Internet marketing Archives - Page 8 of 18 by Mark Murnahan

New SEO Acronym to Replace SEO by 2012?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Malabar Grey Hornbill photo courtesy of Rathika Ramasamy
via Wikipedia

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Blogging Tip: Use Your Experience and Blog What You Know

Blogging from experience may not seem all that revolutionary. After all, I suspect that if you write a blog, you probably already understand this. It is best to blog things you know, and know well. I want to drive the point a bit further and inspire you to use your experience, and to pull from the experience of others around you.

I will tell you where I find much of my inspiration, in hopes that it may help your creative process. When I reflect on my work, it is pretty easy to find blogging material directly from my daily life. I blog about things I know, but not just something I pulled out of the back reaches of my mind. I blog about things I have actually encountered … usually recently. Some of the best stuff comes from questions people ask me. When I hear something a few times, I start to think to myself “I’ll bet there are a lot of other people who would like to know more about this, too.” A great benefit of blogging this way is that it becomes “evergreen” blogging material which is useful for more than just the moment. It often becomes something people can look back into my archives and find useful months, or even years later.

Blog What People Ask You … They Are Not Alone!

If your work inspires questions from people, blog about it. It is usually true that others have the same questions, too. Listen to things people ask you over the phone, in email, or even in the grocery store line. If you are paid for answering the questions, don’t worry about giving something up for free. If you are not answering the question, you can bet that somebody on the Internet is willing to, and they will be a lot closer to getting the new customer if they are the one being helpful.

Blog from Others’ Experience, Too!

Do not limit it to just your own experience. Ask your receptionist, customer service representatives, sales staff, service technicians, customers, and others in your line of work what people are asking them or what challenges they face in their jobs. Keep in touch with your front line so that you will know what people want to know. These are the things people also ask when they sit down at their computer … with their favorite search engine.

Make it Easy and Make it Useful!

Don’t mess this all up by trying to sound too impressive or trying to use the most amazing industry buzzwords. In some instances it is best to keep it really simple and write it as if search engines don’t exist. Word it similar to the way it is posed to you. If you are an attorney and somebody asks you a legal question, blog about it in a useful, human, and conversational way. Don’t make it a lecture filled with a bunch of legal industry terms that we don’t understand, and don’t keyword it up just hoping to land people from every possible search engine query.

If you make it useful, easy to read, and it is something people want to know about, they will find it. Once they find it, the real search engine optimization comes into play, because it is relevant to people’s questions. Relevant enough that people will share it with others and all of the sudden you have yourself a blog that becomes popular. Then the SEO keyword stuff and assumptions about SEO being a bunch of tricky programming code and geeky witchcraft starts to look pretty darn silly. Sure, that stuff matters to a degree, but if it clouds the view of the people, you will be doing them a disservice.

Use your experience, and do not assume that just because it seems obvious to you that it is not useful to somebody else with a different background.

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SEO Blogging Tip: Blog Like Search Engines Don’t Exist

I am not going to tell you to ignore search engines totally, but it is important that you strike a balance in favor of people over search engines. It is really easy to get caught in a trap of writing and optimizing everything just to be listed the most prominently in search engines.

I have written about a lot of SEO topics, provided a lot of useful blogging tools, and shared some really good reasons to blog. One thing that I am not so sure I have really said enough about is the notion of writing as if the search engines never existed.

I try to have this thought in my mind with every article I write, but even I am often caught in a trap. It is really easy to get a little too keyword choosy and worry yourself with keyword density and all the other SEO magic, to the point where it is no longer useful or interesting to the people who are ultimately your audience. Without them, you are kind of like a dog chasing a railroad train. What would you do with those search engine results without the people? I mean interested people who receive benefit from what you have to share with them.

Ask yourself this question: “How much differently would I do this if search engines did not exist.”

SEO Blogging Tip Summary

In summary, my SEO Blogging Tip today is this: Don’t get caught in a trap of doing things just for search engines. Remember your audience, and that they are people … not machines. You can still sneak in some awesome SEO keyword value, but the people are what matter the most. Since you are one of those people, and I care about you, I offer you a video to help you remember what I have shared with you on this topic.

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Marketing Strategy: Do Shit They Will Remember!

Yes, It Is Me. Yes, It Is My Chopper. — Yes, That Is My Chopper.

Are you being memorable? Do you recall a silly little man cruising the aisles of the grocery store nagging people to not squeeze the Charmin? His name was Mr. Whipple. OK, maybe that one is too old for you to remember, or you are not familiar with American pop culture. I remember it, and I’ll bet there are millions of others who do as well.

Maybe you remember Elvis Presley. Does he even need a last name? Can you remember what kind of outfits he wore? That’s right, he wore a lot of glittery white outfits and huge bell-bottom pants.

You don’t need a squillion dollars and a huge staff to be memorable. This is one of the beautiful things about the Internet. You just need some creativity and knowledge of spreading your message using search engine optimization and social media marketing. You don’t really even need these things, because they are available for hire! So, what is keeping you from making your brand more memorable? Are you afraid of shaking things up? Don’t worry. You don’t have to be outrageous, either. A consistent brand message that is all your own can still be memorable without being absurd or over-the-top.

Who Invented Business in Blue Jeans?

I guess I don’t really have the answer to this, but I retired my suits years before it became popular. It was not because I had a problem with the attire, but rather that it would often misrepresent my intentions. Many sales managers still believe that the “authority” of wearing a suit is important in instilling value to a product or service. It may strike some people as odd, but I have signed more million dollar deals in blue jeans than in a suit. I realized long ago that wearing a nice pair of blue jeans or casual slacks was more disarming. It made people more comfortable just seeing me being comfortable, and it even made me more memorable. If a client wanted to know that I am an authority, they could look out in the parking lot to see the motorcycle I rode in on that cost more than a house or two in most towns. It is far less assuming than a sharp suit, and better for conversation, too.

More memorable than anything else is that I would rather walk through spiderwebs and kiss a dog on the ass than to mislead people just to get what I want from them. If I don’t have what it is they need or want, I will be happy to help them find it, but I will not misrepresent something to make it fit. Honesty … now that is memorable!

What Will Make You Memorable?

Don’t be afraid to be a dubeshag. No, it is not what you think. “Dubeshag” is a nice word I made up a few months ago to describe people who can make their own waves instead of trying to surf everybody else’ wave. I guess the idea was memorable enough that it kind of caught on. Google now returns over 26,400 results for the word which had zero representation a few months ago. That is what I mean by being creative and memorable.

In short, I would suggest being creative. Think differently, because thinking just like everybody else is probably not your golden ticket. If you cannot think different from a crowd, hire somebody to do the thinking for you. Don’t be afraid to polarize your audience along the way, because you simply can’t make butter if you don’t stir the milk.

What do you think? What will make you different from the millions of others out there in the vast Internet marketplace? Can you set yourself apart and do shit they will remember?

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Marketing Fail: You Want to Sell Me What?!

Have you ever wondered how there came to be so many Internet marketing experts and search engine optimizers in the world? My guess is because it is so darn easy a caveman could do it. At least it seems that is what they were told back at marketing school.

I love marketing. It is the only reason I watch the Super Bowl. I love to see great marketing, and to watch companies take off like an eagle. The unfortunate reality is that unskilled marketing flies with all the grace of the dodo bird.

I want to share two extreme examples of marketing failure I have recently been assaulted by. I received each of these in just the last few hours, and they come in great abundance each and every day. I think these examples explain a lot about why I encounter so many people skeptical about their marketing efforts. It is this kind of marketing that damages my whole industry.

Marketing Fail One: “Mould Providing”?

I will start with an email message I received only a few hours ago offering to sell me molds. Molds? Yes, molds! Why somebody would try to sell me molds is way over my head. This marketing failure was not only way off the target audience, but they even spelled the product name differently (language variance) in the subject line and body of the email. Then they went on to write the email as if they were the SEO just out of search engine optimization school trying to make the most of their keywords. I guess they needed to search engine optimize their email for some reason. Needless to say, I will not be purchasing any molds (or moulds either), so don’t even go there!

This goes well beyond just a language or cultural barrier, so before you give this “Marketing Engineer” a break, consider how he and millions of other spammers like him damage the marketplace for others. They collectively hinder the attention span and trust of each of us and make us more stubborn about our marketing expectations.

Subject: Mould Providing
Dear Sir/Madam,

Our company, King Mold Limited is located in Shenzhen City Guangdong province of China. We are middle size of mold maker company and about 100 machines in house. We made about 500 molds last year and 90% molds were exported to Europe, North American and other oversea areas.We are able to make small and simple molds, big and complex molds, we have made some insert molds, overmolds, two shot molds, gas assistant molds, unscrewing molds, hot runner molds and complex molds with many sliders drived by hydraulic cylinder.

Thank you for your time in advance. Your prompt attention will be highly appreciated!

Sincerely yours,

Tony /Marketing Engineer

You may be curious how Tony the Marketing Engineer targeted me for this brilliant marketing campaign. Yes, I was curious, too. You know, I love tracking things, because I am a marketer. This particular marketing failure came by way of email addressed to “thebigcheese@veryimportantguy.com” which is an address that I used in only one place … ever. That was in a blog article I wrote at “Mobile – Local – Social” titled “Cc: How Social Media Killed Email“, and I knew at the time some email spiders would come and scoop up the email address.

Marketing Fail Two: First Page Google Listing

First, I want to explain that this email came from my contact page here at aWebGuy.com and the sender had to pass a Captcha form to send it. What makes me want to reach out and ring the collective neck of this form of marketing “expert” is that it has lead a lot of people to really think of search engine optimization (SEO) as a joke. Here is the email I received:

Want more clients and customers? We will help them find you by putting you on the 1st page of Google. Email us back to get a full proposal

I wonder what, exactly they would like to get me ranked on the first page of Google with. Maybe the term “how to sell SEO“? Oh yeah, but I am already ranked in the top two for that search, and it has nothing to do with spamming people. I am already there for about a squillion competitive industry terms. I mean, it is what I do professionally. Maybe they can get me on the Google home page just under the logo … how much does that cost?

What really drives me nuts about this is that although it separates the good SEO and bad SEO, it still gives a lot of companies a real reason to hate people in my industry. It makes it even harder to overcome that disgusting image of some fat un-bathed guy in a pair of filthy nylon boxers sending out email and tweeting some crap about his new “earn money fast online” scheme and how he is the real deal and he can make your company successful overnight.

Screw it … I think I’ll go back to bed. My head hurts from thinking about it. If you leave me a comment, that is fine, but I am not buying any damn SEO or molds, so put it out of your mind right now!

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