seo Archives - Page 10 of 27 by Mark Murnahan

SEO For Hire: The Worst Job for an Honest Person

I have been in the business of SEO (search engine optimization) for over a decade, and it has provided me a very handsome living in that time. I fell in love with the SEO field with the excitement of having nearly anything I ever really wanted listed at the top of search engines reach the top, and remain there. I still do that, today … every day.

In the time I have been in the SEO industry, I have accumulated so many stories of winning that it is no wonder it feels like a bad drug habit, and I am addicted. Through the 2000’s, SEO was the basis of my means to sell millions of dollars in Internet access and web hosting services to over 2000 Internet access providers and web hosts. I rocked that market and earned squillions as the CEO of a wholesale Internet services company. SEO was really fun, indeed!

Adding to all the fun and games, I have enjoyed things like a relatively small client crediting me for increasing their new home sales by over $82 million in the first year they were my client. That is like an intravenous drug to me, and hearing how many jobs it created for that somewhat small organization means that I have done something meaningful.

I have a lot of stories like these, which keep me going and keep me seeking that next “drug” high.

When SEO Became the Worst Job

I have really had a blast performing my work for clients over the years, and I still love performing the work. However, it was a lot more fun back before every con artist jumped in and said they could do the same thing for pennies, and then cheat customers out of their money. Liars and cheats have made a mockery of the SEO industry, and given people reasons to doubt the truth.

Of course, a good SEO can see right through the lies, but many business customers cannot tell the difference between good SEO and bad SEO. Although I have tried to warn many people, lies about SEO have lead a lot of people by the nose (and the wallet).

I have often said that business is great, if not for all of these damn customers.

For much of my career in search engine optimization, I have worked as the man behind the curtain, as a sub-contractor for other firms. That is largely because I have often felt, and said that “business is great if not for all of these damn customers.” What I mean by that phrase is that in a field where I am quite deeply engrossed and knowledgeable, it can be very challenging to bring SEO down to a level that people will relate to and understand. I am simply not a good person to ask if it is helpful to be listed in the top of search listings when somebody searches for something in your industry. I am a really bad guy to ask whether marketing is a commodity and if everybody can do it just the same.

I have written my thoughts of dealing with prospective clients who do not understand, nor wish to understand, what it takes to develop really effective SEO and social media marketing. I believe I said it well in an article titled “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO“.

SEO is Like a Drug Habit, and I May Relapse

Although I may have a relapse from time to time, I have finally decided to set a course to end my services for hire by mid-2011, in order to focus on other endeavors. As I have indicated, SEO is like an addiction to me, so I know that if I do not actually say it in public, right here on my blog, I will probably never quit it.

The fact remains that the field of performing SEO for clients has lost much of the joy. I am tired of having people return to me for cleaning up the messes of another SEO after they decided to go with the cheap guy with a pocket full of fairy dust. More than that, I am tired of defending the truth while realizing that the truth is not what people really want.

For the past couple years, I have sought to gain retail clients to work with directly. I decided to take on a small group of clients who understand what it really means to build success. The ignorance (don’t know), apathy (don’t care to know), and dishonesty (will lie about it) that I have witnessed in the last couple years have caused me to lose much faith in the SEO industry and in the popular business mindset of the day.

Unfortunately, I find that far too many business people are not interested in creating real success when they can settle for just getting by. As a web guy who really does care about delivering results for a client, I have decided that the ignorance, apathy, and dishonesty of the SEO industry, and much of the SEO shopping public are not worthwhile to me.

I am tired of explaining the difference between doing something, and doing something well. Being able to prove results and giving factual proven data, but then having people too indifferent or scared to take the best actions for their own benefit drags me down and quite honestly makes me very sad. I see the actions of the large number of businesses who reach out to me as a microcosm of what is wrong with our business world and our economy today.

There are still a lot of myths to bust and lessons to teach, so I intend to continue blogging on topics of the SEO and social media marketing industry, for now. Besides, I still plan to perform search engine optimization.

Maybe once I officially do not take clients, people will have more trust when I say that the majority of what you hear about SEO and social media marketing is bullshit. It actually does require work, and it actually does require marketing talent to build success.

Your comments and/or well wishes are welcome here. If you can relate to this, I would love to hear your stories! If you would rather throw tomatoes at me, that is just fine as well.

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How SEO and Social Media Are Like Sex Drugs and Nigerian Scams

Achieve Stronger More Enjoyable Campaigns

The majority of the world’s population do not need sex drugs. Likewise, the majority of the world’s population do not need SEO and social media marketing. If you try to convince a spammer of this, their ears turn off. They just don’t get it, because they know that one in “X” squillion people who receive their message will respond.

It is easy to compare the propagation of false and misleading information about SEO and social media marketing to the false and misleading spam of sex drugs and Nigerian banking scams. It is also easy to compare the changes of social media’s growing spam to the way email turned spammy. A huge problem I see is that social media propagates the spam of social media. When SEO and social media is flooded with deception, it devalues the industry and creates much skepticism of these useful services.

I suppose I should define what it is that I am comparing to sexual aids and Nigerian bank scams. In case you have not seen the same kind of spam I see every day, I will just give you a quick note on each of these “sex drugs” and “Nigerian scams” of modern day.

SEO is search engine optimization, and it deals with creating higher ranking in search engine results, increasing website conversion, data analysis, and much more. Most of the world’s educated population do not have any idea what SEO means, or what it involves. This fact opens the floodgates for abuse and fraud by “SEO experts” who will stop at nothing to get your money and provide disastrous results in return. There are a lot of crooks out there actively selling SEO with a pitch consisting largely of “You need meta tags on your website to improve your listings in search engines.” Of course, that is a lie, and I can prove it, but I guess lies are easier than the truth for some people.

Social Media Marketing means marketing. Most of us realize that Twitter is not just for spouting off about what you had for lunch, and that Facebook is not just for talking about your kids, your spouse, or how drunk that dude got at the party last night. They are also not just for making more “friends” to pitch your goods to. Against popular adoption of the term, social media marketing does not mean spewing your latest specials and acting like a used car dealer. It means respectful, targeted, creative marketing and other customer communications that can withstand the scrutiny of others and provide sustainable value to a brand.

SEO and Social Media Are Like Futuristic Sex Drugs

The sex drug market took off like a rocket and ridiculous numbers of (low-life, sleazy, bottom-feeding, law-breaking, unethical) people wanted a piece of that market. It was presented as a fast way to get rich, and for a relatively tiny few, it came true. People like sex, and they like money, so this seemed like a perfect plan to get rich. You have probably been a victim of this dreadful pandemic.

If nobody has ever hit you up with their sex drug specials, you are an exception, and I will kiss your ring and address you as my Supreme Leader!

Perhaps the biggest craze to ever hit the Internet is the lure of easy money, and there are squillions of people who will insist that easy money is out there for the taking if you just sign up for their “plan” and give them a credit card number. Many will even tell you that they can make anybody rich with little effort and in just a few hours per day. SEO and social media are the obvious vehicles of choice for carrying out these get rich quick plans, and so they have become extremely popular. The glimmer of hope to have more tomorrow than they have today is just enough to create a spark in people that sets off an explosion.

I have to question the course of seo and social media marketing over time. Of course, it is my job, so it matters to me. It should really matter to a lot of the “innocent” people out there, too. I realize that most people have not been around the Internet or as utterly consumed by it for as long as I have, so the question may seem a bit innocuous to some. A lot of things seem pretty harmless until they get as annoying as a swarm of mosquitoes or actually reach out and cause you direct harm.

I have a lot of questions about the direction of this Internet space we all love. A concern that regularly comes to mind is how it seems that social media is moving the way of email. I remember when email was simple, and required relatively minor adjustments for email spam. Of course, that did not last long. As the use of email spread wide and fast, a lot of sleazy people found ways to make it far less productive, and eventually very costly to consumers. Once the sex drugs reached the market, email hit a really rough spot that it has still never been able to fully overcome. Now it is estimated that over 97 percent of email is spam. The overall percentage of unwanted business social media communication is likely even higher, as the world has been introduced to the “everybody is a marketer” craze and more people are dying to get their hands on all of that easy money available on the Internet.

The truth sucks for a lot of people, but I like to share it anyway. There are millions of people trying to market millions of products, while only a small percentile will take the care to be successful at it, or develop the required marketing talent. There is often no way to prove this to somebody other than to just give them time and watch them give up and fail. Tragically, this demographic are often lured back in when along comes another “plan”, another great “deal” that will make them successful … but this time it is different, and it is a “sure bet”.

I certainly love to dream big, and I never want to squash anybody’s dream. Instead, I just wish for them to have more dedication and better planning for their dreams than to assume it is as simple as what many people will claim.

The allure of easy money is strong, and because of this, it is easy to prey on people’s emotions by offering them an easier solution. That strong demand for a perfect answer to making more money has driven the need for SEO and social media marketing. In reality, SEO and social media are useful marketing tools, but unfortunately the candy brought in a lot of cockroaches.

The majority of the unwanted and spammy social media communication that I witness are attempts to either sell SEO and social media marketing services, or to recruit others to do the same spammy things with an expectation of earning a profit. With an eye on the future, does this really seem like a good plan for success? Sure, we can say that it will die out as more people figure out that it is largely fraudulent, but then, I seem to still find a lot of sex drug offerings in my email every day (thousands per day).

Is Social Media Going The Way of Email?

Social media has revealed and honed some brilliant creative marketers, and the gap between good and mediocre is constantly widening. Pareto’s principle of 80/20 will always apply to marketing, just as it does in any industry. The tragedy is that there is a constant spread of misinformation that SEO and social media marketing creates easy profit and that anybody can do it just as well as the next. I believe that as long as there are still people falling prey to these lies, the integrity of the industry will largely be shrouded in mystery and doubt.

What are your thoughts? Are you fooled by the “easy money” hype of today’s social media?

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Blogging Tips: Use Evergreen Content and Revive Your Archive

Have you ever noticed that when you visit a blog, you generally only look through the most recent articles? It is pretty common that upon visiting a blog’s home page, people will just scan through a few items and see if there is something they want to read. In the blogging world, it is often assumed that newer is better, but this is quite often not the case. It is just more visible.

I am guilty of looking at the date something was published. I am not sure why in some cases, but I guess I am just so accustomed to seeing a date on blog articles. I suppose it is just one more way that people can feel that they are getting the latest and greatest news. A reality check for bloggers and readers alike can come in the form of these two little questions:

For Blog Readers: What about all of the great information that is not just recent or new?
For Blog Authors: What about the people who are not there for the news, but who just want great information?

I have noticed many blogs removing their publish date from articles, and it actually makes sense for some blogs. If the information is still useful, does it really matter whether it was written this week, this month, or even this year? A lot of great information is timeless. As I ponder this, I am reminded of an article I wrote about eight or nine years ago on the topic of H1 tags titled “H1 Tags Improve Search Engine Placement”. Thousands of people per month read that article. It is the top ranked article in search engines on the topic, and has been since the day I published it. Does the date really matter? H1 tags (web page headings) are still as important today as they were then. The information is still useful.

Some Blogs Are “Evergreen”

When I say “evergreen”, I mean that the information is as useful a year from now as it is today. Blogs have widely varying degrees of “evergreen” content, but most business blogs will have a good level of content that is still relevant and useful for a long time. It would be pretty hard for most businesses to have a blog that was no better than a used newspaper.

For blog authors, it can sometimes feel like a huge shame that people are actually missing some of your greatest pieces of work. So what do you do? Do you try to make everything more genius than the last? That is a good idea, but it is probably not always going to work. In my case, I know darn well that some days I am just a whole lot less brilliant than I would like. I often write blog articles on those days, too.

Scanning through the first few items listed on the home page of your blog is often how new readers will decide whether to come back, subscribe to your blog, or schedule an afternoon of reading through page after page of your past articles. This makes it pretty important to have something right up front to impress them, but how? You cannot just leave your best work parked on the front page of your blog forever. Your regular readers would get sick of seeing it. Do you just stop blogging until you can come up with something to beat the last piece? That is probably not the best answer. In fact, that is a pretty terrible answer.

You could republish some of your best work, but the same problem of repetition arises when you consider your long-time readers. Plus for many blogs where the date is part of the URL, there is the tragedy of changing the URL where all of those great incoming links are pointing. Sure, a 301 permanent redirect to the article’s new location is easy, but you still lose some of the link value for those older works.

Of course, you could just count on excellent search engine ranking for everything on your blog, and use Google as your website navigation. That way, if they are looking for it they will find you anyway. I have often counted on this, but then again, search engine optimization is my job. What about the people already on your blog who may find some of your past articles to be really useful? Larger websites often have a user-friendly sitemap to help people find useful information. The equivalent for a blog is the archive. Website search tools are excellent, but some people want to browse, and you should make it easy for them.

What about all of those readers discovering your blog from an older article? Will they even notice your most recent brilliance? What can you do to grab their attention to your latest and greatest stuff? Maybe a better solution is to create more evergreen content and to revive your archive.

Revive Your Archive!

Scanning the home page of a blog makes sense if you are a regular reader who has participated in the blog for a while, or if the blog is mostly about recent news. Let’s face it, though, many blogs are full of “evergreen” content that is not just seasonal or only applies to right now. If this is the case with your blog, it is a good idea to promote some of your past articles for those who may have missed them. The trouble is that you don’t want to annoy your current readers by saying the same old thing over and over. So how do you deal with keeping things current and fresh, while also being sure that people can see that you have been brilliant long before they happened upon your blog?

You can tell where this is going, right? Sure, I want you to go back and browse my blog archive. There are some excellent tips there, and a lot of information that I am confident can help you. I also want to be sure that you are thinking of this with your blog, so I am not just being selfish.

Make Your Blog Archive Easy to Navigate!

I have noticed that it is easy to assume that I have not missed much on some of the blogs I regularly keep up with. However, I still sometimes like to go back through the archives of my favorite blogs. Sometimes this can be a hassle, and sometimes it is a breeze. Now consider the people reading your blog, do you want it to be a hassle for them, or a breeze?

There are a lot of types of archives, but many of them require a lot of clicking back through a chronological month-by-month archive structure or going to the end of the page and clicking on a link for previous articles. Some will have archives nicely paginated so you can flip through them quickly. Other blogs seem to make it a challenge to read what they have had to say in the past.

A lot of blogs have killed their tag clouds, and do not even show their tags on posts. I still love them, and appreciate bloggers who make a tag cloud available, or at least tags on individual posts. For example, go click on a tag for this article (listed at the bottom, such as blogging) and see how easy it is to find more related information. Some blogs do not even list the blog categories for articles. Call me old fashioned, but I still love tags and categories. I can use them to find other things with similar information. I think I love them even more because I know from my website statistics logs that they are used extensively by readers on my blog.

I hope that you will consider your archived blog content and how you may keep it easily accessible. Making it easy for people to find and for them to browse could add up to a lot more subscribers over time. You may notice that on my blog, I have my archive linked at the very top of every page, just below the recent articles listed on the left, and at the bottom of every article along with links to my most recent articles. Isn’t redundancy awesome?

10 Really Good Reasons to Blog
6 Essential Blogging Tools for Bloggers and Non-Bloggers
Weren’t you reading? Go click on one of the tags listed below or on my blog archive. 😉

Image credit to MPF via Wikipedia

Why Do SEO Lie? Their Customers Demand It!

You can often catch me defending the importance of search engine optimization, but I am just as likely to criticize the industry. Actually, I tend to be more critical than defensive, but today I am defending the industry honor. This is because although there are a lot of slimy, no good, low-life, bottom feeding, liars, cheats, and rip-off search engine optimizers on the fringe of my industry, there are also many SEO with integrity. These are the men and women in the SEO field who work hard and uphold good business values and deliver on their promises. These are people who take pride in their work and are as excited to see their clients succeed as the clients themselves. So the question must be asked, “Why do SEO lie?” and we should also question the reasons it has become an expected norm in the field. It turns out that a lot of people simply cannot handle the truth and the market started demanding lies. The truth is that it takes more time, knowledge, and expense than most SEO will be willing to tell you. The lies are a whole lot easier for most people to take.

I have done a lot of thinking about why SEO lie and I think I have some good insight to the matter. I have been in the Internet business since about the time graphical browsers came into existence and I have earned millions of dollars for myself and my clients as a search engine optimizer. This is nothing new to me, and I have watched the evolution from beginning through today. I want to share a bit of that with you, and I hope you will understand this from the point of view of a guy with no reason or intent to lie to you. Note that although I may say I am “for hire”, I am extremely selective about who I will work with, and it is statistically unlikely that you will be one of them. That said, if I bullshit you once, just stop reading and move on.

SEO was once a field in which the biggest challenge was to help people understand the value and the need to be listed at the top of search engine results. Being listed as number one in search results delivers many times the return of being listed lower. If you want to learn more about the math, just read the article “Improve SEO Return on Investment (ROI) With Simple Math“.

A Reason to Perform SEO

I will tell you why I entered the industry of search engine optimization for hire, and fell in love with it. Once upon a time, I merged two companies and created a monster. When I say a monster, I mean something big and with teeth that could bite the head off the competitors. We were in the field of website development, web hosting, Internet access and many other things Internet-related. We quickly found that marketing online was really effective, and we made a stand in the wholesale end of the Internet as the geeks behind the geeks. We found ourselves providing Internet access and web hosting services to over 2,000 Internet service providers and web hosts. It soon got to a point when we made calculated efforts to avoid the retail customer. We were doing so well at wholesale services that I often found myself saying “business is great if it wasn’t for all these damn customers!” What we knew was that it had everything to do with our reach in search engines, and so that was obviously an important service offering. What this means is that I joined the industry because I was already successful at it for my own services. I did not enter the SEO field to earn money, I entered it because it was already earning me money.

By providing SEO services to our customers, our customers can sell more, and in the wholesale end of the industry, that is great. Making customers successful means that they sell more, and since the service our customers sell comes from us, it is an obvious formula for success.

Where SEO Lies Began … The Money

Because SEO was such a lucrative field for top performers, it only made sense that there would eventually be an ugly turn in the market. When money flows fast and easy, it is very alluring for every con artist with a computer and a modem. Don’t tell me you have not seen this sort of greed online unless you have never received an unsolicited email for pharmaceuticals. SEO took on an ugly face as it was flooded with people making false claims and unrealistic promises. This was bolstered with extremely high demand for quality search engine optimization that could not be met by the relatively small number of good SEO vs. bad SEO, and due to the huge growth of the Internet.

High demand created a challenge for many SEO, because the industry not only had to explain the needs and benefits of search engine optimization, but also to defend themselves against a growing public perception that was created by the fringe of our industry trying to cash in on the latest craze. This created a market where legitimate SEO had to compete with liars with nothing to lose. On the surface, it put us at a disadvantage, because we planned to be there for the long haul, while the SEO who lie are just there to collect their money and move on and change their company name as needed. In many instances it caused the skilled to stand out, but many SEO took a stance that “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

SEO is Flooded In Recent Years

SEO has taken some obvious directional changes over the past couple years as companies desperately seek cost-effective answers to their marketing needs. The most sensible answers are usually not the easiest or most comfortable for businesses, and this paved the way for an even larger majority of fringe SEO willing to lie to get their business. Many dirty SEO have preyed on notions that if it is cheaper, it must be lower risk, and that search engine optimization is something way over the customer’s head.

The Internet has grown at an astonishing rate, and along with that, there is a huge population of website owners who know so little about the Internet that they are very easy to cheat out of their money by offering them false hopes. Just consider how easy it would be to lie and cheat somebody who knows little to nothing about an industry, and has little patience to learn enough to make good decisions. Then add in the desperation of a recession and you have a formula for disaster.

Many people launching a new website are of the mindset that it will be a quick and easy way to rake in a ton of business and that SEO must be pretty much the same everywhere. This is a huge open door to fraud and misrepresentation of the industry as something confusing and technical. Just imagine how easy it would be to make up a few catchy lines to confuse the public and haul in the money.

What really hurt the industry over time is that as more of the professional SEO who really do know the industry and do a good job for their clients are asked to justify the cost of SEO, more of them lowered their standards to become affordable. It made it likely for honest SEO to take on projects without the resources they needed and only deliver a fraction of what they otherwise could. It started going downhill from there, and it began to blur the lines between the skilled and the unskilled. It caused many of the good SEO to tell seemingly innocent lies of the hard work and long hours it really takes to do the job well. It lowered the good just a little closer to the level of the liars. This also drove many of the good search engine optimizers out of the SEO-for-hire market to focus on their own SEO projects.

Why Would a Good SEO Need You?

It is important to consider that good search engine optimizers who know the job can choose their products and choose their clients. Any time you hire a good SEO, you are buying their time away from other projects, and that creates a cost to them in the way of lost opportunities elsewhere. The best results often come from the SEO who chooses to work for hire because they love it. All the same, they will expect to be compensated well to achieve your success, and often in the form of “pay for performance“.

On that note, I will say that the continued decline of the SEO-for-hire industry is the reason I have recently been blogging less frequently than usual. I am working on my own projects and taking less time to share my talent with others. After all, for the good SEO with integrity and knowledge, we will always earn more by doing the job for ourselves than to do it for our clients. I hope that you will consider this fact when you seek a search engine optimization provider.

I know, my picture says “For Hire”, but the truth is that it is only for those rare few who are not fooled by the lies. It would take a couple sticks of dynamite and a bulldozer to fully drag me away from some of the projects I am working on. Either that or a client with a real understanding of the job at hand and willing to realize that much of what they hear about SEO is a lie. Especially the notion that it is cheap, easy, or the same everywhere.

Search engine optimization done well is worth the effort and the challenges. It is what makes companies more successful than their competition, and it has an important place in nearly any business. I have no reason to lie to you about that.

Good search engine optimizers will agree with the decline of integrity in the industry, while others will prefer to sweep this bit of ugliness under the rug and keep on lying. There will always be those with integrity to defend. In my case, I feel like I can defend SEO for hire more effectively from the outside looking in, and separating myself from what I see as a good market gone in a bad direction.

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Crazy Things People Search For

People search for the craziest things online. Looking at your website statistics to see the searches people use to find your website can be an eye-opener. I discover thousands of bizarre and unexpected searches which lead people to my websites, and some of them quite useful. This can be quite entertaining, and also very beneficial for understanding people and the ways they search.

I constantly hear from people begging to be at the top of search engine results for specific terms. I often find that the things they want to rank for are about as well researched and thought out as balancing a three ton hippopotamus on a popsicle stick above your grandmother’s fine China collection. There are two problems with this: 1.) Somebody is going to get hurt. 2.) It does not work well, mathematically.

Most website owners do not have a clue about how to select the search terms to target, or even what people are already using to find their website. Even fewer know how to target useful search terms, or anything at all about the enormous value of lateral keywords which can often account for far more website traffic than the terms they desire. This is to your advantage, because now you do have a clue. You can thank me with your comments.

Reviewing the actual terms people type into a search engine to find things is truly astonishing. It is also an important way to better understand people and what they want. If you do not use tools like Google Analytics or Clicky statistics, you should.

The topic of how people search the Internet came up in conversation with a client yesterday. He pointed out a competing website which was ranking higher in search engines than his website. Of course, it was for his “hippopotamus-balancing” keyword selection which he thought must be important, because everybody else was targeting it. He got a quick schooling when I pointed out how few people were actually searching for that keyword phrase, and that according to available measurements (Compete.com, Alexa.com, Quantcast.com, Open Site Explorer and others) his website receives over 1,000 times more visitors and incoming links, and is ranked well for thousands of search terms. He kind of shut up after I showed him that, and I had my mind’s-eye vision of doing a victory dance. Then I pointed out his high conversion rate and had to take a step backward to preserve my personal space before he could slap on a big man-hug or kiss me square on the lips for all the money he is making.

Strange Ways People Search the Internet

It is easy to assume what people are searching for. It is also a huge point of failure for the majority of businesses trying to promote their product or service. I find too many people who make assumptions of the keyword phrases people will use to find them. It is important to be aware that each and every one of us use search engines differently. I find whole industries every day which blow me away with their total failure to understand and reach their market.

In an effort to make this point, I offer you these little bits of reality:

Here is a blog article I wrote a while back about cigars. I do not sell cigars, (although perhaps I should). I wrote one article about a cigar company falling short in their marketing, and then I later followed up with an article which showed the top 200 cigar-related search terms which brought people to my website from that single blog post. See “Cigar Prices Rising With Bad SEO and Social Media Marketing“.

More proof of this matter of an industry which did not grasp search engine optimization was found in the Smart Slate interactive whiteboard slate. See “Smart Slate, Smart Airliner, and Other Interactive Slates“. Because of the absurdity of this industry, I have earnestly looked into the option of entering the market just to mop the floor with the blood of fallen competitors.

Then, there is the automotive industry. I want to scream at this whole industry for the way they suck up billions in government bailouts, yet they keep trying to do business the way their grandfather sold cars. I wrote about their infamous ways of marketing and just how badly they are missing the mark. See “Topeka Kansas Car Dealer Social Media Marketing Case Study”

These examples are just a few of many thousands of markets being terribly overlooked by good marketing efforts including SEO that works. If you do not know what people are looking for, you will have a really hard time delivering what they want. It should seem obvious that when some knucklehead SEO (search engine optimizer) like me can come into an industry and take over thousands of first-page spots for search phrases and pull in the eyes of their potential customers, somebody is really missing the boat.

I suggest examining the search phrases people are already using to find your website, and reading this article on how to “Improve SEO Return on Investment (ROI) With Simple Math“.

If you don’t pay attention to what people are searching for, in reality rather than just myth, you may as well just play with a hippopotamus on a stick. Just don’t blame me if you break grandma’s China.

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