Every industry has it’s scumbags, scammers, and liars. Every industry also has a cabal of providers who stay in the dark, keep doing the same old thing, and never look to improve their craft. For a customer, the outcome is the same: money paid but no return. Much like the weight-loss industry, the web service provider world is full of people who don’t know, don’t care, and/or are just out for your money. No other sub-set is worse than SEO. Based on personal stories and experiences, here are 5 reasons to run away screaming from your current provider.
Before I jump into these, let me give you a little context and inside knowledge on what goes on behind the scenes with SEO services. There are two sets of activities I do to improve the ranking of your site:
- Changes that are experimental in nature and need to be reviewed and possibly changed after a period of time.
- Things that are industry-standard, Google approved and recommended; these are dead simple changes and procedures.
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I was honored to be asked to come down to San Diego and speak to a room full of friendly college administrators, marketers, and professionals about email marketing campaigns. Everyone was plugged in and seemed to really enjoy the whole process, which made it that much more fun for me. My Google Docs presentation is below along with a few other resources, posts on my blog, and links to other sites that can help you make the most our of email marketing. A big thanks to EMAS Pro enrollment management software for giving me this opportunity!
As a quick aside… it was great to really delve in on this topic and collect resources that people could use. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “build list, send stuff,” completely ignoring what could be a powerful asset for any company. If you take your time, have an actual strategy, and remember who is on the other end of that email, you can create a strong, engaged list that will stick with you for a long time. If you just harvest names and emails and send them the first thing that comes to mind, you put your domain at risk and throw away something potentially very valuable.
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I wonder if there is an English word that describes a state of being where you want so much for your life to change but you take nothing that you have for granted. It sounds like something that might be easily summed up in a single Kanji character, simple and elegant telling the story of a man caught in limbo. I’m so grateful for what I have, personally and professionally, but I know there a better way to create, build, help, service, and communicate that I’m missing out on.
I should mention up-front that this is neither specifically web-related nor some subtle hint to people. This is about me getting better at managing what I do.
What I’m experiencing these days is a constant feeling of being behind, always at the edge of letting people down. This is a heavy burden for me to bear because I have an acute sense of accountability combined with a portfolio of clients that I’m committed to and enjoy helping. I find myself rushing through things instead of taking my time and enjoying the process, falling back on what I know I can do instead of taking the time to learn an advanced technique, putting off “extemporaneous” things like family, friends, and time off in an effort to catch up with something that’s running 10% faster than I am.
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I write this post not quite believing that this important project has actually come to fruition. Not because of a lack of desire and not because of a lack of ability (though that does explain some of the delay) but more because a project that takes this long can very be relegated to “standby” status for eternity. Thankfully, in this case, that was not meant to happen.
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If you’re someone who owns or operates a website and you’re reading this, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you’ve never done proper search engine keyword research in your life. In fact, I bet you’ve never even given a second thought to what words people use in search engines, let alone how to determine if people are, in fact, using those phrases. Searching for and choosing the correct keyword phrases comes before everything else when you’re looking to improve incoming traffic from search engines and I’m going to teach you how to do it.
What’s in it for you?
Long story short, making rational decisions about your keywords means more and better traffic from search engines. Instead of adding words that you think people are using, you’ll be adding words that they actually are using. This means you’re not stabbing in the dark with keywords and phrases that might be getting just a handful of searches per month. You’ll also avoid phrases that are more competitive than you could possibly rank for.
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I have been thinking on this concept for many months but have not had made the time to pull it all together. This is, however, the underlying concept behind my blog and my business so it’s about time I put it down on “paper.” This is where my mind went and what I think about the topic but I need your help as well. This is a limited (though large) pool of topics that I consider essential for business owners to understand, the collection of which define basic web literacy for business owners.
I’d love to hear feedback from everyone, but specifically from two groups of people:
- People who work on the web: Developers, designers, consultants, bloggers, SEOs, etc… What’s missing here? Is the concept generally sound? Am I going overboard? Let me learn from your experience!
- People who own or operate a website: Business owners, CEOs, marketers, novices, professionals… what confuses you the most on the web? What do you hear about but don’t understand? Where are your weaknesses? Is this list scary? Let me help you alleviate the pain!
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