hire seo Archives by Mark Murnahan

Hypocrisy in Hiring Social Media Services

Many companies want a bigger, stronger, and more productive online audience. So, it makes sense to look toward the Internet when they need help, right? It seems a common answer is “no”.

It may seem strange that so many companies need and want help to market themselves better online, but yet, turn to an offline connection to help them do it. A lot of companies who are in the market to hire a consultant for their online marketing are seeking a warm handshake, meetings in-person, and looks in the eye. They are understandably cautious about this sort of service. It makes sense, but yet it doesn’t.

The topic came up in a conversation with a friend earlier today. He is excited about partnering with a company that provides social media consulting services. He gave me the web address, and said he had spoken to them about how I am able to help them with their online presence. It sounds crazy, right? The social media consulting company needs social media help.

What shook me was that he said they have more business than they can presently handle, but their online presence is miserable. How miserable? They have sent under 100 tweets on Twitter, their latest video on YouTube had under 50 views and was uploaded over a year ago, and more than I can express, it was simply atrocious! Even the big rage online marketers have been touting lately … Klout (the online influence measurement company) did not have a profile for them.

Oh, but they’re selling like mad, so it really made me question the logic. How can somebody be successful at something without a demonstrated ability to do it? Even if they can do it, how can they be taken seriously if they don’t practice what they preach? This may sound just a bit jealous, but for many years, I thought I actually had to prove that I know my business. I have been wrong, and I see similar instances all the time. I think they must just smell really good, but I’ll explain that.

This is one side of the hypocrisy, but I’m not to the good part yet … the buyer’s hypocrisy.

Smelling is Not Due Diligence … Research Is!

I certainly recognize and respect the human aspects of doing business. It feels good to look somebody in the eye, and a lot of people believe they can tell a person’s integrity from their body language. Of course, it helps if you have training in the field of psychology, or spent some time as an F.B.I. agent. Let me tell you, though, there are plenty of people who will fake anything for money … I’ve met some of them.

I’d like to point out some things I’ve learned from over a decade and a half in a line of work where I have met less than one tenth of one percent of my customers in person. It really doesn’t hold the benefit to the client that most people imagine and hope for. It actually turns out that it is a whole lot more beneficial to the seller than the buyer.

Here’s where the buyer’s perception gets screwy. Think about this for a moment: Doesn’t this seem hypocritical to imagine a company that wants to sell more online, but cannot make their own fact-based judgments online? Companies often seek the faith of their customers online, but they, themselves, do not have the faith they ask from others. They have the tools at their disposal for making rational and logical decisions, but prefer to use a less effective and less objective tool set, in their meeting room. What’s worse, it often hurts the buyer, by opening them up to whatever brand of fairy dust is being pumped into the room.

Meeting in person will not tell you if somebody knows the Internet as accurately as their demonstrated abilities online will show. In fact, it will show a whole lot less than spending some time with our old friend Google. The only thing shaking hands and talking in a meeting room will reliably prove is whether they know more about the Internet than you do. It will not prove whether they know more than your competitor, and it will not prove whether they know how to produce an appropriately targeted audience, or even a fraction of what they say. Spending time researching them online is what proves those things.

Sitting across a table will not tell you if they are a crook. Ironically, you have to look online for that! The only thing it will really tell you beyond what you can learn online, over a telephone communication, or a Skype video conference is how they smell.

I’ll just tell you right now … I smell like cigarette smoke and coffee, but I can bend a crooked online marketer over my knee and whip them like the crybaby sissy bed-wetter they are.

Rational Thinking Eludes Confused People

It may just be a little too rational for companies to seek social media services where they can actually shop and compare, and can see who has demonstrated abilities or does not. Companies are made up of people, and people are not rational and logical about things they don’t fully understand, such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, and other areas of online marketing.

I’m too deep in the online side of this equation to be objective, but I categorize this as an absurdity. It seems as hypocritical as it gets for a company to ask customers for faith in something they fear too much to embrace. My best guess is that they are just waiting for a good smelling pitch man.

What do you think? Please share your comments on the topic.

Oh, but wait … here is some bonus material.

Where Can You Find Good Marketing People, and How Will You Know?

Just when I thought I was done writing about this topic, I realized that it leaves a question open about a better way to seek an online marketing professional. I do not have all the perfect answers, because that question has a lot of possible conclusions. I’ll give you a couple thoughts that may help you.

First and foremost, consider how you arrived here. If somebody sent you here, ask them what else they know. Sure, there may be a few dummies reading my blog, but I would suggest that many of them I have encountered are pretty bright, and have a strong interest in the areas of social media marketing and/or SEO. Look at the comments here on this article and check those people out. If they have been reading for a while, they probably have some pretty good ideas about marketing online.

Of course, if you arrived because I brought you here … call me … ask questions. I am for hire! Even if I cannot help you, I’ll try to suggest a good match and avoid a costly catastrophe. I am not a good fit for everybody, and I only take on one to three clients at any given time, but I sure know a lot of quality people in my line of work.

Your best fit will depend on your needs and expectations. If you want marketing excellence, it may require more digging, and the investment will be much higher.

If you are trying to keep within a small budget, or you have a tight time frame, be sure to understand how and why it will affect you return on investment. Discuss this with any potential marketing professional you are considering. Be sure they have an acceptable answer for you.

I must suggest, just as I have previously explained about search engine optimization, many of the best marketing people are not looking for you. It is also true, in my case, and I believe many other do not enjoy the sales process of their work as well as they enjoy the work they do. So, it may be best to not expect them to do a lot of schmoozing.

In any instance, the most important factors regarding their experience and knowledge will be found online. If they are good in their line of work, they will be very easy to discover with a search for their name on Google. Look at what they are doing online. Check them out. See what others are saying about them. Read their blog … a lot! It will give you a much clearer view of their ideas and their methods.

Finding the right fit will be worth your effort. Due diligence takes patience, but it will save you a lot of money and hassles! On the other hand, a horrible mistake I see companies endure is believing that because a friend, acquaintance, or somebody in their area knows just a little about Twitter or Facebook, they are safer with that, than to risk the effort and do a little research. Maybe they really are the right one, or maybe they are not. If the way they smell is used as a primary measurement, the company gets what they deserve. It is often how companies end up with fakes like these “marketing experts”.

OK, so I’m asking again … What do you think?

Photo Credit:
NO MORE PROTESTS by hobvias sudoneighm via Flickr

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SEO and Social Media Fear of Being “The D Word”

Beware of The D Word ... They May Be Right!

I believe there is an unrealistic fear that challenges many people in my line of work, and I am bold enough to address it even if others are not. I also seek your input, so please don’t be shy.

There are certain elements within the fields of SEO and social media marketing which cause many misunderstandings and hardships for reputable people with good means, and good intent. People have chosen many names for the people representing those bad elements, but one stands out more prominently than others. For now, I’ll call it “the D word”, and it is something that wise people must be cautious of being tagged with.

It seems that the bad elements in social media and SEO have caused some quality people to become unreasonably afraid to properly promote their goods or services. It affects many other industries, and it seems to have created an overall hypersensitivity which causes many people to only hint about how they actually keep their business running, rather than be upfront about it. This is often an unreasonable fear, but definitely worth some consideration. I’ll explain this with a story.

Not so long ago, I tried my best to be less self-conscious about what others might say, and become more promotional of my own services. Yes, more promotional, rather than less. It felt kind of awkward, because that is the opposite of what I often suggest to others. This is because over-promoting your own value is often looked down upon, regardless how worthwhile it is. Being less promotional and more promotable by focusing on others often leads them to do the promoting for you. The trick is in having a good balance. After all, even if you are astonishingly good at something, if you rely solely on others to do your promoting, you will often be let down.

Finding a Promotional Balance in Social Media

What I am describing can really go either way, and finding just the right balance between self-promotion and being promoted by others is a tricky matter. You see, there is this awkward little piece of our psychology that makes us far less likely to promote something that benefits somebody else more than it benefits us. This often holds true, even if we actually think something is worth promoting. It is a bit cynical, but it is a common reaction of people, and it is hard to change that.

An ideal marketing balance lies somewhere between remaining highly “promotable” by others while still effectively promoting things which actually sustain our business needs. To meet this challenge, it is often considered best to keep our efforts more useful to others than to ourselves, and I believe that’s an excellent goal. It makes us more creative and helps us to be more fun and entertaining. It can also have a really big downside.

In my case of seeking that balance, it is not about a lack of confidence. I know that what I do for others benefits them more than it benefits me. I work hard to be useful to others, and I have a solid record of helping companies to become very successful by implementing effective marketing strategies. I am extremely good at getting websites ranked in the top of search engine results, and I know how to make something very marketable … except my own services.

So why is it that I find it so challenging to create a balance? In simple terms, I don’t want to be one of “those people” who are unfairly chastised for trading money for the things in my brain. You know, because people often think things like experience and knowledge should be free. For more on that mentality, I seriously suggest reading “Strategic Marketing Failure: Are You Giving it Up Too Easy?”

Why the Social Media Promotional Balance Occurred to Me

My moment of introspection came differently to me. It was not because anybody called me “the D word”. It came after several friends told me that my own self-marketing didn’t have enough “bite”. Really, they told me I needed to be more upfront by saying “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” They said I needed to be more clear that the things I write about are the things I get paid to do, and that i don’t cost companies money … I make them money.

That should be simple, and I can support that with facts.

My argument was that I didn’t want to be one of those “douchebags” (the “d word”) so many people were talking about. I didn’t want to be berated for that horribly ugly term, “self-promotion”.

I am very critical of the way some people promote themselves in my line of work, because I can see through the hype. I despise the dishonesty and sleaziness of many people’s marketing approach in my industry, and I refuse to do it. I have always been extremely opposed to taking the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach, even to the point of under-hyping myself to less than half the level of my own credibility and experience. If I boasted with truth half as much as others in my field boast with lies, I could knock a bunch of them right off the totem pole … but risk being a “douchebag” by doing it.

I even felt really awkward the first time I placed ads on my blog, because “douchebags” do that. I was even more concerned when I added that awesome popup reminder to subscribe to my blog … but now I’m really glad I did it. I described the considerably tiny amount of friction I got from it in my earlier article titled “Social Media Goals and Complications of Winning“, but it has been an overall success.

The Cynics Are Not Buying your Lunch!

I have said it before, but it is worth reiterating … The cynics are not buying your lunch!

It is easy to forget that many people are cynical and insulting without good reasons. I realize some people will not immediately recognize that I actually teach people good and sensible no-hype ideas about their marketing. Most people who look a little closer change their mind once they get to know me, and my work. Unfortunately, that initial concern of a “douchebag” moniker held me back, and still does to some degree. The good news is that I’m getting over the concern and finding it easier to say “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” I am also finding it a lot easier to say “I would like to talk with you about improving your marketing.”

I’ll tell you why it got easier … because it is all true, and it is how I earn a living. Just because some few outspoken people do not like it does not change the fact that I am still providing more value for free than many people do for pay.

I was reminded of all this today as I went through a list of new people following me on Twitter. I found myself making fast judgments about them. It all got me to wondering how I might look, on the surface, and before people get to know me. It made me wonder how many people suffer on one side or the other of this balancing act. It appeared to me that more of them were afflicted on the opposite side of the self-promotion equation.

I think it is an important thing to be aware of in either instance, and I hope I have encouraged you to step back and try to imagine how others see you. Maybe you are a little too “douchebag”, and maybe you are not quite enough “douchebag”. If you are like me and not making it clear enough about the action you want people to take, you may need some more “bite”, too. It is worth some consideration.

This sort of insecurity has begun to fade for me, and it is because I took another look at just how successful I have helped others to become in their businesses. Yes, in the end, I came to understand that I really am damn good at what I do. If you hate me for it, maybe you just hate me for being a “douchebag”. As long as it is totally unfounded, I’m OK with that.

I’d like to know what you think. Have you encountered this, too?

Photo Credit: Shattonbury via Wikipedia

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SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction

Updated 13 June 2011 — This offer is re-opened through 30 June 2011.

I am going to give you an opportunity to pick up $5,000 just for making a simple introduction. This is not a hoax, and I really will put $5,000 in your sweaty palms for introducing me to “the right one”.

Great weather is coming, and I am pretty sure that most people can find a way to spend a surplus of $5,000 this spring. Cruise ships, sandy beaches, mortgage payments, utility bills, and many other amazing delights are right around the corner.

I hope that $5,000 will be worth a few minutes of your time to rack your brain, peel through your list of contacts, and think hard about whether you know this person I am seeking. Mostly, I hope that you will do it because I am a good fit for that acquaintance of yours, and because we deserve to meet each other.

So that you can have a better idea of who you are introducing, I offer you a link for more information about me, but you can come back to that part.

First, I will briefly explain why I am making this offer, what I offer, and who I am looking for. If you just want to skip to the details, click here.

I just reviewed the response to an engagement letter I sent out a couple days ago, and I almost wet myself with laughter and dismay all at once. I send out what seems like a squillion responses to companies that contact me hoping to benefit from my work, but this one was different. It was for a company that was referred to my services by somebody who was referred to my services. Somewhere along the line, it seems that I have picked up a reputation for what I do. This still does not mean that everybody I meet has a brain in their head, a dollar in their bank, or a sincere desire to improve their business.

As I have seen many times before, the recipient of my engagement letter hit me back with something resembling “Duh, wut duh ya mean … ya want us tuh pay fur it?” This was not their exact words, but that was my interpretation. To say the least, I am not very tolerant of cheapskates, or people who talk about action more than actually taking action.

It was after this response that I seriously realized that I had hit the wall at the end of my patience for dealing with this equivalent of The Abominable Snowman on Looney Tunes (video reference). As a husband and father of three, I am all grown up and reasonably mature, but if I must tolerate another of these abominable snowmen who insist I am a rabbit, I will likely use much stronger language than good old Daffy Duck.

Yes, I am a snarky guy, and I prefer to send a good booger from your nose to your computer screen than to make this sound too serious. After all, I am trying to put 5,000 bucks in your pocket, and that should be fun!

In this case, I am going to spell something out in sobering terms. I love the work I do. I help companies to be successful with their online marketing. It is an awesome feeling to see companies succeed. However, I must say this in true Murnahan fashion: “Business is great if not for all the damn customers.” Is that crazy? Perhaps, but it is very true. I am inundated by requests each day to offer my services to build an uncommitted company’s success for a fraction of what my work is worth.

The size of the company doesn’t matter. Building bigger and more profitable companies is my job. Even a small company with a focused desire for business growth can be extremely successful with a good strategy and a decisive marketing approach.

I broke my magic wand a long time ago. So, these days I build companies with other tools like market research, strategy, customer modeling, and well-crafted ideas to help companies look, smell, and feel like sex, bacon, and other things people crave. Yes, you read that correctly. In layman’s terms, my job is to make companies more like sex and bacon. You know what I mean, the things that people like.

That is how companies become popular. It improves their search engine rankings because all of the sudden the whole world wants to link to their website. Understanding their best value proposition and knowing the customers who want their “sex and bacon” improves their social media reach, and response rates. When it all comes together, it makes a lot of other great things happen for a company, including much higher profit.

Seeking a Frog Hair in a Fiberglass Factory

Although I am a very experienced and creative marketing guy, finding the best clients is like searching for a frog hair in a fiberglass factory. I sort through a lot of people rubbing their lamp and hoping for a genie, but a much smaller number of people are ready and able to put a signed check in my hand. They still want their fill of that sexy bacony stuff that comes when I rub a couple brain cells together, but that comes with money.

I have said it many times, and even blogged that “When I go to hell, they will have me selling SEO“. I say that, because I simply do not enjoy the selling process. Sure, you can search Google for How to Sell SEO and find me right up top, but the truth is that I love the work, and not the selling. This is why I am seeking an ongoing project, rather than the short-sighted marketing that many people ask for.

To make this fun for both of us, I am offering you a $5,000 reward to help me find that one special “frog hair in the fiberglass factory”. I want the one who wants the benefits that a great SEO and social media marketing guy can provide.

Claim Your $5,000 Social Media Reward!

The details are easy: If you introduce me to my special someone who is ready to take their marketing to a new level of success with a minimum six month engagement of my SEO and social media marketing services, you get the money.

This could be either contract work, or in-house, working directly for the company. You can introduce me by email, telephone, blog about it, tweet about it, direct them to my resume, or whatever you like. You only have to be the one who brings us together, and the money is yours. I just need to know that you are the actual person who introduced us, so I welcome you to contact me.

When do you get the money? I am sure you were thinking that, right? I will pay the $5,000 reward within ten days of my acceptance of a paid contract, or within 30 days of joining with a company full-time.

This is a limited offer! This is limited to just one … my special one. I don’t take on a lot of clients, and if somebody wants me enough to make me their Marketing Director, that is clearly a one-time offer. I am also limiting it in time, so stop dilly-dallying and claim your five grand!

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What Created the SEO Monster, and Who Keeps Feeding It?

Have you ever been hit by a stroke of Genius, telling you that automated directory submissions will help your ranking in search engine results? Maybe you thought that some nicely crafted meta tags would help your search engine ranking. I may be a bit too hard on people at times, but common sense just completely eludes many people when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). Many website owners want to rank in the top of search results so badly that they will try almost anything. Well, as long as it is cheap, easy, and sounds techie-fancy.

When I started to write this, I was going to rant about automated directory submissions. Then I realized that I have touched on the topic of directory submissions before. I still have something to get off my chest, and I still have something to say about the toxic lies and misinformation that have been created surrounding the SEO industry. It is often fueled by greed and hope of getting something for nothing.

It is easy for liars to make something believable to people who know little about the topic. This has created an ugly monster of the SEO industry.

The SEO Monster Eats, Every Day!

In just the last spin of the clock, I have had several people ask me for information about automated directory submission services to improve their search engine ranking. It reminds me that most people really do not understand SEO. Judging from the glazed look on their faces, I can tell that many people really don’t want to understand. They just want it to magically work. I understand that, and I can imagine how frustrating and stressful it must be for non-SEO people to filter reliable information about search engine optimization through all of the common SEO lies (although this may help: 7 SEO Lies: How to Know When the SEO is Lying).

Outdated, Outrageous, and Downright Dishonest SEO Garbage

There is so much bad information and outdated material spread across the Internet that I think it would frustrate the heck out of me if I was trying to feel my way through it for the first time. What bothers me is how many people are out there trying to earn a buck by selling things that do not help, and even more commonly, severely damage paying customers’ hopes of being found in a search engine.

The world of SEO truly is like a foreign language to most people. They read something about SEO and meta tags, and they think they are on to something revolutionary. It just stuns me that with all of the great information out here on the Internet, how many people are fooled by the first scam they come across.

For some people, I think there is a sense that if it is written, it must hold some truth. Once they find out the hard way that it was a scam and it didn’t work, they either give up and hate everything about SEO, or they take the time to learn the difference and read something sensible and logic-based like “Good SEO vs. Bad SEO: How to Tell the Difference“.

Even in large corporate settings, I have often found people in the role of search engine optimizer collecting a nice salary who got their job just by spouting out a few industry buzz words. The people hiring them are either enamored by their “vast knowledge”, or just give up and offer them a job on blind faith.

A really hard pill to swallow is that most of today’s SEO “experts” have never ranked for anything significantly competitive. That is not a gouge against my industry, and these people are not my competitors. It is a statistical truth. To make this point clear, just have a look at the backlinks to most SEO websites and then see where they rank for the first four words of their home page title. Try this with the website of the SEO who reaches you by email, on the phone, or in a paid advertisement, instead of you finding them through a search.

Productized SEO Services Created a Monster

I think that productizing SEO and selling easy to understand pre-packaged SEO services has created and fed this monster. As an industry, those of us who sell SEO services realized a long time ago that it is much easier to package things up and say “Here is your price, and here is what you get.”

This certainly makes it easier to sell SEO. After all, it is easier for clients to choose from a list and compare it to what others offer. Also, it is a lot more profitable for the SEO to create something once, and sell it many times. The truth is that it is seldom what is best for meeting the customer’s objectives, and it creates a mentality that ranking well in search engines is merely a predefined set of SEO tasks.

This is not to say that things like SEOmoz’s SEO tools, SpyFu, and the squillion other SEO tools are not just great. These are tools, but like a paintbrush, they are only as good as the person using them. A tragedy that happened is when a lot of SEO realized that they could sell far more, and easier, if they promised something such as top ten ranking for “x” number of keywords and then price it and put it in a shopping cart for people to buy. There are countless types of SEO services being promoted with a “buy it now” approach, without any consultation, without any strategy, and with a promise of easy results.

Do you really trust anything that is so easy? OK, rephrase … Do you really trust anything that is so easy in 2011?

Directory Submission Service Example

I started my rant with directory submissions, and I will still use it as an example. “What is a directory submission service?” I hope that is what you are thinking, but in case you did not already know, I will explain it. It is a once-heralded way to automatically submit a website to long lists of search engines and directories, with a hope that it would help search engine rankings, bring more visitors to a website, and boost sales.

I suppose it seems logical to a lot of people that if they use SEO directory submission services to add their website link to a squillion directories and search engines, it will produce magical results. Now let’s clear this up. Seriously, do you think that a magical automated fix like directory and search engine submissions will be your pink pony ride to success?

Oh, and nobody else ever thought of that, so it will be revolutionary! Right? Search engines will suck that up like grape soda and will count all of those backlinks (links to your website) as proof that your website is valuable.

Rub a lamp, sucker! Maybe a Genie will come to your assistance, too.

The Productized SEO Monster Awakens My Inner-Sailor

There are just a few things which make it hard for me to hold back my inner sailor and refrain from dropping severely foul language all over my blog. People falling for things like automated directory submissions and other simple tricks helping their SEO efforts is one of those things. I just don’t think I can even be nice about this. Shit! Call it a temporary case of Tourette’s Syndrome, but this inner-sailor in me is wanting out pretty badly.

People who actually fall for things like this drive me nuts. I just want to say “Hey, Genius, do you want to know the truth, or would you rather waste more money and time to screw up your website?”

If you want the real truth about SEO, slow down, pay attention, and stop breathing those SEO fumes in the air. Spend some time to learn things that will actually work, and will help you to grow your business. For example, those links in the text of this article are not just there for me, and they may help you, a lot. Better yet, here is a link for some relatively easy SEO tips that can save you a lot of time and frustration: SEO Lessons You Should Know.

These tips will not cost you a penny, and will only take a short time to read. Maybe I am just full of hot air, but if so, go ahead and search Google for SEO lessons and see where that link I just gave you shows up in non-advertised, relevance-based organic results. Hint: It is not number two on the list.

I do not write about this because I am seeking a bunch of customers. I only work with a couple clients at a time, and I turn away far more than I work with. Yes, writing about SEO helps people to find me, but it is not just here to help me. This is here to help you.

Just one more thing! Have you subscribed to aWebGuy.com yet?

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SEO and Conversion: Increasing Website Traffic is Only Part of SEO

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.

What do you think?

Photo credit to landofnodstudios via Flickr

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