Best SEO and Social Media Marketing Tools
It seems that a lot of people talk about the mechanical aspects of marketing these days. When the Internet is involved, people seem to get really hung up on the technical issues … the mechanics of marketing. Sure, it matters, but the mechanics of today’s marketing starts to seem like the equivalent of marketers of the past calling a printing press their best tool.
I work hard to teach people how to help themselves, and when they need some extra help, I provide services for hire. Now I want to share an important tip that may very well help you more than any other!
I have expressed this before, but I want to say it again: “The Best SEO and Social Media Tools Are Not What You Think!” Some people will find this to be shocking, but the best SEO and social media marketing tools are not at all what you have likely been led to believe. I want to clear this up for you, and share what I know, without a doubt, to be the best tools for improving your online marketing efforts.
Yes, there is my answer … Coffee and cigarettes are my favorite tools for building a brand and for improving search engine optimization and social media marketing. I am crazy, right? It is a challenging concept for a lot of people, but it is often much easier than explaining every nut and bolt that makes a marketing machine run smoothly.
You see, coffee and cigarettes are a part of my brand. I even published it in a book, and I have said it a squillion times: “I take coffee and cigarettes and turn them into better social media marketing and SEO.”
The real truth is that the mechanics of marketing are of considerably small consequence when compared to marketing creativity and talent.
When I call coffee and cigarettes my best tools, it is because they help me to work longer hours, without sleep. They keep me functioning during those long hours of trying to discover something genius about a client’s products or services, and what makes them more attractive to their model customers.
My tip for the day is to consider the tools which are not so obvious. Try something less mechanical and be ready to get creative.
Do you smoke cigarettes and drink coffee? Talk to me … your comments are well-appreciated!
I write a lot about SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing. You expect that, and I am here to deliver. What I think a lot of people interested in SEO do not want to face is that SEO is a lot less about tricky technology issues, and a lot more about producing brilliant marketing.
The industry of SEO is ever-changing, but at the same time, many things are constant. For the largest part, the same things that mattered ten years ago still matter today. There have been many technical changes, but the technical aspects of SEO are not as individually important as some people may lead you to believe. The technology is really just a lot of little pieces which we fit together to assist the larger cause.
Early in the industry of SEO it became popular to chase information on the latest tricks to stay a step ahead of the search engines. Although there were cases when this became valuable, it seems pretty convenient that it is also used for confusing customers in order to seem more valuable. Many absurd yet popular myths about SEO such as meta tags still persist, even today.
There is value in understanding the technologies involved, but the truth is often less popular than myths. The truth is that search engine optimization and the value it represents is influenced a lot more by human response than by a computer. Giving people something which holds value to them has always been the most important part of SEO. This is the truth, and it is backed up with numbers.
Providing value to customers is not just a principle of good SEO, but marketing as a whole. When you give people something of value, they are more likely to share it with others. On the Internet, they often share it with links. In SEO, those links are like votes telling the search engines who should sit at the top as the “President”.
The Best SEO Trick Ever: Provide Value to Others
If you adhere to this one solid principle of providing value to others, your marketing will take a positive turn. A trick I have learned through two decades in the marketing business is that sometimes you must give until it hurts. Getting everything you want may not always work on the time frame you have set for yourself. I have often discovered that this challenge simply means that you are either not giving enough value, or you should have started sooner, and with better research.
Transforming a business from good to great is not simple. If it was simple, every business would have great results and everybody would win.
It is popular these days to award medals and ribbons to every kid in the race, but let’s face it … that will not translate well in the business world. We do not all get ribbons and medals.
Making the best of any market means knowing which people to reach and knowing what they want. It means knowing the customers’ needs and desires, and knowing the best way to solve them. When you take a close look, SEO starts to sound a lot like marketing, which is exactly what it is, but SEO is often viewed at as a technical trade. What many people are hesitant to understand is that SEO is more about producing great marketing in a very competitive atmosphere and less about geeky magic tricks. It requires an understanding of what people want, the unique ways they interact online versus offline, creating an appropriately compelling message, and being able to properly apply technology and mathematics.
SEO is a lot less about programming code and geek stuff than it is about people and psychology.
SEO Meets the Human Factor
The technologies surrounding SEO can help a lot, and increased website traffic is a great thing. I certainly love watching big numbers. I know that big numbers of website visitors will always impress my clients. They really want to see those new visitor statistics, because that is something they understand. What they have a harder time focusing on is that if those numbers do not inspire the conversion of lookers into buyers, or convert their brief message into a lasting one, most of the value is lost.
With any marketing message, there is a right group and a wrong group to deliver it to. It is easy to assume that if somebody performs a given search, they are the right audience for you. This is not always as simple as it seems, and often leads to spending a lot of time and money learning hard lessons. Taking a stronger approach to researching your market reminds me of something my father often advised, which is to “measure twice and cut once.”
Focusing on delivering the right message and presenting that message to the right people leads to higher conversion rates. The research to affect this result is in the top two most important roles of a search engine optimizer, second to getting out of bed.
Getting the research right is what tells us how to reach the right audience and what they will respond to favorably. It gives us the information we need to convert website visitors from lookers into buyers. Secondarily, it tells us how to bring more website traffic based on what people are searching for. Yes, bringing the people is secondary to knowing what they will want once they get there. Why should this concept be so difficult for smart people to grasp? Perhaps it is because they are blindsided by a lot of technical talk and SEO lies.
Educating a client on the importance of increasing conversion by producing a better message based on proper research may sound like an excuse to overlook the traffic numbers, right? This is not the case. More traffic is relatively simple to achieve, when you are actually providing high value based on good research.
The fascination with big numbers has created a culture of promoting valueless junk on the Internet aimed only at bloated traffic numbers. As the importance of traffic volume over traffic value grew roots early, many businesses overlooked doing the things that actually produce revenue. This misjudgment has lead many companies to underestimate the value of the Internet for their business growth. They may have hired SEO services which produced a huge volume of traffic, but then when it did not convert to revenue for the company, they lost faith. More often, they find that the SEO either did not really understand their role, or did not make a stand against the client’s preconceptions of the SEO being just a tech job. It is easy to see how these things could make a company stop trying.
Improving SEO Conversion Means Great Marketing
What can you do to convert more website traffic from lookers into buyers? This is an old question that every good marketer faces. The best answer is usually in finding the right audience. It is always easier to sell a product or service if you are selling to the right audience.
It is commonly accepted that good search engine optimizers who have done their research will know how to get more links by providing useful and compelling content. This will create a lot of website traffic, but that does not always mean the money train is coming down the track. If they are trying to sell tractor tires to race car drivers, they may gain a lot of website traffic, but they will probably have a hard time selling tires.
Good SEO also know, which I suspect a lot of people do not realize about the business function of SEO, is that they must produce reasons for those website visitors to take action and convert into something valuable to the website owner. This may mean a sale, a sales lead, a subscriber, or whatever it is that provides value and purpose to the effort. The first step is knowing who those visitors are and what will compel them to take action. The common tragedy is to get the traffic and then try to figure out why people are not responding.
Traffic quality is an area where it seems that many SEO (the good ones) would like to concentrate on more, but they get their hands tied by the client. The client often looks to the SEO primarily for the purpose of driving more traffic, but then neglect the value an experienced SEO has as a marketer and not just as a part of a tech field. This can create a case where conversion is viewed as secondary to a primary goal of traffic, which is totally backward and often a fast track to failure.
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
I have a request that you do not be a stooge, and that you do not treat SEO and Internet marketing professionals as stooges either.
During a phone call a moment ago, I was inspired to point something out about SEO (search engine optimization) and Internet marketing that is obvious to me, but clearly some people do not already understand. This is an extremely basic SEO lesson.
I make a point of asking people who contact me for Internet marketing a very simple question as follows: “How did you find me?” Of course I already know the answer, but so many people do not realize that we can track everything online.
My question has been answered in many ways, and even as silly as “I was just surfing the Internet and came across your website.” Even that answer is just fine. It is usually not a truthful one, and I actually already know when people contact me the exact way that they reached me. You see, when you email me or surf my websites, I can see your IP address, network name, location, what you searched for, and many other details that tell me who you are and how you found me. I ask people this question because of one important follow-up question that either goes right over their head or totally blows their socks off. That question is as follows: “Do you think it was an accident that you found me amongst the millions of other web pages out there competing for your business?”
This is Friday evening and I have a webcast to prepare for, so I do not want to take a lot of time with silly scenarios and rhetorical questions, but I have one more question to ponder. Now pay close attention and answer this honestly …
Do you think that you found this article on this blog about Internet marketing and search engine optimization by accident?
The truthful answer is that it was no accident at all, and I have created the means for you to find my blog. When people contact me about my services, I often have to remind them that if they found me amongst the millions of others out there, it is because I made it happen. If I did not create this article, and if I did not have the means to help people to find me, they would not find me.
When you approach any SEO and Internet marketing professional because you found them, you must question just how and why you found them instead of a website selling pink pantyhose. If you are confused why you found me instead of pink pantyhose, you should probably turn your computer off and get some rest.
Otherwise, perhaps you will be open to this crazy notion. If somebody can be sure that you find them instead of millions of others in the extremely competitive field of Internet marketing and SEO services, they can probably do the same for you.
When I think about the worst things in the whole world, I have this mental list of things like cruel people, wars, child abuse, murder, and all of that awful stuff. Ranking right up there is selling SEO and Internet marketing services. That is why I say that when I go to hell, they will probably strap me down to a flaming chair in front of a smoldering desk to answer a fire telephone and respond to burning questions about SEO services. Really, I have nightmares about this!
How Selling SEO is Like Hell on Earth
I said that Hell would have me selling SEO, but probably because it is the one thing I despise more than almost any other thing on Earth. I will explain this to you, but first, you must wonder how I can possibly love my job? I love my work as a search engine optimizer, probably more than what you would consider “natural”. If all jobs paid the same, I would have two jobs … SEO and racing cars. There are only a few things I love more than my work as SEO, and those are my family, racing cars, and riding motorcycles. So, it may seem strange that I hate to sell SEO, but I will tell you why.
Most People Only Know Enough About SEO to Be Annoying
It seems common that when people will set out to find good SEO, they have no concept that the best SEO have something more than basic geeky programming skills. I hear things all the time which make me believe that people view SEO and Internet marketing services as commodities. People often think what the SEO does is all about things like properly SEO’d meta tags, page titles, h1 tags and other things that really are a miniscule piece of the overall objective.
The objective is to earn the highest return on investment for the client. Technical issues, high search engine rankings, and even more website traffic will not achieve the objective without the rest of the assets a good SEO brings. These are the things the client often does not care to hear nor understand.
Good SEO (search engine optimizers) also have marketing talent that goes far beyond what the client is prepared to recognize (or pay for). They mostly just have a handful of common SEO questions that somebody who knew nothing of SEO suggested that they ask. Then they are shocked when the search engine optimizer will give an honest answer instead of just what they wanted to hear. It is almost as if the truth offends them, and they will keep shopping until they find somebody willing to tell them the right lie. Good for them. The one who will lie to them will also show them the lowest upfront price. So as long as they just want to live for today and not consider lost profit tomorrow, that will work great for them.
A lot of people come to me each day hoping to optimize their websites for particular search keywords. They usually don’t have a clue which search words will actually bring them results, and they think it is just some basic tasks that an SEO can do to optimize the existing terrible website content they already have that is already not working.
This kind of shopper does not want to hear that their brand image sucks, or that their website marketing reflects a company that cares more about shortcuts than doing something well. They think of only their landing pages, instead of factors like whether those people actually care what they have to say. They don’t look at whether people spend a lot of time on their site, click on the links in their text, and follow their call to action. They think of more in terms of more clicks equating to more money, but remain clueless how the two things actually relate. To tell you the truth about why I consider selling SEO to be hell, it is because this is the norm, and not the exception. This is the way the majority of SEO shoppers see the SEO industry, and it is why most companies fail to reach their online marketing objectives. I have plenty of numbers to back up this statement, and I live in it every day.
Just yesterday, a man asked me for any keywords that I am particularly proud of for ranking well. I guess that should not shock me too much, because a few prized words ranking well on search engines is what a lot of people think will bring success. I told him that I was proud to have each of the hundreds of thousands of search terms people use to find my work, and to narrow it down meant to narrow down my success in this industry. I gave him a few words, but there is not a small list of prized keywords that make up my big nest egg.
Drag Me to SEO Hell
I guess perhaps it is my attitude alone that makes it feel like Hell to explain things that people do not care to really understand. They set out to compare SEO without realizing that there is no apples-to-apples comparison. SEO is an art and a science, and no two minds will produce identical results.
Too many people come to me with a set of questions, but they already have the wrong answers strongly embedded in their head. If you want to ask me questions about how and why SEO and better Internet marketing works, you must first dismiss all of your previous false conceptions.
The fact is that I am probably the worst guy in the world to sell SEO, but I sure as hell can rank for the term.
