seo Archives - Page 2 of 27 by Mark Murnahan

Is Today’s Marketing Mostly Just Lies?

Have you ever felt so sick of people feeding you lies about marketing that you can still taste it the next morning? Those lies often leave us, as a society, with a bad taste in our mouth for the whole concept of marketing. It creates a heightened level of cynicism that was not there before, and it spreads like a bad rash.

Isn’t it time to take inventory of what you’ve been accepting on faith, and start to question it? I think so, and I think it should apply to marketers and their clients alike. Of course, that will require a shift toward using due diligence and common sense. When you wonder if what you’ve been told is a lie, do you accept the responsibility to find the truth, or do you just give in and believe it because it is what you want to believe?

It is not my full-time job to be a whistle-blower about the abundance of bad marketing, but I’d say I definitely have a knack for it. I also have a sense of industry responsibility to balance out all the worthless junk and cons with some common sense and honesty … brutal honesty. Maybe I shouldn’t harp on it so much, but there are many instances when I see just how badly lies about online marketing can hurt a company. It is true that many marketing efforts can cause a net loss even greater than the upfront price paid.

I’ll wrap this up with a real life example of a company that was scammed for many thousands of dollars, but this is also about the course that brings them to accept their defeat rather than fight back. I’ll begin with some observations, and I’ll include some links throughout this article to extended resources on related topics. You may like to give attention to those.

Convincing Evidence of a Marketing Decline

I am fully convinced that the majority of things people are promoting to fix your online marketing is a string of lies. I see it all the time that somebody lied to somebody else, and now they are out to sell it to you. I suspect that many of the people lying don’t even know they are lying … they believe what they have been told so completely that they actually see it as the truth. There is a huge component of the blind leading the blind, and taking inspiration from even the slightest of success stories they read about on the next amateur marketing blog. I can prove the concept, too … just have a good hard look at this piece about the sad state of SEO and social media marketing experts.

Consider this: How many times have you heard how important it is to use Facebook? I like Facebook just fine, and it can be very useful for marketing, but how much of what you hear is hyperbole and lies? After all, how much do you actually expect to buy from that guy on Facebook trying so hard to sell you his stuff? Do you think the answer is completely different if you asked him the same question about you?

This is not about Facebook, and I actually know for a fact that Facebook can play an amazing role in a marketing strategy. Facebook has performed wonderfully for my wife’s cakes and confections company (of course, she is far sweeter than I am), and it has become invaluable to many of my clients. What I am very unsettled about is the utter loss of common sense I see surrounding “miracle cures” like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the rest of the wagon full of assorted snake oils.

Sure, maybe snakes have great oil, but do you rub it on your feet, fry with it, put it in your bath, or what? There is no perfect single-source cure for your every marketing objective, and it takes much more than just showing up! It is important to note that “everybody” is not your target market, but that’s how I see a majority of marketers promoting marketing these days. If you are hoping to earn squillions of dollars, or even a few dollars, just by being on Facebook without a strategy, you will be disappointed. Let’s try to be more realistic … please!

The Internet has largely become a society of marketing. Whether it is marketing to have more friends, more business, or just to feel more connected with society, it becomes a reflection of how we each market ourselves, our ideas, our thoughts, and our beliefs. We must question “how much of this is real versus imagined, and accurate versus lies?” Otherwise, don’t we all suffer?

For your enjoyment, I have included a video about lying.

It is easy to see how the industries related to marketing a business online became so hard to trust. After all, who doesn’t want a commission … a job … a paycheck? Many people will lie to get those things. You will find a massive abundance of them in marketing … especially online marketing. The end result is that it does not matter if the lies are due to ignorance or greed. Lies are lies, and there are no innocent lies, nor innocent victims, as long as the truth is available. There are just the willingly confused.

Great Marketing Professionals Are Not Just Mythical

I’ve got to say that there are some amazing marketing people out there. There are also many of them with a lot of integrity. I know they exist, because I’ve met many of them. I’ve also trained many of them. The trouble is that the field of marketing was flooded with newcomers like a tsunami. Now that it all looks so “easy” to reach a huge audience online, there is little wonder why everybody wants to be an expert. It is a mathematical truth that most of them are not, and will never be very good at marketing. Marketing takes training, it takes experience, and it takes aptitude, but since the majority of today’s online marketing newcomers have very little of these things, they lie … even to themselves. I suppose it must seem easier to lie than to go through the hard process of working and learning their way to the top. Only the few with high integrity and strong work ethic will survive in the long run, but there is a constant flow of new liars … so look out!

There is also a huge audience who are swallowing those lies like a free bacon sandwich and washing them down like sucking free grape soda through a garden hose. It is maddening that they are in even greater abundance than the lying newcomers shamelessly taking their money. They are getting more gun-shy with each leap of faith, so it makes me wonder what it will look like when the whole thing collapses like a house of cards, and there is nobody left to believe it when they actually do encounter the truth. Have you seen the housing market? Most people thought that would never collapse, but it did!

The Marketing Con Job I Promised

I told you I’d wrap this up with an example of a company that was scammed. In this case, it is a friend of my friend and colleague. It is driving him nuts to see his friends get ripped off, so he asked me to help.

The company is paying thousands of dollars per month for search engine optimization services. They have previously paid multiple SEO companies to optimize their law firm websites to reach their target market, but each time, the results were just as bad. They have largely lost faith that online marketing can help them at all, but at the same time, they are strangely afraid to stop sending the checks … just in case.

The latest rip-off has performed so horribly that more than five months into their $36,000 contract, they are receiving under 30 monthly website visits that are even from the same country as where they provide their legal services. The last report I saw showed just over 600 monthly website visits from Southeast Asia, while only 28 were from within the United States. When the law firm asked for a list of the work performed, the marketing company replied with what one could logically estimate at under an hour of work … total … after months of being paid thousands of dollars per month.

The law firm has said they want my help, but they are “waiting it out” to see if the crooked SEO provider will do right by them. It becomes really upsetting as I consider how frequently I hear stories just like this. They keep hoping the lies will somehow miraculously become the truth, even when they have been presented with concrete proof that the SEO company is actually hurting their efforts … quite likely well into the future.

What do you think? Why do people allow themselves to be ripped off? Should marketing companies be willing to lie, just because it is how others do it? Shouldn’t we all use more due diligence and common sense? Am I doing this all wrong by trying to be honest in a dishonest world?

Please answer me!

P.S.

If you question how it can possibly be the majority of marketing that is plagued with lies, be sure to notice that there is a lot more marketing that you never see than what you do see … but yet, somebody is paying for it.

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Google Panda, Google Bowling, and How Bad SEO Can Kill Your Business

Google's: Watching from Above — Google's Panda: Watching from Above

Your search engine ranking efforts may be hurting your business a lot more than you think! Whether you are the person handling your search engine destiny, or you have hired a search engine optimizer to handle it, this is information you should know. I’ll start with some simple facts.

Google makes frequent changes to their algorithm (roughly 500 per year). Yes, algorithm … the mathematical methods used to determine which websites will rank higher or lower in searches. On occasion, the changes are quite significant, such as the “Panda” series of updates (most recently Panda 2.5). We should expect changes, and it is a very good thing.

Google has a lot at stake in continuing to deliver the most relevant results when we go searching. From a search user’s standpoint, it is excellent, because it helps us find what we are looking for, easier and faster than ever. From a business standpoint, it is a huge cause for concern to many people, and often rightfully so.

Should you worry about Google’s changes? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. Let’s see if I can answer that question. I’ll address some changes in layman’s terms, including a blast from the past that seems to be making a resurgence, which is “Google Bowling”, and it is not to be overlooked. In fact, I’ll explain how the methods of link building which many SEO sell to their customers is the same tactic other companies use to negatively affect competing websites. Please don’t click away if some of this seems too basic, or too advanced. There is value here, and I’ll make it easy to understand.

In Google’s Own Words:
“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”
Source: The Official Google Blog

I often challenge search engine optimization providers for their abuse of people’s fears by telling them SEO requires constant technology changes to keep up. What the abused SEO-buying public hesitates to understand is that SEO is not a function of technology. It is generally very untrue that search engine changes will adversely affect rankings based on technology issues. I have extensive proof of this in competitive markets where I have ranked websites at the top of searches, but made absolutely no changes. Some have not been touched in a decade, but still rank in the top one to three positions for competitive searches. Of course, that only happens if you are doing things above board, and not trying to cheat your way to the top … or paying somebody else to do it.

The problem that is hitting many websites hard with the new Google changes is that they have, either knowingly or unknowingly, used practices which Google has recently cracked down on harder than ever before.

What Google Changed in Panda Update … In Simple Terms

Some of the most recent Google algorithm changes are making a broad impact across the Internet. Big change always sends the cockroaches of the search engine optimization industry scurrying for a new patch of darkness. This time, the changes are in a series of updates called “Panda”, with the latest to date being called “Panda 2.5”. The focus of the updates is to wipe out some of the most prevalent and slimy tactics companies use to try and trick their way to top search engine rankings. I’ll share some reasons this could affect your online business future.

Panda Update is Good News ... Unless You're the Bamboo!

Unique Content Matters: Copycats Don’t Have Nine Lives!

One hard-hit area is companies taking content from other websites and re-purposing it on their own website. This can be as simple as a retailer re-using a manufacturer’s description, or a lazy content producer stealing somebody else’s work. An extremely hard hit area is auto-blogging, which automatically scrapes content from other websites to increase blog content. The more “innocent” instance uses automated means to replicate product descriptions from a manufacturer or supplier database. It happens a lot, and has been widely accepted for years, but many companies are finally seeing the downside. If you are unsure whether this is being done with your website, you may soon find out … the hard way.

What’s worse, is that a lot of people are paying search engine optimizers who use links from this kind of reduced-quality website to link to theirs. These dirty SEO tell the client that more links are a good thing, so they create thousands of them, but they don’t tell the client the rest of the story. It is extremely common, and very destructive, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

A huge number of websites are hit by Google’s more hard-line approach with Panda updates. It is often because somebody opted for the easy way, instead of the right way. This is the way of the dark side of the SEO industry, but somebody keeps feeding the SEO monster, and it’s not me.

I cannot call anybody a victim if this hits them in the wallet, because there are no victims. There are only “willingly confused“. Due diligence and common sense often go out the window when it comes to marketing, and especially as it applies to the Internet. People really want to believe that “easy success” actually exists.

Many people previously decided that the easy way is the better way, but its not true, and Google is proving it. It takes a lot of work to create truly excellent unique content that will perform well in searches. A lot of companies fell for the notion of trying to save money by using cheap SEO tactics and taking shortcuts, but Google is fighting back. Now people are finding out that the cost of shortcuts is a whole lot more than doing it right in the first place. If you who want to know “How much does SEO cost”, I suggest searching Google for it … but be sure to look for this article while you are there: “How Much Does SEO Cost?” is The Wrong Question. It won’t be hard to find … I wrote it.

Links Are Not Created Equal!

A tactic that Google is aggressively punishing is buying or trading links from other websites to make your website falsely appear more credible and “important”. This has always been a sore spot for Google, but more today than ever, as the Internet’s growth accelerates. Google wants to judge the Internet by what people like and find useful, and not things which have been falsely inflated by “content farms” and low-quality link gathering. It is why I have always spoken out against such tactics. An example is my article titled “Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work!“. I don’t think I can be a lot more clear than that.

Acquiring links is something that most search engine optimizers will tell you is very important. What too many of them don’t explain is that doing it the wrong way will, with near certainty, cause more harm than good. Link building strategies are not created equal, and a huge number of SEO are doing it totally wrong! It is another in a long list of lies SEO tell.

Google knows who links to your website, and who links to the websites that link to your website. There are no secrets here … if there is a link in a public place on the Internet, it is Google’s intent and responsibility to know about it. From all of those links, Google creates and evaluates the website’s overall link portfolio. It is a primary factor in determining what will be listed in search results, and where it will appear on the list. If the links in a website’s overall portfolio of links are not relevant, or are not what Google can logically (algorithmically) expect as a natural conclusion, the website will suffer.

Google Bowling and Bad SEO

I touched on some of the things Google does not like, but now, let’s imagine reverse engineering this. What if somebody else tried to make it look like you used these tactics? One way that seems possible is “Google Bowling”. That is the practice of buying or otherwise acquiring low-quality links to a competitor’s website in hopes of affecting a penalty against them from Google.

Wait! It seems crazy if there is actually a value in this kind of links that they could be used for harm, right? Well, there is not a value in them, and Google Bowling is a real thing … just google it. Directing a high volume of those low-quality links that so many SEO are selling is actually often used against competitors. It is an old trick, but it appears to be making a resurgence since Google’s Panda updates.

That is a dirty tactic, but does it work? Many indications show that it can and does work. Before you worry, here’s the good news: It will generally only have an affect against websites with a weak link profile. The bad news is that if you don’t have a mature and high-quality link profile, it may include you.

This came to mind recently, as I discovered nearly 300,000 new links pointing to my blog, here at “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog”. They all sprung up in only a few days, which is a bad signal to Google of somebody buying links. Some people would surely say “Wow, that’s great! Hundreds of thousands of free links!” To say the least, I was not so delighted. Somebody is trying to Google Bowl my blog. I discovered it because of excessive Google Alerts, and also signals in my Google Webmaster Tools. See the example screenshot below.

Note: A few days after I took this screenshot and wrote this article, the new link creation peaked at over 2.6 million new incoming links.

Screenshot of My Google Webmaster Tools Links Report

The good news is that I already had a baseline of over 150,000 incoming links. Some are good, while some are not so good, but it is a good balance. It is a mature link profile with a significant volume of high-quality links in the mix. If not for that, I would be worried, and with good reason.

With a good existing link profile, the worst scenario would be to file a reconsideration request with Google and explain the issue. With a link profile built on weak tactics, the challenge to recover becomes much more tedious, and emphasizes the value of being proactive.

Summary of Google’s Panda Update

When you have thousands … millions … billions, and even squillions of companies competing for the same space, it is pretty easy to see how trickery and fraud could flourish. It is easy for Google (and other search engines) to see this, too. They have billions of dollars at stake, and some of the brightest minds working to thwart that kind of trickery and fraud.

It should be no surprise why, as high search engine rankings became more challenging, the masses have scurried to try and figure out social media. Social media is an important signal which Google uses to measure a website’s value. In actuality, Google is the biggest example of social media there is. The links to and from websites are the most profound social measurement across all social media. It reflects what the people like and do not like. When that is faked, Google has a lot of ways to measure it.

As long as you are not sending false signals by trying to cheat search engines, you have little to worry about when they make changes. The sad fact is that many people are sending false signals, and they don’t even know it. They relied on search engine optimizers who offered a good pitch and a low price. The outcome is often far more costly than doing it right in the first place. Doing it right does not cost money, it pays money. Doing it cheap and haphazard is where the big cost comes in.

Search engine ranking holds many businesses’ success or failure in the balance. Where your website is ranked in search results, whether you accept this or not, can make a huge impact in your business. Most companies don’t fully recognize the degree of impact, because they have never been ranked very well. It is true … most … and that is because the space at the top of the list is very limited.

P.S. If you are the thumb-sucker behind trying to Google Bowl my blog, know this: People are sick of your kind of useless tactics. They already wasted their money trying it your way, and they are pissed. That’s why I often write about your type of SEO, and warn people. I suspect you are pouting like a wet toddler who never got enough love, but you won’t bump me from your favorite spot. Count on it!

Photo Credits:
Panda by geopungo via Flickr
Panda Floss by istolethetv via Flickr

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7 Blogless Days Inspired the Question: “Why Do I Blog?”

My optional title was “Why Do We Blog? (or Not): A Question Every Business Should Ask”. I just thought I’d share that upfront.

I believe my considerations about blogging can be applied to many industries, and I’ll even have a little humorous fun along the way. If your eyes are tired, just push the play button for the audio version.

As I recently took a seven day break from blogging, a question that has been rattling through my head is “Why do I blog?” The question is not on my mind because I don’t want to do it, although that happens, too. The question is more a matter of focus and purpose. If I know why I am doing it, the purpose is enhanced, and the message becomes clearer. Just like any other business effort, there should be a good reason for it. Periodically asking the question of why I blog keeps things making sense. Similarly, I think every business should ask this question of why they do, or do not blog.

I decided there would be no better place to put my thoughts about this in writing than right here … in a blog.

Why Would Anybody Do This?

I wouldn’t continue writing this blog if I didn’t have good reasons. I also would not recommend it to any person or company without a good strategic purpose for it. I can cite a lot of good reasons to blog, but wasting hundreds of hours and gallons of coffee are not among them.

It can be really punishing to write a blog. It takes a lot of time … many hours. In the audio version of this article, I share some of what I put into each article, but let’s just say that it requires a lot of effort.

Once any new blog article is sent out into the wild, the real punishment comes calling. It comes in the form of doubts. Even with a good track record, it is still easy to let the common doubts creep in. “Will they like it?” … “Will they comment about it, and let me know what they think?” … “Will they share it with others?” … “Did I just waste all that time?!”

To say the least, if you are not committed to the task of blogging, it is probably a bad idea. Taking up compulsive body piercing or volunteering as a crash test dummy may be a lot easier.

Here Are Some Answers to Why I Blog

As I have expressed, blogging is not simple. In the case of a business blog, if it is ever to become a success for the business, it will not be an easy task. If you don’t believe anything else I say, please trust me that producing a blog is a lot different than producing a successful blog. It takes a lot of creativity, and a lot of work. In nearly every instance, somebody will lose sleep over it!

So, here are some reasons I blog, and they are in no specific order. I hope you will be able to apply these to how and why you have a blog, or otherwise consider how and why you should.

Blogging Keeps Me Sharp

There is never an instance when I write a blog article that does not provide reminders of other articles I have written. When I am reminded of lessons I have learned and shared, the lessons become fresh again. I have found it very convenient to have hundreds of articles in my blog archive, and not just for others. It often becomes very useful reference material. Yes, it is true … we can actually even teach ourselves!

Blogging Improves My Industry

When I write something that becomes useful to others in my industry, it opens communications with my peers, and helps us each to learn. When we each perform better work, it adds just a little more credibility to the value of marketing. As it applies to search engine optimization and social media marketing, there is a lot of confusion. There is a tremendous value in collaboration and information sharing that should not be overlooked.

Giving a boost of thought to my fellow marketing professionals, whether creatively, technologically, mathematically, or otherwise, is good for them, and good for me.

This can be applied to many other industries, if you give it adequate effort.

Blogging Makes Search Rankings Nuclear!

Search engines do not list websites in search results just because they are pretty. It happens because the words on the website logically match what somebody is searching for. The ones at the top of a search result (just below the ads) are there because they are highly relevant to the search, and because there are a lot of links from other websites that vouch for their relevance. There is really no better way to achieve that mix of text content and links from other websites than a blog.

Blogging Shines a Light on Crooks

You may not have crooks in your industry, but I’ll bet there are still good reasons to help people understand what sets you apart from the rest.

Like any industry where there is a lot of confusion and a potential to earn “easy money”, the online marketing industry is filled with crooks. Attorneys and car salespeople should love the Internet marketing industry, because it takes the heat off them. These days, the cruel jokes about sleazy attorneys are about sleazy Internet marketers.

What do you get when somebody throws a grenade into a room full of “SEO gurus”? Viral applause!

All attorneys are not evil. Every company needs an attorney at some point. There are also good car salesmen. Most people would not have a car to drive without one. The same holds true about marketing, but it can be challenging for industry outsiders to find which are good or evil. This is another reason I blog.

I can’t kill all the sleazy ones, (largely because they run like roaches when the lights come on) so I try to help educate people with good information. I write things that shed light on industry issues and teach best practices.

I will not save everybody, but I can help starve a few of the cockroaches, and that makes it a lot more comfortable for me to keep working hard.

Seizing opportunities to help others become more aware of industry issues, and doing so with integrity and usefulness can be an asset to nearly any industry, don’t you think?

Here are some examples of my efforts to help educate people. There are hundreds more like them in my archive, and I put my stamp of approval on every one of them.

Blogging Boosts Credibility

Blogging is an excellent tool for establishing credibility in a given area of business. It shows where you stand on a topic, and it allows others the opportunity for due diligence. I have often expressed that if somebody wants to know if I am credible in my field, they should spend some time on my blog.

When I think of my blog for business development, I look at it a lot differently than some. It will vary in every industry, or at least it should. Because I seek a very unique client, the kind who will implement a marketing strategy (as opposed to just tactics), establishing industry credibility comes long before chasing a sale.

Having a lot of useful information on my blog is a good point of reference for that ideal client to determine whether I know my work. It is also where I establish two very important things. Those are ability and integrity, and I look at these as “I can do it”, and “I will do it”. They each scream credibility.

Whatever the case with your industry, I am confident that blogging can emphasize topical credibility. If not for you, for your competitors.

Blogging and Narcissism: We All Want to Be Awesome!

Blogging is fun. I love how it lets me express my personal brand. Some days it is with my tongue-in-cheek ornery tone, and other days I can be quite inspirational and thought provoking. It just wouldn’t feel the same without having some fun. If you don’t have a sense of humor, stop here! If you take it too seriously, you will probably hate me, and the last thing I need is another stalker.

I have heard people talk about social media being popular because it suits people’s egotistical needs, so I’ll play on that! I suppose it makes some sense, though. After all, who wouldn’t want to be popular, and how could it get any better than having your own blog? So, here is the secret answer about blogging that you really wanted to hear. It’s for the egotism!

Sure, I probably made it sound all great and useful to write a blog, but there is more to it. The real truth is that it provides a gushing river of self-worth. I always really wanted to be cool. Blogging makes me cool, because I get all those people to think about it, talk about it, tweet about it, facebook about it, and share it with their friends from around the world. In spite of all the hard work and torment it can involve, I can’t get enough of it. It’s like crack cocaine.

Maybe it sounds totally nuts, and maybe my mother didn’t hold me enough as a child, but I get a huge rush by being listed at the top of search engines for hundreds of thousands of searches. It’s not just for the money, either. Call me narcissistic if that makes you feel better, but I really love it that squillions of people per month are clicking on my literary works. That should be worth a free shot of tequila at any bar … anywhere!

There are a lot of services out there to tell me how awesome my blog is, and measure me up against others. Oh, I know you want a display, so here is a graph of my blog’s estimated worldwide traffic ranking compared to the top television station in my region. It is our local CBS affiliate, and I spank them like an ugly baby.

They have a whole staff of news, weather, and sports people blogging, and hundreds of thousands of television viewers. They even have a General Manager to tell people about his dog pooping (see image). No kidding! The thing is, they don’t have awesomeness … they don’t have my Murnahanism.

WIBW Channel 13 Jim Ogle Facebook Dog Poop-Talk — WIBW Channel 13 Jim Ogle's Facebook Dog Poop-Talk

Now isn’t that fun?! I’m thinking I should get some free shots out of that, for sure! Who cares whether it is accurate or useful? It strokes my ego, and that’s what I’m after!

Website Grader ripped me off when they graded me at 99. I’m sure there was a mistake! Twitter Grader scores me at 100 … yeah, One Hundred, but I think I can persuade them to create a “101” score just for me!

Another service says I’ve got “Klout”. Check this out … they even call me a “Celebrity”! Sure, I downplay the importance of Klout, but deep down, I’m really shallow. I know I’m awesome, and I think you and all of your buddies should know it, too! So, I blog … a lot!

Yeah, thats right ... a CELEBRITY! Are you that cool? — Yeah, that's right ... a CELEBRITY! Are you that cool?

Better than all that fluffy pseudo-awesomeness … I love to feel that rush of popularity when I see all the reader comments, and people sharing my work on a massive scale. It is proof that I exist!

I joke about it, but the real truth beyond the ornery joking is this: As long as I know my work helps others, I am happy to keep doing it. The fact that people keep sharing my work and help me feel a little pat on the back is great. The good fortune that the numbers add up and it produces a profit justifies the hard work. All of these things together hold a lot of meaning for me.

It means I’m doing it right!

In summary: Even though blogging is only a relatively small part of my work, I consider it highly valuable. How valuable? To answer that, I offer a recent article I wrote titled “Can You Value Each Blog Post at $10,000?“.

I limit how much I blog about blogging, because it is just one piece of an online marketing plan. However, since it is such a valuable asset to a social media campaign, and to search engine rankings, it deserves a reasonable share of the attention. That’s why I have written about good reasons to blog, explained benefits of blogging, shared a lot of information about blogging tools, and even how to integrate Facebook blog comments.

Photo Credits:
Why, Arizona by Ken Lund via Flickr
Why? by Joseph Vasquez via Flickr
Hand grenade training by The U.S. Army via Flickr

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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?

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NO MORE PROTESTS by hobvias sudoneighm via Flickr

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Search Engine Optimization is Not a Technology Job!

Whether you work in a large corporation or a small company, this applies to you. I am going to explain why SEO is far more than just the technology it makes use of. If you think SEO is a technology skill, or worse, you are guilty of leaving your SEO to the IT department, duck and take cover! This may hit you between the eyes.

Did somebody ever tell you that SEO is a function of IT? If so, I want to explain how terribly misinformed they truly are. If you believed them, this may be upsetting, but at least it’s the truth.

First, allow me to break away from the acronyms for a moment. “SEO” stands for search engine optimization, and it involves the art and science of helping websites to rank in the top of search engine results for given search keywords. “IT” stands for Information Technology, and one way to look at it is the people who help keep your computer network running, and who you call if your email stops working.

I just dramatically understated each of the skills involved, but that gives you an idea to start with. What I hope to explain in a way you can appreciate is that IT is a technology skill, and SEO has more to do with people than it does computin’ machines. It is a marketing skill that makes good use of technology, and not a technology that makes use of marketing.

A surgeon uses scalpels, but is not defined as being in the scalpel industry. Similarly, a search engine optimizer uses technology, but should not be defined as being in the IT industry. Use of technology is just one subset of SEO skills.

Sure, there are important matters of technology involved, such whether to use www or no www and how to do a 301 redirect, or the very important difference in a slash or no slash at the end of your web address. That is just SEO at its most basic level, but if you want to rank well in searches, there is a whole lot more to it.

How the Absurdity of SEO Being a Technology Skill Began

Search engine optimization, in its earliest days, was looked at as something to do with computers. It was all a part of that new Internet craze that told everybody to have a website. Companies who wanted a website needed “computer people” to make it happen. After all, the Internet runs on computers, and having a website was a pretty technical thing.

Websites really are very technical when they are done well. Most people who look at websites don’t understand all the programming that goes into it, the security features, or the server architecture that it all runs on. So, it looks really technical to them, and for many people it implies that everything surrounding it surely must be technology-oriented.

Let’s take another look!

Why Do Companies Have Websites?

Let us consider the most common reason any company has a website. It is to emphasize the assets of their business. Websites are built with technology, but their most common purpose is marketing. Whether that marketing is just to share information for free, increase sales, or impress investors, it is still a tool of marketing and communications. There are very few cases where a company will create a website “just for the heck of it” or to intentionally waste money. There must be a reason, and that reason almost always has its roots in being more visible to others.

Doesn’t this begin to sound a bit outside of the scope of those “computer people” who keep your email working? Sure, there are many aspects of SEO that require technical skills, but definitely not the kind that fit into an IT job role. Save your IT people for something more up their alley.

Many SEO professionals have been falsely embedded into IT departments, and they simply do not belong there. The most important and effective job functions of effective search engine optimizers have little to do with computers or technology. Sure, we know a lot about technology, because we have to, but that is not our most valuable asset. Again, I submit that a surgeon may know a lot about her scalpels, but that does not make her a “scalpel person”.

Here are a few basic examples of how technology is a part of SEO. See the articles as follows:

There must be at least a squillion more technology matters related to SEO. I think I’ve probably written something about most of them over my 15+ years in the industry. Even if you put them all to perfect use, it will never make up for the importance of understanding how to make things more marketable.

I’m not trying to fool you into thinking technology does not matter. I mean, I did write those earlier technology-related articles about SEO, and many more. I also have a significant amount of proof that I know the job of SEO. The technology does matter … a lot … but it will not trump the other magic that a truly talented SEO professional brings to the equation. Those things include defining what moves people to action, analyzing demographics, psychographics, geographics, and deeply understanding Internet usage on the human level. It also requires analyzing the competition and knowing what makes you the stronger competitor.

The many non-technology creative marketing assets of a good SEO professional with measurable marketing talent are vastly more valuable than any amount of technology.

Understanding SEO as a Hybrid Skill Set

Most companies understand that when people search the Internet for something, it is good to be found at the top of the list. People start clicking at the top of the list, and not at the bottom. So, it makes sense, right? The difference a few spots down that list can make is astonishing. See “Improve SEO Return on Investment (ROI) With Simple Math” to understand the difference.

It is a bit harder to understand SEO as a hybrid between multiple departments within a company. It involves defining and distilling the best assets of a company into something people will love. It involves putting those things to work on the Internet where people will see them and link to them from their websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking sites, and more. It involves making a company popular based on its own previously hidden merits. Within the mix, there is technology, but the technology is just to support the awesomeness. The awesomeness is not there to support the technology.

It may help to consider that the single most prominent factors for top search engine ranking is the number of other websites linking to yours, and the quality of those websites. You don’t get those links from technology, you get them from people who think you’re amazing, and you get those people by repeatedly doing amazing things.

Reciprocal link exchanges are a bad idea, and you don’t have enough friends to link to your website to outrank any significant competitors. It’s going to take more than that, so isn’t it wise to at least have the right department handling it?

Why was this stuck in my craw?

I recently wrote a proposal for a company that I really like. I like them because of their industry, and I like them because I know I can do amazing things for them. When I discovered that they are relying on the IT department to handle their SEO efforts, it made my stomach hurt.

I don’t take on projects if I am not 100 percent confident that I can help them. In this case, there should be little wonder why their websites have a miserable response. They just don’t know how much they don’t know. I hope to fix that!

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Washington State Cage Fighting Championships by Kelly Bailey via Flickr

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