soul … that must seem silly, right? Having a passion for something always makes a difference in success. Overlooking or doubting this fact is a huge mistake! If you doubt it, read this article: “Where Does Marketing Talent Come From and What is the Cost?”

In-House SEO: Disadvantage to Company

The biggest disadvantage that I can see to a company with in-house SEO is if the well eventually runs dry. Creativity can diminish over time if the in-house SEO does not discover new challenges to meet. This can be assisted with maintaining good relationships and keeping open communication with others in the SEO field, but it is often well-augmented by an outside consultant. For companies unwilling or unprepared to provide their SEO staff with the necessary resources, they can often find a dead-end of sorts. It is mitigated by finding the best SEO for the job, but on limited budgets, companies are frequently required to settle for what they can afford. That can mean having an in-house SEO that is a shallower well, and that well may require a refill from time to time. The tragic disadvantage to many companies is that rather than to bring in additional inspiration, they will assume that their in-house SEO has just run out of value. This is often not the case, but rather that they have just not been granted enough resource. Hiring replacement talent is a tragic end to this scenario, which can set a company back a lot of time and money. I guess the disadvantage here is how to properly discover and provide the degree of trust and artistic freedom which will benefit their SEO staff and the company at the optimal level.

Outsource SEO: Advantage to SEO

This should be no surprise that the biggest gain to the outsourced SEO is financial. Although there are a lot of starving people calling themselves search engine optimizers, the big reward comes in the form of money. Most freelance SEO will have multiple business interests, and have multiple income streams. A good SEO knows how to be more visible with a better marketing message. They do not reserve this only for their clients. I like the way Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz described why good SEO is expensive as relating to the cost of the search engine optimizer’s lost opportunities elsewhere. I have said this before, and it is very true that if I spend more of my time working on clients’ projects, it means less time I am spending on my own.

Outsource SEO: Disadvantage to SEO

I described what I see as the greatest disadvantage of being an outsourced SEO in a recent article, and I think this sums it up pretty well. The article is titled “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO” and it discusses the challenges we face from people simply not understanding that there is a huge difference between good and bad SEO. When people see marketing as a commodity, it is hard to help them, even when you have factual data to make a good case.

I see a potential shift in corporate thinking about SEO as the market is flooded by bad SEO. The cream rises to the top, and the best SEO are in even higher demand. Before that happens, a lot of people are hurt by the fringe of the SEO industry bastardizing the market and causing confusion among companies in need of the service. This makes it more acceptable than ever for the higher level SEO to consider leaving the rat race and doing what they love on behalf of an employer. Battling for scraps in a market that people strongly want to believe is a commodity and can be bought cheap is not appealing to me in the least. As that trend continues, search engine optimizers who really do know their work and can achieve results have every reason to be frustrated. Good SEO can compete just fine, but there is a point when it is just not fun to explain something to people only to have them learn it the hard way by hiring a cheap SEO and then come back to repair the mess it caused them.

In-House SEO: Advantage to SEO

I think most good search engine optimizers love their work. That is what makes them good at it. An advantage to the in-house SEO which also benefits the company is that they get to do the job they love and develop a full-scale marketing effort rather than the bits and pieces that many clients will opt for. Instead of working on projects that are shaved down by clients trying to save money, the SEO can do more of the work they know works. It allows for a better focus on both long-term and short-term objectives. Any SEO should love that.

In-House SEO: Disadvantage to SEO

An obvious downside to working in-house is that companies often only budget for low-level SEO positions. Yes, the money is a big disadvantage, but there is one thing perhaps even worse. A battle for many in-house search engine optimizers is that they receive friction from multiple departments. This can happen to the outsourced SEO as well, but the in-house employee is often caught in the middle. SEO involves marketing, information technology, and other departments who often do not see eye-to-eye. Depending on the company’s receptiveness and understood importance of online marketing, it can require extreme patience.

If a company wants the best from their online marketing efforts, they must listen to the SEO and be open to good ideas. When this is not the case, the SEO may have to take on a role which is not just SEO, but also office politician. Such is the life of the underrepresented in-house SEO.

Summary of Outsourced or In-House SEO

In summary, I must say that the worst answer is to look away and ignore the importance of the role of SEO in any company. In many instances, it is most logical and effective to make use of both outsourced and in-house SEO as a united effort.

I believe that as online competition for business increases among hiring companies, the importance of the in-house SEO will cause companies to increase their budgets and bring in higher level SEO talent to achieve their goals. This will provide opportunities for independent SEO, agencies, and employment alike.

For the freelance SEO, I see a continued battle of smaller and “uninitiated” companies viewing SEO as a commodity. This is a common challenge. With more people offering ineffective services it is not likely to fade soon, but it will. Companies who want to remain competitive will see greater value for highly skilled professional SEO in both capacities.

The most pronounced trend I see coming is that high-quality SEO has an ever-increasing demand, including all areas of the field. Filtering out the good and the bad SEO has become more challenging for many companies, but when they find good marketing talent, I expect them to take it more seriously than ever.

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New SEO Acronym to Replace SEO by 2012?

Have you ever been in a conversation and somebody used an acronym that you did not recognize? You just kind of keep it there in your head for a moment and hope they say something that will clue you in on just what the heck they were talking about when they uttered that string of letters. Then, if you cannot figure it out, you may whip out your phone and google it while nonchalantly acting like you were checking an important message. I will offer up a new acronym for skilled Internet marketers that will be more memorable and better reflect the work we do. First, I would like to explain why I think the “SEO” acronym should be laid to rest.

Exactly what is “SEO” and why in the name of all things sensible do we still use this acronym? SEO can stand for either search engine optimization (the services) or search engine optimizer (the person), but it actually encompasses a much broader spectrum of Internet marketing services and technologies. It has morphed dramatically over the years, as marketers’ understanding and use of the Internet has changed, and as many greenhorn SEO came to flood the market. The use of “SEO” became popular enough that I suppose it sounded better to a lot of people than the term “Internet Marketer” or “Profit Engineer” and so instead of SEO being considered a sub-category of Internet marketing skills, it is often used to represent the whole of Internet marketing. It became more of a meme than an actual skill set, and due to saturation of its use, the real meaning has been muted and bastardized.

The fact is that in order to be a search engine optimizer, it requires skills and tools from all disciplines of Internet marketing, including social media, reputation management, market research, data analysis, creative marketing, programming, website structure, web servers, and much more.

It seems to me that the SEO acronym has gone the way of the word “Webmaster”. Back in the early days, to be a Webmaster meant that you had a thorough understanding of everything from software, hardware, network infrastructure, website design, programming, security, and more. It meant that the person had a mastery-level understanding of the Web. It was an actual job title that held a meaning. Then, all of the sudden anybody with a keyboard and a mouse was using the popular Microsoft FrontPage to build a website and they were calling themselves a Webmaster. I was a Webmaster before that revolution, and it gave me a little taste of puke in my mouth when I saw that I could have become a Webmaster a whole lot faster if I just claimed it instead of actually reading and studying all those countless hours to become one.

I suppose if you want to call yourself something and you get a few people to believe it, you can be just about anything. I think I will call myself a “Profit Engineer and Competition Killer with Extraordinary Resources”. PECKER. As for the act of providing PECKER, that would be “Profit Engineering and Competition Killing with Extraordinary Resource” I think it rolls off the tongue nicely, and its meaning is better defined and understood than “SEO”. Besides, it was one of only a couple acronyms I could find that were not already taken.

Coming soon, “SHAFT” … be sure to subscribe!

Malabar Grey Hornbill photo courtesy of Rathika Ramasamy
via Wikipedia

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Is Squidoo Good for SEO? Likely More Than You Think!

Is Squidoo good for search engine optimization (SEO)? The short answer is “Yes!” The longer answer involves how Squidoo can help to improve your search engine ranking.

First, for the uninitiated, I will explain that Squidoo is a service which allows for creation of topical pages. Squidoo calls each of these pages a “lens”, and the lenses you can find on Squidoo cover a great deal of useful information. Your lens (or lenses) can include any topic you like, and in fact, I have a Squidoo lens just for that. It is titled “SEO, Social Media, and Other Stuff Murnahan Likes“, and it includes RSS feeds from some of my blogs. That means more syndication of my content. This is a good thing, although the RSS links are not very useful from a search engine optimization standpoint. It also includes RSS feeds for commenting services I use, such as my Disqus profile and Intense Debate profile so people can see things I am commenting about on other blogs. It makes a nice aggregation of things I like and things I am up to. The possibilities are vast, and Squidoo has a lot of nice modules that are easy to customize.

Squidoo Helps SEO, But Not How Others May Tell You!

There is a whole lot of speculation and contention regarding the SEO value of Squidoo. Just as with most services with any search engine optimization value, there are many dirty attempts at SEO using Squidoo. This does not mean it is overrun by spammers or that it is not still valuable. I simply point this out because I do not suggest tagging yourself as the next great SEO expert by trying to make Squidoo your platform. It is just another tool, and I recommend being respectful of the Squidoo community.

You may think I try to make the very best use of each tool to improve my SEO. I do enough that people often ask me if I ever sleep, but I do not hold any tool in high enough regard that I would call it my “silver bullet.” There are some social media and social bookmarking sites that I see more benefit from than others, but each of them will have some degree of importance. Squidoo is one of the services I like very much. However, I will openly admit to shamefully under-utilizing Squidoo. Like my father told me, “do as I say and not as I do.” I do as much as my days and nights will allow. As time runs short, we are each guilty of neglecting to do some of the things we know we should be doing. In my opinion, Squidoo is one of those things we should both be doing, and doing better.

Squidoo Backlinks Help SEO

One benefit to Squidoo for your search engine optimization is incoming links to your website (backlinks) from your Squidoo lens (or lenses). I know very well that Squidoo links are valuable for SEO, but in case you are skeptical, I will show you just one way to measure them. I invite you to check the incoming links to this very blog, using SEOmoz Open Site Explorer. If you check my incoming links (yes, click this), you can see that Squidoo is listed with a “Page Authority” of 63 and a “Domain Authority” of 87. That is a worthwhile link, and one which should not be ignored. In the link above, I narrowed the report down to where you can easily find Squidoo in the results. It will look like the image below.

With enough links, such as I have explained here, it does not take long to start seeing better results in search engine results and more link authority for your site.

My SEO tip for you today is this:

Squidoo should not fall into that list of things you neglect. Take the time, today, to give a closer look at Squidoo and judge for yourself.

Squidoo Lenses Rank Well in Search Engines

Another example of the usefulness of Squidoo is of course how well the lenses (pages) rank. There is little mystery about the potential for making a Squidoo lens rank well for a target search phrase. You can often find popular lenses among the top results for popular searches. Although I do not use Squidoo for this in my own internal SEO, I have done so for client projects and witnessed a reasonable level of value in it.

I do not rely on any single SEO tool too heavily, and I do not recommend that you do that, either. There is not a short list of SEO tools and tricks that will make you famously successful with search engines. No, I am sorry, but that list of important SEO tools is long … very long. You should never place all of your SEO energy in only a few places, but instead use a wide range of resources. At the same time, I would submit to you that even if it took you the rest of the day to set up your Squidoo account or to add another Squidoo lens to your existing lenses, your day would not be wasted. By the end of the day, you will have become more efficient using another SEO tool that can give you more visibility to your Squidoo lens, and additional relevant links from Squidoo to your website.

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Find Good SEO: Why Good SEO Don’t Seek Your Business

Being ranked at the top of search listings on Google, Bing, and etcetera, for the things that make companies money is a very competitive endeavor. The SEO who can produce really fantastic results are few and far between. The demand is high, and the supply is comparatively low. SEO is a tricky business, and to find good SEO is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack. What makes it even harder to find good SEO (search engine optimization), is that the best SEO (search engine optimizers) are not seeking you.

Unless you sell fish milkshakes or garlic scented breath spray, you have probably noticed that there are a lot of others trying to attract the same customers as you. I should not need to explain all the reasons for wanting to be at the top of search listings, but I will say that being there is very valuable. I don’t just mean being there for your few “important” search phrases like your company name. I mean being there for the right search phrases, with the right marketing message, and a website that will convert lookers into buyers. I mean being listed for thousands of searches and maximizing your lateral keyword effectiveness. This is a job of the SEO, and we are paid to do the work that makes most people want to pull their hair out and scream at their computer. We do what others cannot do. In fact, maybe we are just a little more like Superman than we like to let on. You know, we try to be pretty humble (even though it is difficult).

Good SEO Are Not Salespeople

It has often been said that a good SEO does not need to seek business. If they are skilled at search engine optimization, there are many great opportunities open to them. This does not mean they do not want your business, but only that they are probably not banging down your door, ringing your phone off the hook, or filling your email inbox with offers of cheap SEO services. Now, I should explain that I don’t mean the ho-hum average SEO, but the ones who really deserve to carry the title of Search Engine Optimizer. There are a lot of fakes, but I have already explained how to tell the difference between good SEO and bad SEO. If you missed that article, you should make time to read and find out.

Why do I think that good SEO are not salepeople? Well, I think most SEO can probably sell SEO if they have to, but for most of us I think it gets pretty aggravating to answer salesy questions that people do not actually even care to know anyway. I mean, do you really think a client needs to know each detail of the work to be performed? Do they need to know everything the SEO knows? If that was the case, they would do it themselves. They just need to know that the SEO is good at what they do, and that they will receive quantifiable benefit from the work. Hell, I hate selling SEO, but I love performing the work. Go ahead and search Google for sell SEO and see if you find me there (Hint: Don’t look down). To me, proof should be all the selling I need to do. If somebody wants more than that, I guess I can take my shirt off and show them my sexy chest, because that would likely mean more to them than my in-depth SEO lesson that will go right over their head anyway.

Good SEO Are Quirky, But Entrepreneurial

As people, the best SEO (search engine optimizers) tend to be a little bit quirky, opinionated, eccentric, clever, and above all, entrepreneurial. SEO do not choose this work just because all the other jobs down at the 7-Eleven were taken. We do it because we have a passion for success, a competitive spirit, and often something to prove … call it a Napoleon complex if you like. SEO is a field filled with some truly astonishing marketing talent that is honed every day by constant studying of people, trends, facts, figures, and of course, the “secret ingredient” that we will never share with you because after all, you are not “in the club”.

Why SEO Don’t Seek Your Business

So, you may still wonder why I say that “good SEO don’t seek your business”, and that is something I am here to answer. The reason is this: A good search engine optimizer can take their skills to any industry, at any time, and invest themselves in that industry and earn a fortune. This is not a myth, and a good SEO can back it up. I would say that it is even true that a “pretty good SEO” can achieve a high level of success if they put enough time, study, and patience into their work in a given industry. In my case, I earned millions of dollars selling wholesale Internet services over the past decade. That did not happen because I was passionate about selling dial-up Internet access and web hosting services to ISPs. It happened because I was passionate about SEO, and I kicked that market in the ass hard enough to amass up to 2,000 resellers. It would have been even easier if I could have just been the SEO all along and not had to work as the CEO, too.

You may wonder why, if a search engine optimizer is good, they would choose to work with clients’ projects instead of selling their own product or service. This is where some people just don’t understand the required focus of SEO work. If I wanted to sell cigars online, you can bet I would corner the cigar market. I am already well listed in Google for cigar related search terms, and I am not even a cigar retailer. I don’t want to sell cigars. I do not want the hassles of operating another business … I just want to sell other people’s cigars. That is why I am a search engine optimizer. As you may have noticed, my blog is “a Web Guy” and not “a Cigar Guy”. I want to focus on making products and services successful with better SEO, and not deal with all the operational headaches of the business.

Good SEO Seek Opportunity

The reasons freelance or agency SEO consulting is so attractive to a good search engine optimizer has a lot to do with our entrepreneurial drive, and our passion for success. In order to be a really great SEO, it takes a lot of focus and love for the work. I will speak for a group when I say that most of us love wielding our success tools and reaching the top of search results and making more business happen. We think like a Mount Everest climber. We have one overall goal in mind, and that is to reach the peak.

SEO will often turn away business for reasons that you may not understand. This is not entirely about money, either. We seek opportunity, and much of the time, the client simply does not have the opportunity we are seeking.

Another reason good SEO do not seek your business is because until you understand the value of our work enough to come to us, you would never pay us more than a small fraction of what our work is worth. Unless you understand that we pay you more in increased business and brand recognition than you will ever pay us, you are just not ready.

Consider how you would react to a qualified SEO with a track record of success and a proposal that he or she will work tirelessly over the next year to make your product or service offering more visible, with better brand recognition, higher conversion of lookers to buyers, higher profit margin, and they can back it up with real numbers. They even come to you with legitimate SEO guarantees that make sense to you. How do you answer to that? Do you say “No, I am totally happy where I am … I don’t really want more customers.” If that is the case, which sometimes really is the case, then why in the name of all things intelligent are you reading this blog? You want more business or you should be reading something a whole lot more suitable to sitting in a rocking chair or moving to Florida to play golf. No, instead, you want more business, and you want to know ways to make that happen.

Once you accept this, the only obstacle left is for you to get up off your wallet and push your marketing “Go” button. Just don’t ask a qualified SEO to start begging for your business or offering you discounts while you are getting more out of the transaction than they are.

Summary: The best SEO are the ones you find, and not the ones who found you.

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26 Ways to Improve TopRank BIGLIST of SEM and SEO Blogs

In every industry there is a list to be on. You know, an industry “A” list. TopRank Online Marketing Blog works hard to maintain such a list in the online marketing industry. It is called the BIGLIST, and it is an A-Z list of search engine marketing and search engine optimization blogs. I agree with much of the list, but I found 26 different places where it was lacking. I will share my findings, but first, I will explain some things about my industry.

Links Rule SEO

Links are something that make or break SEO efforts. Anybody with a website should know this by now. Good SEO are particularly skilled at creating incoming links to websites, and rely on compelling content that people want to link to. Most SEO fail at linkbuilding, but the good ones have something special. Great SEO are some of the best hookers, because they “hook” you into reading what they have to say, and “hook” you into linking to it because you want to share it with others.

Any SEO blogger worth their weight in Fruit Stripe gum will write some sort of “link candy” now and then. You know, that stuff that you just cannot resist linking to or sharing to others because the SEO whipped out a Jedi mind trick or because his sexy eyes just compelled you undo an extra button.

Of course, when these linktacular search engine optimizers are looking for incoming links or to rank tidily for some given search term, it is best for them to be relatively covert about it. Nobody wants to be fooled by some SEO guy’s trickery and clever tactic of doing something that will improve his own lot in life. It is why guys like Chris Brogan announce that each affiliate link is an affiliate link and that he may benefit if you go and buy something. It is perceived as if he was hurting you by making a dollar for helping you to find the offering. So in the order of transparency, I will tell you that I want you to link to my blog like a junkie wants another hit of smack. There should be no shame in respectfully asking for assistance, and a link is not a con job or a threat to global well-being.

Sure, we marketing people are always supposed to operate under the guise of being truly altruistic and never doing anything for our own gain. After all, that is what people respond to the best. If some Murnahan fella in Topeka, Kansas tries to get a leg up and hop on a list of popular search engine optimizers who are known for killing grizzly bears with a rubber band and a toothpick, he had better be kind of hush hush about it.

Oh, for crying out loud! Did you really think I would do something that resembles conformity? Heck no, I want on that damn list, and I will fart sunshine if it will convince you to share my blog with everybody you know and ever hope to know (and their unborn children, too). Sure, I want links … I want a squillion links, but I want them for the right reasons and I am not taking food off your table to get them. I am not conning anybody for a link to my work. I am sharing information and providing value to my readers. I may even cause you to chuckle now and then, and on a good day I can make you shoot a good load of steamy coffee from your nose. Other days I may piss you off, but if I don’t get a death threat now and then, I just didn’t reach enough people. I have learned that you cannot make butter if you don’t stir the milk and polarize your audience now and then.

I like earning a living, and I am not afraid to say it. I work very hard making money for my clients as a search engine optimizer and social media marketing guy, and I have three kids to feed. The killer instinct is alive and well in Mr. Mark Aaron Murnahan, and the great news is that I am one of those toothpick-wielding grizzly bear hunting SEOs who truly does care about doing things well. I have been in my industry since the mid-1990’s and I have been behind the curtain as many clients’ great Wizard (I live in Kansas, so Wizard of Oz references are dear to me).

OK, so on with my disappointment from TopRank BIGLIST of SEM and SEO Blogs. I want to share 26 things I think TopRank has missed, and ideas to make it better. Oh, and by the way, you may also get some benefit from these useful links to blogs by other search engine optimizers. You see, there I go being useful again … I cannot help it, even when I am pushing another piece of link candy and serving my own agenda.

Listings Missing from TopRank’s BIGLIST of SEM and SEO Blogs

I found a full 26 places (one for each letter of the alphabet) that TopRank missed the mark on that BIGLIST of theirs, and I am going to share them with you. Since it is an alphabetical list of top SEOs, I will go through the 26 missed opportunities to improve their list in alphabetical order. I will include the listings immediately before and after the “oversight”, so it will be easier to reference when you look at the TopRank BIGLIST on their site.

Aussie Internet Marketing Blog – Sean Rasmussen writes “down under” about practical tips on a variety of online marketing topics including SEO, blogging, social media and general web 2.0.

Insert “aWebGuy.com SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog by Murnahan” Here

B2B Online Marketing Blog – The folks at Business.com have put together a fine resource for B2B businesses and marketers with a problem/solution format that includes case studies, conference coverage and insights on search, social media and a few Business.com product posts from time to time.

Beanstalk SEO Blog – Dave Davies blogs about news in the search engine and online marketing industry.

Insert “Bear-Killing SEO Blog by Murnahan” Here

Being Peter Kim – Previously with Forrester Research, Peter Kim now works with an Austin based strategic consulting practice that is developing an enterprise class Social Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite. He continues to blog about social computing, social media marketing and insights of high value to internet marketers and business leaders.

Charlene Li’s Blog – Previously a Forrester Analyst, this blog that also covers social computing and digital marketing topics.

Insert “Clever Linkbaiting That Nobody Will Notice by Murnahan” Here

ClickEquations Blog – Craig Danuloff writes this insightful paid search product blog from Commerce 360 on PPC, analytics, and internet marketing in general.

Daily SEO Tip – Search Marketing blog guru Loren Baker and SEO smartie, Ann Smarty have partnered to deliver practical, usefuland often creative SEO tips that are good for new pracitioners as well as experienced online marketers.

Insert “Damn Linkable Stuff by Murnahan” Here

Dan Zarrella – Dan is a self described, “Social Media and Viral Marketing Scientst”, and a web developer who blogs about the social media, viral marketing and SEO focused research he does and tools he’s created like the Link Attraction Factors tools and the recent Tweetbacks blog plugin.

Epiphany Digital Marketing Blog – This UK agency offers a mix of internet marketing posts from agency staffers on search, social and industry topics. Many of the posts go into detail about insights, testing and general observations from solving digital marketing problems.

Insert “Eternally Grateful Linkbaiter by Murnahan” Here

Everett Sizemore – Aka @balibones is the SEO at Gaiam and recently launched this blog dedicated to SEO. Gotta love the tag line because it’s keyword rich AND creative: “SEO Consultant – Organic Farmer of Keywords and Tomatoes”.

Flyte Blog – Rich Brooks writes about web marketing for small business.

Insert “Forever Linkbaiting by Murnahan” Here

Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketing – Excellent group blog from Forrester on various aspects of interactive marketing from B2B social media to search marketing to research and industry news.

Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog – The team at Vancouver BC based Elastic Path, an ecommerce platform, blog all angles of conducting tansactional business online ranging from general marketing to usability to social media. There’s are also a series of podcasts from last summer worth checking out.

Insert “Getting a Toothache from Sweet Link Candy by Murnahan” Here

Google Blogoscoped – Phillip Lenssen’s blog about mostly Google.

Holistic Search Blog – UK based Peter Young blogs mostly about internet marketing topics with an emphasis on tips, commentary and insights related to SEO, PPC and online marketing.

Insert “Honest Marketing Ideas by Murnahan” Here

Hubspot Marketing Blog – The team at HubSpot writes about internet marketing and online lead generation for small business.

I – Com Blog – Searched, designed and developed. That about sums up this Manchester based internet marketing agency blog that covers design, development, copywriting and search marketing.

Insert “I Think This May Pass as Linkbait by Murnahan” Here

Ignite Social Media – Ignite is a social media consultancy with the company web site running as a blog. Topics logically emphasize social media with some optimization flavorings. More information on the post authors and a fix to the 404 on the job openings page would be nice.

Junta42 Blog – Joe Pulizzi takes his own advice and provides great tips and advice on marketing and retaining customers with content which is really spot on if you subscribe to the “give to get” principles of social media marketing.

Insert “Just a Bit More Link Baiting by Murnahan” Here

Justin Freid – As Traffic and Lead Delivery Optimization Manager at Petersons.com, Justin Freid posts his personal insights and tips on SEO, PPC and Social Media on this very new and very well designed blog.

Keyword Driven – This is Acronym Media’s agency blog (55th floor of the Empire State Building) which has a variety of posts on SEO topics, tools and observations from a mix of staff. Although, with just 2 posts in December and only 1 in January, blogging isn’t a high priority at the moment.

Insert “Kids … Did I Mention I Have Kids? by Murnahan” Here

KoMarketing Associates SEM Blog – A group/company blog covering SEO, PPC, events, industry news/trends, tips and a lot of personal insight. These folks are clearly involved in, and have an opinion on, what goes on in the industry.

Local SEO Guide – With Andrew Shotland it’s all about local internet marketing and he blogs it well.

Insert “Look! Another SEO Blog by Murnahan” Here

LyndiT blog gets our attention for great design and user experience in this BIGLIST update. Lyndi Thompson is a Social Media and Online Marketing Specialist and like me, is addicted to peanut M&Ms. Besides writing about a mix of social media, SEO, web design and online marketing topics, you might be interested to know Lyndi lives on a mini farm, owns several animals including a donkey and supports some great causes in the Northwest.

Mannix Marketing Blog – This agency blog focuses mostly on SEO, web design & Internet marketing as well as agency news and involvement with industry events.

Insert “Mark is Just Short for Marketing by Murnahan” Here

Marketer Insight – This is an agency blog from the team at WebSiteBiz covering “current thinking and strategies related to improving online marketing” with search, social media and analytics focused posts from Eric Dudley, Kyle Bumgardner and Tom Dressler.

NLC Internet Marketing Blog – A light posting group blog from the folks at non linear creations.

Insert “No Good Reason to Overlook aWebGuy.com by Murnahan” Here

North South Media Blog – This Scotland based agency blog offers tips, news, interviews and an interesting “Top SEO Companies” feature each month that ranks regional, national and international SEO agencies by keyword rankings.

Online Marketing Blog – Lee Odden and TopRank team members blog about search marketing, social media as well as interviews, reader polls, SEO blog reviews, marketing tips, guest posts from industry leaders and SEM conference coverage.

Insert “Only One BIGLIST Listing is OK by Murnahan” Here

Optimized! – Mary Bowling is an experienced online marketer who writes for a Local Search Marketing column for ClickZ. She’s also blogged her observations and insights about a range of SEO topics and of course, local SEM since December 2007.

Practical Blogging – Adsense, affiliate advertising & general blogging help from Robyn Tippins.

Insert “Pretty Hard to Miss This SEO by Murnahan” Here

Proactive Report – Sally Falkow blogs about online PR and social media

Insert “Quite Interesting Blog by Murnahan” Here – The only “Q” blog on BIGLIST.

Read/WriteWeb – Next generation web technology from Richard MacManus.

Insert “Really Similar to Read/WriteWeb if You Squint Hard Enough by Murnahan” Here

Receptional – Added on November 2007, we’re happy to see this UK based blog re-added to BIGLIST. Dixon Jones and the team at UK internet marketing agency Receptional blog the gamut of web marketing topics including affiliate and search marketing, usability, analytics and social media.

SEO and Tech Daily – The Daily Scoop on SEO, SEM, PPC Trends, Analytics, Web 2.0 start-ups and more!

Insert “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog by Murnahan” Here

Seoaware Blog – Freelance writer and web designer Melissa Fach blogs about her thoughts on search marketing and points to many articles of interest.

The Leading Edge – PR and social media guru Sally Falkow has her own blog on this list already, but also shares her insights on trends in PR technology for popular PR industry publication Bulldog Reporter. Sally’s advice includes online PR, social media and search marketing.

Insert “The Least Obvious Linkbait Ever by Murnahan” Here

The Search Insider – Not to be confused with MediaPost’s “Search Insider”, this blog from Wpromote’s Mike Mothner provides insight into pay per click and the business of search marketing.

Trail of the Fire Horse – Another excellent Canada based search and social media marketing blog comes this time from the very smart/savvy Dave Harry aka “the Gypsy”.

Insert “Underestimated SEO by Murnahan” Here

Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search – The title of this blog by Mike Blumenthal says it all.

Vertical Measures Blog – This Phoenix, AZ agency blog focuses on SEO, link building, agency events and industry observations, Posts are written mostly by Social Media Architect, Kaila Strong.

Insert “Very Underestimated SEO by Murnahan” Here

VIZION Blog – Search Engine Watch columnist Mark Jackson and his team at VIZION blog about a wide range of SEO topics, worth subscribing to for sure.

WebConnoisseur – Dustin Woodard’s thoughts on search, web analytics and the web in general.

Insert “Web Guys Don’t Linkbait by Murnahan” Here

Web Ink Now – David Meerman Scott helps innovative marketers use digital information effectively.

Insert “X Should Be SEO’d Too by Murnahan” Here

Yoast Tweaking Web sites – This blog from Joost de Valk covers web design and SEO from the Netherlands.

Insert “Yoast Who? I’ll Show You Yoast by Murnahan” Here

Yodel Anecdotal – Yahoo! company blog.

Insert “Zen SEO by Murnahan” Here

This concludes my list of 26 Ways to Improve TopRank’s BIGLIST of SEO. Now, I know I am not supposed to do this, because people don’t like to see other people get ahead. However, if you want to share this with others who may find it to be interesting, I will tip my big white SEO hat to you.

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