Wouldn’t it be great if all of your marketing efforts worked just exactly as planned? Just imagine how great it would be if every piece of marketing material that you put on the Internet or elsewhere was a smash hit. That would be amazing! You could cut your expenses, earn squillions of dollars, enjoy more leisure, and retire early.
Now rub your eyes, grab another cup of coffee, stop daydreaming, and get to work. This is the real world, and we welcome you to come back and join us.
Nobody is brilliant 100 percent of the time. Some people come closer than others, but none of us walk on moonbeams while tending to our herd of unicorns. It is just not going to happen, but that should not discourage you from trying.
What is more important than creating 100 percent brilliance is to keep trying and testing new things. Even the least glamorous of your marketing efforts can have some level of success. This is more important to remember on the Internet than any other place. If you are holding back your efforts because it doesn’t peg your spectacular-ometer, you will miss out on a lot of what makes your brand what it is. Like any brand, your brand is made up of people … people and their opinions. These people are not all the same, and even some of your bottom percentile marketing efforts will be appealing to some of them.
Marketing with Juran’s Pareto Principle
A historic man named Joseph Juran observed that approximately 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of causes. Many people know this as the 80 / 20 rule, and if you consider it carefully, you will likely find it to be both fascinating and virtually unbreakable. If you are unfamiliar, I strongly urge you to read the astonishing findings of Juran and the economist he named his studies for, Vilfredo Pareto. You may read more about The Pareto Principle and related Pareto Distribution at Wikipedia. Note that The Pareto Principle is not guesswork. It is a diligently researched, mathematically defined, widely documented, and well accepted socioeconomic principle.
Some ways the Pareto principle of 80 / 20 may be observed in your Internet marketing are as follows:
20 percent of your website pages receive 80 percent of web traffic.
20 percent of your marketing receives 80 percent of social media sharing.
20 percent of your blog articles receive 80 percent of reader comments.
20 percent of your marketing efforts can be tracked to 80 percent of your sales.
There are many other examples in which you will likely discover this principle to hold true, but I just want you to consider it and how you may apply it to your marketing efforts. Applying The Pareto Principle to your marketing may surprise you.
It is important to remember that if you reduce the 80 percent, you will also proportionally reduce the successful 20 percent. Do not neglect or devalue your 80 percentile efforts, because it has a purpose, too. Consider this: Have you ever received a compliment for something that you didn’t consider your best effort? I have, and sometimes for things that were not very popular or amazing to the masses, but were just right for somebody. I offer you this example that started with a home video of a little girl named Madeline from a few years back. I saw a message in it, so I put it on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. It did not have amazing results, but a few people thought it was cute. Those few people were worth it, and the video brought me just a bit closer to my next great 20 percentile effort. Plus, it is another tiny piece of branding that makes up the whole mix. Is it brilliant? Perhaps it is not brilliant, but do I think is it valuable? Yes, without a doubt.
Do Not Neglect Your 80 Percent Marketing
It is certain that you cannot achieve 100 percent brilliance, but even that 80 percent that is just “pretty good” may be what somebody was looking for. If you keep it to yourself, you will miss many opportunities for exposing your work to that smaller percentile of people who will think it is brilliant.
Nothing is an out of the box success. Any product or service offering will require a lot of effort to become successful. If you look at the 80 percent of less-than-brilliant efforts as simply wasted, it will not mean that the 20 percent left is all perfect. It will just mean that you still have only 20 percent of that 20 percent that is the most effective, but there will still be 80 percent that is less effective.
When you consider your marketing, remember that it cannot all be your best. There will always be a portion of your marketing which is more successful than the rest. If you try to reduce it down to just the things which are “perfect”, you will reduce your reach of a message that will work just great for some people.
So where does this article rank among my marketing efforts? I do not expect it to be a top 20 percentile piece of work. That does not matter to me as much as the fact that I am still trying, and getting even closer to my next 20-percenter all the time.
I made a follow-up call to a man about his marketing needs. He previously asked me to follow up, and so I did just that. Within about a minute of my call, he said “Well, this is a really busy time of year for us” and started with more excuse-crafting. I interrupted him to say “Hey Bill, I am not calling to waste your time” and quickly ended the call. What I really meant was that I was not calling to waste my time, and I think he got the point.
Bill is a man who knows very well why his company is bleeding money. He knows that he needs better marketing. That is why we have been talking. He expresses good intentions, but he always has an excuse. Is being busy a good reason to put off better marketing? Is money a good reason to put off better marketing? Is there really ever a good reason to put off something that will improve your business?
Let us consider where money comes from in most businesses. It comes from doing more business, and that means more customers. More customers comes from marketing. Is this really such a mystery?
“Procrastination Tax” is the Extra Cost of Waiting
People have been frustrated by taxes for centuries. They vote, they write their government leaders, and they even overthrow their government, but mostly they complain. They complain a lot! I hear people every day complain about the economy, and how everything is swirling down a big toilet bowl. I am not completely excluding myself. I don’t like it any more than the rest of you. The difference I make is that I realize one of the biggest “taxes” I pay is “procrastination tax”.
Putting things off until it is too late, or until the cost of waiting makes problems much worse is common. It is one of the easiest mistakes to make, and also one of the most damaging. The good news is that you have a choice.
For somebody like Bill who makes excuses, the additional cost caused by procrastination is high. He said that this is a busy time of year. It is the time when his business seems to be getting better. It only lasts for a short time, and then things will be slow again. Bill knows this, because he has been in his business and waiting for the next busy season for decades. Wouldn’t it make sense to maximize that seasonal opportunity, since it only comes once in a while? By procrastinating, Bill has effectively put off his best chance to turn his business around and stop losing more money until another year. Yes, another whole year before he will have another opportunity like he faces right now. Another year with mediocre results … and that is if all goes well. Another year to worry about whether he socked away enough to make it through the next slow period. Another year that he could have done more business and grown his company and had an even better year, next year.
I wonder how many years Bill can waste procrastinating before he realizes that action today is worth a lot more than action tomorrow. For some industries there is a year between each big rush, and for others it is a much shorter time. In any case, the tendency to wait for just the right time can have damning results to a company. I wonder how Bill will feel when he looks back a year from now and wishes he had set a better plan in motion. Oh yes, and next year will come … faster than ever.
Bill will always be waiting for something. While he waits for the perfect time, his procrastination tax is growing each day.
This reminds me of something my mother told me many years ago. She said “If you wait until you are ready to have children, you will never be a father.” I have three kids now.
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.
I woke up to another Monday today. Monday is the day I ask myself the question again, “Are you reaching the right people?” It goes a bit deeper when I start asking “Are you reaching them with the right message?” If I can answer both of these with the affirmative, the next step is to repeat it and try to be sure the message continues to reach the right people, with the right message, and at the right time. Getting the right time means doing it again and again until their time is right. At the top of my list is reaching the right people.
How To Reach the Right People … The Influencers!
I think for a lot of people trying to reach a market, the question of how to reach the right people totally confounds them. It is actually a bit tricky and it takes some serious thought. It gets easier with training, experience, and research, but it is always a challenging part of marketing. Good marketing often means reaching the buyer themselves, but the best marketing often means reaching the people who influence the buyer. It is called influence marketing. Knowing who is an influencer and who is a buyer is an important step to knowing the right message to deliver. Getting it wrong means wasting a lot of time and money.
Car companies learned about this a long time ago. They realized that, statistically, men will be more appreciative of the 7.0L V8 engine and the 505 horsepower, while ladies will care more about the handy button to automatically move the power seat back to where she left it (before her gearhead husband got in and moved it). They segment their market and deliver a different message to reach the right person with the right message. By doing this, they are selling features to each party, but they also know that if I want that 7.0L V8 engine, I will use that silly seat button they told me about to influence my wife. Now that is how to get a car sold! Reaching the right person very often means knowing more than just them, but also who influences them, and how.
If I was selling wedding dresses, I would know that the bride is not always the only participant. There is another important point of influence. I need to reach her father with the message that his little darling will feel like the princess she wanted to be when she was five years old and that this is that moment she had planned for all those years. I need to reach the bridesmaids who will tell the bride how gorgeous that dress makes her look. I need to reach the influencers or the whole thing could be shot down and I have just another expensive dress on the rack.
For me, I consider who reads my work. Exactly who is attracted to a blog about marketing? Probably people who have a product or service to offer, right? The fact is that it is mostly people who would never in a million years consider paying me to help them build their market. This is just fine for me, because it helps me focus on being useful. If I am useful, people will come back. If I am even more useful, they will pass it along to others in their circle of influence. Because I know that most of my readers are not directly in the market to buy my services, the focus is a lot more on being helpful. Reaching the right people means reaching the influencers, and not just the buyers directly. Seriously, most CEOs and VPs are not looking for me. My job is to be sure they find me, but when the message is delivered by somebody influential to them, it is better than if I deliver it right to them. That is crazy back-door thinking, right? Not really. Just imagine the marketing assistant who says “I like this guy, boss. We should talk to him.” That influence will always go a lot further than just reaching the boss and explaining how great my offering is. The right message is that I am not the competition, but rather here to be useful. The right timing means that readers will subscribe to my blog and find me again when their timing is right.
If you want to reach the right people, you often must look far beyond the obvious target. Think about how you can better reach your market influencers. It is Monday, and it is a great way to start your week.
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.
