About the Author: Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog.All right, I’ll admit, the title is somewhat over dramatic. But, when you don’t have much to offer, hype it up anyway! Kinda like the movies!
This post started from talking about How NOT To Do An Interview: The Basics. What was originally going to be an intro paragraph turned into a full post. When this happens, I just do what I often do… take one idea and make multiple posts out of it. Love it!
The thought that you should SEO your site before you even develop it seems counter-intuitive, and in many ways, it is. But, not entirely. I’ve been an SEO for over 12 years, and I still can’t get past the fact that optimization continues to be the “after thought,” only coming into play long after the site has been up and running for months or even years.
There are a lot of different ways to say the same thing. Anyone who has performed keyword research knows that people search for a lot of the same things using very different phrases and terminology. For example, if you’re looking to build your online business, you could search for: internet marketing, website marketing, online marketing, website promotion, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, SEO, and a dozen other variations.
Or if you’re a physician looking to manage health records online, you could search for: EHR, EMR, electronic health records, electronic medical records, medical software, personal health records, practice management software, and so on. One of the problems many business owners and SEOs come up against is how to optimize their site for each of these variations that all potentially mean the same thing.
In business, sometimes image is all we have. Many companies survive on their image alone. Sure, they had to work hard to build that image, but it’s the image they have built that lets them thrive.
Two quick examples: Nike would never be able to sell sneakers for $120 a pop if they slapped on a Wal-Mart logo. Same shoe, same manufacturer, same quality, but the Nike swoosh makes all the difference. I’ve heard stories of popular authors releasing books under a different name only to find that it was their name that sells their books, not their writing. As long as the quality that got them popular is (mostly) maintained, their image does the rest (*coughJohnGrishamcough*).
Remember the movie Old School with Vince Vaughn and Will Farrell? Yeah, me neither. That’s because, while I’m sure the movie has some funny scenes, it just didn’t have the staying power of, say… Tommy Boy. Of course Tommy Boy had a very distinct advantage out of the gate… it didn’t star Will Farrell. You really can’t come back from that kind of thing.
It’s amazing how much can get accomplished when you’ve got a good client and a good SEO working together. Unlike many other forms of advertising and marketing, the success of an SEO campaign can often depend on the client, and their involvement/interaction with the SEO. Good SEO clients know what is needed to help the SEO succeed but don’t stand in the way of that success.
Having a successful business and/or marketing campaign doesn’t happen passively. It happens with deliberation and intent. The client cannot completely pass off responsibility for her success onto the SEO, but must take actions to ensure the SEO can be successful for her.
In this installment we move into the realm of pricing and asking questions related to costs versus return on investment. When outsourcing your SEO to a firm or consultant it becomes a bit more difficult to control costs than it does when you hire-in house. Read more
