Before I give you the list that can actually help you find the help you need with little risk of being disappointed, I first need to ask you to do two things for me and for yourself. If you can’t do it, then the value this list offers will be greatly diminished. BUT, if you can do these two very simple things, then I can do a lot to remove the stress, worry and risk involved in finding a qualified online promotion specialist. AHHHHH, sounds nice doesn’t it?

The things I’m going to ask you to do are simple but that is not to say they’re easy. In fact, they are two of the most difficult things for human beings to do in life. That’s a shame but that is the way it is.

The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is to stop letting someone else do your thinking for you. Stop just repeating something you read on a blog somewhere that sounded good and start THINKING for your self. Read it, think about it, and decide for yourself if the statement provides value to you. I encourage you to argue BUT, use your own arguments for or against and not just something someone else said. If you agree with something because it “sounds” logical, stop and decide if it IS logical or just sounds that way,

This is YOUR business we’re talking about here and it is far too important to let someone else make your decisions. Keep this in mind, if you succeed it is to your credit. Success came to you by you making the right choices, but by the same token, failure is yours to claim also. You can blame something or someone else all you want but it is still you that lost your money and must taste the bitterness of failure. That is a law of nature and can not be changed.

Secondly, and this is the really hard one, be honest with yourself. When you see something pointed out that strikes a little close to home, admit it and deal with it. Of course it is easy to blame your mistakes on others but the bottom line is it is still your problem and the smart marketer will be able to look at their mistakes and learn from them. When you refuse to own up to your mistakes you are likely to repeat them BUT, if you take your whipping and accept that you made a mistake, you learn from that experience and are less likely to make the same mistake again. Makes sense huh?

All rightee then, here we go.

#10

Never respond to an email offer you did not specifically ask for.

There are many reputable companies who use email marketing but there is also no question spamming 10 million email addresses is much easier and faster than building a reputable company by servicing clients and providing value.

So I’m not saying all unsolicited email you get is from a scam artist but I am saying that if you think you need a product or service, it is far too easy to find an established company by you contacting them instead of them contacting you.

When you get an unsolicited email offer and think to yourself, “that sounds pretty good”, remember that of course it sounds good. Sounding good is the foundation of every scam that has ever come down the pike.

#9.

Look for a physical address listed on the website.

Finding an address listed on a website is no guarantee that you won’t be disappointed but it is a good indication that the intent of this person was not to cheat people but rather to establish and build a reputable business. You can be confident that when an address is listed publicly that the owner of the business fully intends to provide a value driven service or product to his customers. Con men do not want you coming to their office and will go to great lengths to stay hidden.

No physical address or just a PO Box is a definite red flag.

#8.

Check for a local phone number listed on their site and verify it.

Again, finding a phone number listed on a website is no guarantee of you finding the right match but it is an indication that the intent of putting the number on the site is to offer clients a way to contact you easily. That is something someone does when they intend to build a business.

Of course anyone can get a cell number and put it on the website. If someone is trying to grab your money and run even they need a way for you to call them BUT, anyone who lists their number in the phone book, who invests in things like multiple lines or a toll free number, those people are not trying to grab your money and run. Those people are trying to build a business.

Once you have found the address and phone numbers on the site of the business you’re considering, it is too easy to verify the information. Just go to yellowpages.com or pick up the phone and call information for that city. That information being in those places is as it should be. If something doesn’t match it is possible the company has recently relocated or something but it does raise those red flags.

#7.

Having a phone number listed is good but having someone answer it is even better. 

Getting a phone put in, even a business phone, is relatively inexpensive and does not represent a huge investment. However, making the investment to actually have an employee responsible for handling phone calls is a good indication that this business fully intends to provide at least a basic level of customer service.

Now, call the number and see if someone either answers or you actually get a call back before the end of the next business day. If you don’t there is always the chance that something went wrong and the message didn’t get received but again, it is a red flag that should make you stop and look a little harder.

#6.

Send an email and see if you get a timely response.

Of course anyone can have an email address but what you are looking for here is an indication that they take their business seriously. If you don’t get a response within one business day, put this one at the bottom of the list.

#5.

Search for their name and/or their company name

In this day and age, privacy is an illusion. True there is still lying and cheating and hiding behind a veil of technology, but anyone that has actually started and operated any business with even a minimum online presence for any length of time has left a highly visible and easy to find, digital trail. One search at your favorite engine will reveal the good, the bad and the ugly.

#4.

Spend more than 5 minutes on their website.

What you’re looking for here is a look and “feel” of professionalism and an indication that this site represents a going concern. You want to know that this company has built and is adding to, a site they intend to be a resource for potential clients for the long term.

#3.

Check out the guarantee

We’ve all read hundreds of times how no one can guarantee SEO results. Well, the fact is that any professional should be able to offer a guarantee of minimum levels of performance. And as a consumer, you have a right to expect that guarantee to be lived up to and honored.

So, the trick is to read the guarantee on the site and if it sounds too good to be true or it doesn’t make sense to you, scratch this one from the list and move on.

What you are looking for is something that makes sense and that you are confident you can track and verify. Something with set time frames and specific results.

**********************************

 {pack you bags kids, we're going on a little side trip}

Ok, remember back at the first of the post I asked you to do two things for me? One was think for yourself and the other was to be honest with yourself. Well, we’ve come to the two most important steps for finding a competent online promotion specialist and it has much more to do with you than it does to do with them.

So far the tips I’ve given you on finding an SEO would be pretty much the same exact tips I would suggest to finding a plumber or a lawyer or a mechanic. In every profession there are those who specialize in specific aspects of their industry. Some are better at transmission repair and some are better at corporate law. Not being disappointed with your choice has a lot to do with knowing what you need and finding the person best qualified for that task. SEO is not that different from other professions in that respect.

Also, in any industry there are those who can not be trusted because they are either incompetent or they are simply liars and con men. These people are not as big a threat as some would like you to believe for the simple fact that those types of people tend to not be in that  business for long. There is something to be said for a multiple year track record in lieu of word of mouth recommendations.

But all in all, the vast majority of people in business are in business because they actually perform a service that has value to their clients and contrary to most link bait, SEO is not that different. If you follow the simple tips outlined in #10 through #3 you could very likely find a competent plumber, lawyer or yes, even an SEO and avoid the small percentage of those who would simply cheat you out of your money through theft or incompetence.

But one issue that is unique to the online promotion industry is the misconception that anyone needs to “SEO” their site. That term is far too broad and far too vague to not expect to be disappointed with whatever results you get.

Every commercial website needs to generate qualified traffic. Every site needs to optimize navigation and usability. Every site needs to always strive to increase conversions and every site needs effective copywriting but which of those things are you referring to when you say you need someone to “SEO” your site?

Most people that would make the comment, “I need someone to SEO my site”, are referring to wanting to be in the top of Google for their primary target term, (usually the broadest possible single word term that even remotely represents the product they are wanting to offer), and these people are destined to be disappointed with any online promotion specialist they hire as soon as the words leave their lips.

You see, first page search engine placement does not make you any money. Search engine placement is an expense, and not a small one at that. I think this bears repeating.

First page search engine placement does not make you any money

Sales generate income not search engine placements. Even so, sales do not generate profits and without profits, you certainly don’t need SEO. Profits come from running an effective business that generates more income than expenses.

Being #1 for any keyword does not make sales and does not make profits. All it does is create an expense that is intended to get someone to your page so you can make the sale but being on the first page of a search engine is a long way from actually getting money from a customer.

Some would say that this is elementary and everyone knows what profits are and how you get them BUT, if you have ever said you need someone to SEO your site, then no, you don’t understand this most basic of concepts and the faster you accept that, the faster you can start actually making money from your online business or quit wasting everyone’s times, (especially yours), and get a job.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever done a cash flow study for your online business? If you answered no, then you don’t need SEO you need a business plan.

Have you ever set a short term and long term objective and strategy for your online business? If you answered no then you don’t need SEO you need a business plan.

If you don’t have a business plan but are saying you need someone to “SEO” your site then you are not wanting a professional service to help you improve your business, you are wanting to pay someone a little bit of money to make you a lot of money without you having to do the real work that everyone else has to do to reap the rewards of a successful business and guess what? You are very likely going to be disappointed.

If you do have a business plan and no traffic, then you need someone to help you build the site. You need a graphic designer, a copywriter and someone who can understand your business objectives and provide you with any custom scripting you need to make your website perform properly to be able to actually deliver the product or service your business plan calls for. You can find a lot of people fully competent to perform these tasks and for not a lot of money, (that should have been budgeted for in your initial cash flow studies).

Once you have a decent site with good navigation, properly working scripts and secure ordering, now you actually have an online business and now you need to get qualified traffic to the site. Again, whether organic or PPC, there are a lot of people who can perform this task at a wide range of prices that you can be confident of performance.

The point is that you would never call a plumber and ask them what it would cost to WO, (water optimize), your house. It’s your house and you would know you needed a plumber to fix the leak in the pipes. You would perform due diligence, (after all it is your money), and expect the plumber you chose to fix the leak. Why would online promotion services be different?

You would not contact a well known attorney and ask her what it would cost to CO, (court optimize), your drunk driving charge. It was your screw up and you know you need someone to keep your butt out of jail.

It should not be any different with hiring an online business optimization specialist. It’s your business, (assuming that is what you have), and you should already know if your primary obstacle is traffic generation, design, copy, scripting or low conversions. Once you know and can articulate what you need, finding the right person to do the job without much risk is no more difficult than finding a plumber to fix the leak.

So, these last two tips are about you and if you can be honest and see that you may be lacking in some areas of business, all you have to do is fix that first THEN look for someone to do any kind of SEO and you won’t have to worry even if you pick a bad one at first and are disappointed, the business model is still solid and it is no greater loss than hiring a plumber you wouldn’t hire again.

**********************
#2.

Ask people you respect of their opinion

We all have blogs and forums we like to hang out at and in each of those communities we have people we tend to agree with. We find ourselves developing a level of respect for their opinions because they always seem to us to make more sense than some of the others. Ask those people who they think are competent BUT, the trick is don’t ask for an opinion on who is a good SEO. Instead ask specifics such as who would you recommend for traffic generation or for keyword research or usability etc.

Once you identify the specific area of your online business that you feel needs help, this eliminates the majority of people you may have to consider if you were telling yourself you needed an SEO. If you need higher conversions, then ask in your favorite hang outs if anyone is familiar with someone who can help with increasing conversions. You are likely to get back answers from people who have first or at least second hand experience with someone they saw those kind of results from. This approach makes so much more sense than posting another silly post asking someone to recommend another SEO and then having to listen to all the whines and complaints and end up being more confused than before you asked the question. Ask for specifics and you’ll not see this problem at all.

#1.  >drum roll please<

Have a real business plan, never ask for someone to SEO your site and know what you want an SEO to do and be able to verify when it’s done

If you ever catch yourself saying you need someone to SEO your site, STOP! If you are saying that, you have a problem and SEO isn’t going to solve it.

Let me give you a simple two question test that can help you determine if you need any kind of professional online promotional help. This is oversimplified and there is a lot more to actually building and running any business. My intention is not to belittle the significance of developing solid business planning but rather my objective is to point out that if you do not have these two answers as an absolute bare minimum then I’m hoping it will force you to realize that YOU have a problem that SEO can not fix.

#1. What is your short term financial objective and strategy? How much money do you plan to generate in the next 6 months and how?

If you can not answer that question, YOU DO NOT NEED SEO. You need a business plan.

#2. Why would I buy your product or service from your website instead of a website that is already there? What is your unique value proposition? 

Again, if you can not answer this question with a logical, realistic response, then please, don’t waste my time or your money. An SEO is not a magician and can not magically make you rich with your great idea for a few hundred bucks if you don’t have a real business plan that you are prepared to make a substantial investment of time, work and money of your own.

Now, if you do have a business plan or an online business that is generating some traffic and/or sales now, then you should already have an idea of what you need. If you are getting over 50 unique visits a day but no sales, then your primary problem is conversions and you don’t need someone to SEO your site, you need someone who can look at your site and see what needs to happen to get a minimum of about 4% conversions, (I use the 4% number because in my 11 years in online promotion that has proven time and again to be fairly consistent over a wide range of products and services. Believe me, 20% is much, much better). You need someone who is experienced and can apply resources to your situation as a conversion specialist. 

Once you get a minimum of about 4% conversions, (assuming that generates a profit of course), THEN you need someone that can increase traffic. There are a LOT of ways to do that and maybe the person that helps with the conversions is the right person for that job and maybe not, but the point is to look for someone that can increase traffic instead of looking for someone to SEO your site. Specifics that fit with your business plan and the results can be verified and tracked.

The bottom line ---- either you have an online business or you are hoping to get rich quick. If it is the former, there are a LOT of really good resources available to you at very reasonable prices if you know what you want. If it is the latter, you will be disappointed and you can blame the SEO industry all you want but you still need a business plan or a job.   

 

 PEACE Y’all

You kids quit throwin dirt on that neighbor boy and get washed up for supper.

 

I’m FINALLY strong enough and mentally stable enough, (allegedly), to sit up and write for an hour or so. I’m going to attempt to resume my blogging duties today so the Guru can stop depriving his millions of fans of those pearls of wisdom that only the Guru can cast in his oh-so Guruish way. 

This is an article that I started right before I caught malaria, and then typhoid fever and then salmonella and then a urinary infection all in the last 16 days. It is an article that I hope has some positive impact on the industry as a whole but I also hope it finally gives some honest to goodness advice on how to locate people in the SEO industry that can actually help you reach specific goals. You CAN find the right people that can help you at almost any price range and it’s not nearly as big a deal as has been reported over and over again.

Over the last 11 years I’ve probably read 100 or so fluff pieces with titles like How TO Pick An SEO. Articles that were written with little fore-thought, factual data or anything resembling a logical conclusion having to do with helping you choose a competent SEO. The vast majority I’ve simply chose to ignore and not speak out figuring the blind leading the blind had little impact on the real world anyway. BUT, last month I ran across an article that was published by a well known blogger under the corporate flag of a highly visible, prominent company in the online promotion industry. A company that, supposedly, is on the same side of SEO or at least in a tightly woven symbiotic relationship that obviously capitalizes and benefits from the popularity of SEO.

This is a company that has the eyes of the online promotional world upon them. A company whose words carry real weight and has an impact on not only their own readers, (which number in the thousands), but on an entire industry as well.  A company who has worked hard to establish a reputation within the industry and well deserves it I might add. But with that reputation comes a responsibility to hold itself to a higher standard of professional journalism.

Because of this, the Guru feels he must speak out. Even knowing that it will not likely make him any friends within an organization that, as I said, has a reputation and is a leader within the Guru’s chosen field of endeavor. The Guru can only hope that the bitch slapping about to be given is taken in the spirit that is given, and that the slappee can see the slapper is wanting only to remind the slappee of their power and influence and to encourage them to raise their own bar and try to do better. 

And so the slapping of the bitch persuasion begins.

The article I’m referring to is titled 8 Tips for Avoiding an SEO Fraudster located at http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/thoughts-about-seo.html

Immediately the title rubs me the wrong way because regardless of what the actual intent is, it is not very flattering to ANY SEO. The Guru has seen so many of these link bait titles that it is not the title itself that bothers him as much as the fact that is being published by the Marketing Pilgrim whom the Guru has come to expect more from. That entices me to continue reading when ordinarily I would have just walked away.

I will address and give a 4 star bitch slap to each of the 8 tips.

>      1. The SEO industry is full of consultants that are either incompetent or crooked. How many? I would guess well over 90%. As a result, there is an unbelievable amount of noise in the industry that makes it almost impossible to actually get to the truth. If you want to hire an SEO consultant or contract out your SEO, I feel for you. We as a rule do not do that, so I really cannot make any good recommendations. We have hired for short periods of time some of the top names in the industry, but have in general, been disappointed.<

Ok, first I’m thinking if you can’t make any good recommendations, how in the hell do you think this is a #1 tip to avoiding a fraudster???? 

But beyond that, the whole 90% thing is not only pure unfounded conjecture I find it offensive and you could not be more wrong. You are referring to a lot of people that over the last 11 years I’ve had the pleasure and honor to work with, work for or partner with. I have not hired a lot of top names, I’ve worked with them, partied with them and consider them good friends and I guarantee you that you have it ass-backwards. 90% of people in the SEO industry are smart, experienced, honest and hard working. If you tell them what you want and they can deliver they will! If they can’t they will tell you that too and probably recommend someone that can and they are right and anyone would be wise to listen and take their advice.
 

>2. It goes without saying that some of the most visible people in the SEO industry are not visible because they really understand SEO but because they are good at marketing themselves. Be wary of any information you read.<

It goes without saying??? :0 Be wary of ANY information you read???

c’mon, does this really sound like a tip to you? How would you feel if you asked me for help and my advice was to be wary of ANY information you read? My guess is you’d feel like I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Again, the whole, “most people are visible because they are good at marketing themselves”, thing is unfounded, without any reference data whatsoever and simply wrong. Most people visible in the industry are visible EXACTLY because they know what they are doing, they are in the trenches everyday and the other people in the trenches recognize this fact. Besides, if you want something that goes without saying, how about anyone good at marketing themselves should be good at marketing someone else under similar circumstances?

 

>3. There ARE real SEO experts out there. However, as a rule, they are not sharing their secrets because they are applying them to their own sites and making enormous amounts of money doing it.

Again, how is this a tip for avoiding a fraudster? You do agree that there are expert SEO’s but you’re implying that they are so crooked that if you paid them to consult with you they would take your money and cheat you by not telling you the REAL scoop. This is not true. The vast majority of SEO’s I know will tell you EXACTLY what you ask them about and they will tell you the truth. The problem usually comes when they don’t tell you what you want to hear but that is not the same thing.

As for not sharing, again that is wrong. I can easily name dozens of blogs and newsletters written by people who do know and share far more than they need to. The Guru is doing it right now and John Andrews immediately leaps to mind as another person who is telling you so many secrets even I am often surprised. But he is not telling you how to stuff meta tags, he is telling you the real stuff but you have to be willing to listen and see the value of the secrets he is revealing. That is the tricky part.

Finally, the enormous amounts of money thing. #1, how much is enormous, #2 how do you know they make that much and #3 how is that a tip to help me avoid a fraudster? It sounds to me more like jealous bitching than a desire to steer your readers down the path to succesful online marketing.

>4. An SEO expert in 2001 is not necessarily an expert in 2007. In the early years, there were very simple formulas that would practically guarantee top rankings. Many SEO “experts” came out of that era and have no clue how to generate rankings in today’s world. When interviewing SEO consultants, make sure and ask for their current success stories.<

I was there in those early years and maybe it wasn’t as complex as it is now but it was still hard work and a LOT of people coming in fast all wanting your spots. There was never any guarantee of top rankings and you saying there was just indicates a possible reason you have been struggling as of late.  

Again, the “many experts thing having no clue” is totally unsubstantiated and without merit, (not to mention more than a little offensive to all SEO’s). Logic would dictate that in any profession there are changes and if any professional does not stay abreast of those changes he will cease to be considered an expert. My contention is that if someone is still generating revenue either for themselves or for clients, he is still very capable of providing positive results through consulting or through providing services directly.

I have no problem with asking for current success stories but I also feel this is a very poor excuse for a “tip”. I can show you a LOT of success but that does not mean you will be successful.
 

>5. When you talk to an SEO consultant and he/she seems focused on specific little things on your site such as keyword density, meta tags, etc., move on. If he/she seems overly focused on inbound links, move on. If he/she is focused on implementing a strategy that makes people want to come to your site and stay there, you may have found one of the few SEO experts that know what they are talking about.<

Ok, no slap du Guru for this one. This is one that I agree could be considered a tip.

I think it lacks much real substance but I do think it is the closest thing so far to providing some value.

>6. A good SEO strategy predicts where the search engines are going and moves a web site in that direction. It is obvious that search engines are getting smarter and will continue to do so. At some point, search results are going to be very relevant. That means that you need to make your site as relevant as possible if you want consistent rankings in the future.<

This one has to call for a crazy-bitch slap. As I read this I thought to myself ---- WHAT ! ?!?!?

This one is so wrong I don’t even know where to start. Is any client really willing to pay someone for what they THINK MIGHT happen in the future so I’m going to build your site for that possible event? Sounds a little crazy when I say it huh?

Anyone who is responsible for promoting anything can only deal with results. Results today. Having an eye on possible future risks is prudent, but telling your readers to use this kind of yardstick to measure a good seo from a fraudster is beyond ridiculous.

“You need to make your site as relevant as possible if you want ranking in the future” :0 Really, you should be ashamed of claiming this is a tip for avoiding fraud.  Tsk tsk tsk.
 

>7. Gimmicks, shady manipulation, and tricks may work in the short term but are not a legitimate strategy for sites that you really care about. Also, be careful of over-optimization. Analyzing your top ranked competitors and trying to imitate their keyword density, weighting, etc. is a waste of time.<

Again, while I feel you could have done a much better job of explaining what things like over-optimization and gimmicks are, you still get a get-out-of-a-bitchslap-free card for this one.

I just wish you would have made it clear that finding someone who does understand the value of analyzing competitors for a lot of things other than what you mentioned is an indication of quality consultability.
 

>8. SEO is going to continue to require more and more resources to do well. Small SEO budgets are just not going to cut it in competitive industries in the near future. In spite of that fact, for the present at least, SEO is still a far better investment than CPC for most industries.<

You say, “in spite of the fact that SEO will be beyond the reach of small budgets”, , but the problem is that is NOT a fact. There are a LOT of ways for small budgets to use SEO and SEO consulting to improve their business and their online presence. I think you are doing a huge disservice to your readers and to the industry trying to convince small businesses to not spend their money on SEO when that may provide a greater value for small businesses than for most corporates. 

I assure you I could give about 100 tips that would cost little more than some time that could improve traffic and/or conversions almost overnight. THAT is a fact!

So, I’m not upset with you for casting negative perceptions over an industry that you clearly profit from. I’m not even that upset that you have offended my friends, colleagues and peers by calling 90% of them thieves and scam artists. I’m upset because you have the reach and power to advance the industry that you too are a part of instead of just making the problem worse. Yet you chose to write something that does damn little to actually provide any real value and insulting your own peers while doing it. It is hypocritical to the extreme and I, we all, expect more from you.

Marketing Pilgrim could choose to be a part of the solution instead of just compounding the problem. I’m calling you out. I’m challenging you to do more to change the negative perceptions for the better.

I care little what you may say of me, (I’m not expecting much of anything good after this), but I care a lot about what you do for the industry.  I think you are a smart company and it seems only smart that you would help to get people to realize that 90% of SEO's are NOT scammers and fraudsters. 90% are smart, hard working people who can be trusted if you are simply clear of what you really want.

You can do a lot better and like all of us, if you can --- you should.

Now, I’m not going to just leave it at this. I realize that all the Guru has done is complain and has not really done much to help the people who really do want to know how to locate the SEO’s that can actually help them solve problems.

Tomorrow I leave for 3 days to finally fulfill a life-long dream of seeing the Taj Mahal. I can’t wait and even though I’m still very weak from being so sick for so long, I’m as excited as a kid on Chirstmas Eve.

When I return before the end of this week, I am going to write The SEO Guru’s Tips for finding a good SEO and for those who need to find someone who can actually help them with search marketing and online promotion, this is the article you’ve been waiting for.  

 

You kids better turn off that TV and get to bed before I get in there!

 

PEACE

 

 

 

The Guru has been trying for the last 6 days to write an article for the millions of The Guru's readers, but, alas, the Guru has not been able to sit up except to run to the bathroom to throw up or --- well, you know. The Guru caught Malaria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

You may think a thing like that may dampen a Gurus spirit and some lesser Gurus, maybe so. But I'm just paying my dues. My attitude about India and my opportunities in it has not changed one iota. This past week, while I've been completely out of it, we've hired another 11 people and I'm more impressed than ever by the caliber of people I can finally afford to work with.

I just have to grow up, realize the whole world is not about me and accept certain realities and limitations. Seizing opportunities is not about thinking you're so tuff that nothing can stop you. That is self-centric to the max. Winning is about being able to honestly and effectively evaluate the environment and then make decisions based on risk/reward data and being able to accept and learn from your mistakes.

Malaria was my fault. I had medication called Malarone. Since I stayed an extra month more than I had originally planned I ran out. Instead of dealing with it like an adult and going to the doctor to get more, I just convinced myself that BOB could take it. BOB wasn't going to let a little thing like a disease that afflicts some 300 million people a year get in his way~ I KNEW I was so special that malaria wouldn't touch me~!

I caught Malaria less than 72 hours after I ran out of Malarone.

I'm actually kind of grateful. Something like Malaria gets you to stop thinking only of yourself. It makes you think about your wife, your kids, your friends, all the people counting on you . The experience has changed my life for the better and I will never forget it. What an incredible gift!

In spite of feeling so nauseous, I've also felt an extreme sense of responsibility to provide pearls of wisdom to my adoring fans, but we're fresh out of wisdom here. I can barely muster slobber.

So I thought of an article I had written over two years ago for a good friend Nick Wilson as he was launching Threadwatch. It is still relevant today, I don't have to write anything fresh and it's long enough it should keep you reading for another 2 to 3 days which the doctor says should be enough time to get the Guru back in the pink! The first time I wrote it, it took me a long time and a lot of effort but this time just copying and pasting is proving to be even more of an effort. I hope you enjoy and now the Guru is going to lie back down.

****************************************

The Massa Conversion Chronicles

• 25th Oct 2005

The Importance of Branding

I'm going to discuss branding. Not as a person holding an MBA would discuss it. Not even as a student of marketing would discuss it. Rather as a person who runs a small internet company would discuss it. My intention here is not to "teach" anyone anything. My intention is only to give you some insight into how one small business operator sees the particular challenge of how to compete with the Oracle's, Google's, Nike's and Yahoo's of the world.

Let me state right up front that I don't have a college degree in marketing. What I do have is the responsibility of paying corporate, payroll and personal taxes, meeting payroll, being sure I'm in compliance with hundreds of laws and restrictions, setting budgets and making sure I don't go over them, holding staff meetings, sales meetings, meetings with accountants, attorneys, bankers, customers and peers. I have to handle employee training, recruiting and evaluating. I handle customer relations, public relations and even the far too few romantic relations with my own wife. The same as many of you reading this now.

My point is simply that while I realize branding is important and directly related to conversions, where am I going to find the time to take college courses to learn what it is, when to use it and how and why? My hope today is that I am able to de-mystify the concept of branding and show you how I see it and how I use it with little more than reading a few books and webpages in what I laughingly refer to as "my spare time". I also hope I can open a platform for a discussion about branding as it applies to small business operators and encourage those who really do have those degrees to offer their input. Those people, we can argue with.

Let me start by offering a couple of sites that I found helpful.

http://webreference.com/new/branding.html
This one is short and to the point. Just keep following the links to the next section at the bottom of each page and it will cover, VERY basically, the major points of branding. Great for those on a time budget wanting to spend less time learning and more time making mistakes faster.

http://www.iconocast.com/Online_Branding.html
This place is pretty good for some real world, offline examples. It illustrates that branding is about more than just making something recognizable. It also provides some printed material that makes for pretty good reading.

http://falkow.blogsite.com/public/blog/81786
Finally, this is a pretty good little resource page for the topic of online branding.

To me, as a small business operator, branding is about establishing the perception of trust. When you see golden arches, you know exactly what to expect in what kind of environment. When you see that distinctive check mark on a pair of shoes, it implies a certain amount of prestige and a perception of a quality assurance. Fine, we all understand that. What I didn't understand for a long time was how I would establish that type of perception for my business.

I had read somewhere years ago that the MacDonalds corporation spent something like $60,000,000 annually on promoting their brand. Well, I knew I wasn't going to spend that much but what I didn't know was that the less you can afford to spend on branding, the more you need it.

So, branding can be used to target a specific market. The Absolut Vodka example on the iconocast site is a good example of that. By creating the brand as they did with the distinctive bottle design and graphics, they were identifying the product as being made for the young, smart, stylish market. BUT, that is something you do with branding when you can afford to set aside a significant amount of money to get the brand out there. I don't know that the bottle design would have been as effective in a text link without the visual impact a magazine can add. That is not to say it can't be done by small online business operators. Patrick Gavin's text brokering service (http://www.text-link-ads.com), comes to mind. He has positioned himself very well across the SEO cyber tundra and has captured the lion's share of that market. So, it can be done and it is scalable.

Even so, with my limited knowledge of what branding was and what it was worth, coupled with my ultra conservative budgetary restraints, I had to boil it down even more. In my business, I represent a lot of clients who represent a wide spectrum of services and products. None of these clients come to me for branding consulting or services. They come to me for two things. Traffic generation and conversions. That had little to do with branding I thought and THAT was my mistake. It had everything to do with branding.

What's the point of writing a title tag if it does not illicit a response from a human seeing the title in a search engine result or on a webpage? Placement without clicks is a labor in futility. Traffic without conversion is the epitome of waste.

A title tag is the first step to online branding. Think about what you are saying and what you want the person reading the title to do. See it as a sales proposition more than just keyword stuffing. If you do that, you have started building a brand and you have done it with no more expense than you would have had anyway and only a small increase of our worst enemy, time. The thing is that without branding, conversions are reduced and without conversions, placements mean little if the client cancels.

Once the purpose of the title is defined there is more that goes into branding a specific client, product or service. Things like what the website actually says, the links you provide, where you get links and what they say and the graphics you display. But with a purpose, (objective could be another word for purpose), in mind, branding can become second nature and you don't even have to think about it much and your branding falls into place with little effort.

Now for some of us, due to the very volume of title tags we are likely to produce, establishing an objective for each one is not very practical. It is much more likely that if you plan on generating a lot of pages for a specific keyword set or theme, you are going to be much more concerned with only the keyword and not so much with the branding. That is fine and that is what the majority of us reading this do now. BUT, I can tell you from experience that increasing conversions is easier, faster and cheaper than generating more traffic. Naturally it takes both but we all know we are going to generate the traffic, the purpose of these articles is to reduce your expense and increase your profit margins by discussing and thinking about it being easier to increase profit margins by getting more from what you have than simply going out and trying to get more of what you don't have. Branding is one of the absolute easiest ways to increase conversions and I believe you'll see why I feel that way once I show you how I see branding amd how I use it.

Remember, branding is all about perception. For my purposes, the perception of trust is the most important. So what I most want from someone reading my title, my anchor text and/or my web page is to accept the validity of the statement. How do we accomplish that fast and cheap?

By giving them what they expect to see when they made the decision to click whatever I gave them to click.

There you go. There in one sentence is one small business operator's definition of online branding. Giving the visitor what they expected to see when they clicked the link.

Stay consistent. Don't alter your grammar, (this is one reason why making sure your spelling and grammar is correct is important. No one notices it when it is but lots of people notice when it isn't), your tone or your personality.

Stay on message and stay in character. If you are speaking to a target market of women, don't change in the middle of the page to also try to appeal to men.

Use consistent graphics and navigation. If your interior links are on the left on one page, don't put them at the bottom on another. If you have a graphic of a product as a header, don't change the header on another page. Those kinds of things create doubt in a prospects mind and doubt is the seed of mistrust.

Most importantly, AVOID THE 3 SECOND BACK BUTTON BOOGIE. You do this by making sure that they land on a page that lets them know within 3 seconds they found what they were looking for. I happen to use some custom content management scripts but it doesn't have to be anything any more sophisticated than making sure the link text matches the page text the link goes to. If a click comes from a title that says CANCER CURE, make sure that click does not go to a page that has an H tag at the top that says AMERICAN DOCTOR LOCATOR. If a visitor has to read more than 2 or 3 seconds to find what they expected to see when they clicked the link, that is not branding. That is very likely wasting their time and yours. If the visitor sees the text match but it is smaller than other text, it looks like that is not as important as whatever it says that is bigger. That is NOT what the visitor expected to see when they made the decision to click your link. See what I mean?

There you go, the over-worked, under-paid mans guide to online branding.

Now, you kids quit pesterin that dog and come on in and get cleaned up for supper.

 

Man, I gotta tell you, I'm the luckiest guy in the world! I know that is an old cliché, but in my case it's the truth. I actually am the luckiest man in the world.

I have been blessed and showered with far more good fortune than I deserve based on merit. Just about everything wonderful life has to offer I've experienced. I have seen, tasted, heard, felt and loved a lot. I can't imagine what else there could be that is better than what I've had already, but I can't wait to find out! 

Though I've accepted long ago that I am the luckiest man in the world, I've never really known why. The closest I can come to an explanation is #1. People, all people fascinate me. What they do, why they do it and who they do it with never fails to draw and hold my attention.  #2.  I ain't afraid of sh**. I'll go anywhere, eat anything, do anything and the weirder it is the more I like it. #3. Even if things go in a direction that most people would consider wrong, I just see it as an adventure and another opportunity to have one more great story.

I believe it is my attitude and appreciation of adventure that makes me so good at understanding human motivations.  Studying and understanding people and why they do the things they do has sustained me and my lifestyle. I've always been able to make enough money to do whatever I've wanted to do by being able to understand those human motivations to help me be a better marketer.

Contrary to popular belief, selling is not about tricking people into buying what they don't want. Yes, there are liars and thieves but that is not selling. That is lying and stealing.

Selling is about getting people to trust you enough to tell you their needs or desires and you satisfying those needs or desires. It is not always easy but it’s certainly not complicated.

You may be questioning that statement in the context of online marketing. You may not see just yet, how you get anyone to open up to anyone else when we're talking about online, but believe it or not, it is exactly the same process except you are not eye-to-eye. The Guru is showing you that process little by little with each post he makes. If you read my last post about the Fallacy of SEO and How to Make Money From It, you can see a connection and a path we are heading down.

Well, today I want to use a video I shot this past weekend in a wonderfully strange and exotic place that illustrates not just the essence of online marketing but of all marketing!

That not being afraid of sh** thing kicked in this past weekend and I was up for an adventure. All by myself, I jumped in a rickshaw and had him take me the heart of a city that is more than 1,000 years old. BUT, that’s not the fascinating part. The part that turned me on so much was walking through the middle of living history. Being able to see, hear, smell, taste and feel business being conducted exactly the same way it was being conducted when Jesus chased the money changers from the temple was very cool.

This is the very core of commerce. This is what marketing is all about. All the technology, all the college degrees, all the billions spent on advertising each year it all started here and is still going on. So, we may use computers and eye-tracking studies and pie charts but we use those things to do what these people are doing right here and all those technological advances has not changed the basic motivation of the buyers and the sellers.

It is about people. Not technology. The technology is a tool. A means to and end and to use that tool you need to accept that those tools are there to help you do what this video shows being done for thousands of years.

I am so lucky to be here! To see this first hand was an experience I will never forget. It has taught me more about marketing and sales in a day than I’ve learned from most of the marketing books I have read. It was a wonderful day and I hope you can see even a glimpse of what I saw.

What I’m hoping you take away from this is the simple concept of realizing that the more things change, the more they stay the same. What makes this process work is the same thing that makes the process work online. It is about placing yourself in a position where the people most likely to respond to your message can see you and then interacting with those people.  

Notice the bolding on PEOPLE.

The video is short and even if you miss the correlations I’m hoping to make between their job and yours, I think you’ll find the visual interesting and unique. Unless of course you happen to live in a 1,000 year old city and shop like this all the time. The people I was videotaping didn‘t seem to think there was anything unique about themselves at all.  :)

I touched on this concept briefly last month http://massa.techndu.com/2007/08/15/AskTheSEOGuru.aspx but I want to expand on it a little today.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been defined by some as the art of manipulating the search engines. That is false. SEO does not manipulate search engines. If you set out to place a web page on the first page of results for a target keyword or phrase thinking you are manipulating the search engine, you are doomed to fail.

Thinking you are forcing the search engine to do anything is a mistake. Thinking you are hiding anything from a search engine is a mistake. The only answer to top placement is recognizing what a search engine does, assessing the potential rewards and risks and working within those confines.

The only ones who can manipulate a search engine, are the people with access to the admin panel, and/or source code, of that specific search engine. If you can't get to the admin panel, you can have no effect whatsoever on what that search engine does. All you can do is construct data that you feel is most likely to fall within the parameters of the algorithm.

That is not manipulating a search engine, that is learning how search engines work and then manipulating your page. No matter how vehemently some may disagree, that is a fact! No one can "help" a search engine find what it's looking for anymore than anyone can "make" a search engine do what they want. Search engines just do what they do. They are only machines.

SEO's do not optimize search engines. This is the fallacy of SEO.

All rightee then, so we can accept the concept but how does that make us more money? Is the Guru suggesting we tell potential customers that we don’t actually provide the service we claim on our websites because of a branding problem? 

No. The Guru is telling you we have a problem if we intend to provide what the client REALLY wants compared to what they think they want due to the media and the industry promoting an inaccurate, simplistic term for a complicated process.

By telling prospects that we don’t do SEO or that we do more than SEO giving the impression of increased cost, how do we compete with the people who just say, OK, pay me for SEO?

Remember that my purpose here is to show you can make money online WITHOUT having to be an SEO expert and not really about talking about, or teaching the secrets of SEO. SEO could be a metaphor, or even a metaphive, for just about any kind of business where the branding for that type of business is vague.

I have disliked the term SEO for describing online business development from the first day I heard it for the simple fact that it is a misnomer. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misnomer { We don’t use that word much where I come from so I had to look it up to make sure it meant what I thought it meant. If anyone else from Oklahoma is reading this, I thought I’d save you the time.}

Since no one in the so-called SEO industry actually optimizes a search engine, with the possible exception of those people who actually work for a search engine, the acronym SEO has become an umbrella term to describe a lot of things that the majority of the public does not understand.

This is a classic example of bad branding and while there are thousands of people generating revenue as a direct result of capitalizing and promoting that term, what the seo industry generates now is a drop in the bucket compared to what the online business development industry could, and should, be generating. In other words by allowing such a value driven service industry to be lumped into being branded as SEO, we are all grabbing the easy nickels and passing up the dollars. Branding can be just as much a problem as it is an asset.

There is no question that generating traffic from search engines is one aspect of online marketing. You can’t preach to empty pews. If you want a full collection plate, you need to get butts in the pews! But filling pews is not, and should not be, the objective. The objective is a full collection plate.

Let me dispel any notion that I am taking some kind of holier-than-thou high road. I am just as guilty of letting it slide as anyone else. I struggled for a long time back in the 90's and early 00's to try to force the term search engine placement for the direct action of placing my client's site above their competitors in search engines results as a starting point for an online marketing campaign. But to no avail.

 

I finally accepted that I could either spend my time servicing clients or trying to explain the difference between the two terms. SEO won.

It is painfully, slowly getting a little better. As business minded people become more acclimated to the realities of the actual depth of processes required to make an online business successful, I find myself more and more discussing techniques that will actually generate sales and not just traffic.

 But the problem remains that far too many clients come to me asking to be #1 laboring under the misconception that if they just get in the top of search engines that their financial problems will be over. A misconception that SEO’s, (including myself), help to foster. I hope you don’t let yourself be swayed by that misconception.

When I try to point out that in addition to traffic they need a plan, an objective and executable strategy that we can monitor and manage, I invariably do little more than lose the sale and make the prospect feel embarrassed. I don’t like losing sales, (I didn’t get into this business to NOT make sales), but I hate making the prospect feel bad and give up their dream much worse than just losing the sale.

I know that many of you are considering offering seo services because it is so easy to sell for the very reason it is misbranded and therefore vague. That’s fine. I WANT you to be able to identify opportunities and capitalize on them. But the dilemma comes when a prospect tells you he wants to pay you to make him #1 for some term. You know there is nothing wrong with doing what you were hired to do BUT you also know that what this prospect REALLY wants is for his website to make him money and that usually has very little to do with being #1 for a keyword search.

For a website to make money it needs a few things above and beyond just search engine traffic but –

#1. you may not have the resources to be able to develop a strategy to manage the manpower to execute the strategy, have the developers available to create unique scripts and  code to make the site “work” and designers to create an effective layout that leads visitors to a specific action. Whew!

#2. you know that if you explain this to the prospect they will realize you are right and they were wrong in thinking they could get rich quick just by using the mystical, (and cheap), secrets of an SEO    

So, should you compromise your ethics and just take the money knowing you can justify it or do you risk losing the client by attempting to educate him? Or do you try to find a creative solution?

Well, first of all, if you can’t choose one of those three options, I urge you to consider choosing a different path for your online venture. There are a LOT of ways to make money online and most of them easier than any aspect of SEO.

I can’t tell you what to do or even what I “think” you should do. Those questions have to be answered by you and you shouldn’t even consider letting someone else make a decision like this for you. All I can do is tell you what I have done in the hope of offering only one possible solution.

Luckily, I’ve been doing this long enough and have enough of a reputation that I do get the kind of jobs that I don’t have to educate anybody. The prospect is well aware of what is needed, they hire my company to perform specific tasks such as custom script development or specific types of link acquisition and everybody is happy. EVERYTHING is so much better when the client knows what they want and you just perform the service.

But since moving here to India to set up an SEO outsourcing company, (see? there I go again), excuse me, I meant to say, set up an online business development service and Business Process Outsourcing company, ( so how many people who had been thinking of hiring me did I just lose?),  I have been getting a lot more emails from people telling me they want me to get them #1 for some broad, extremely competitive term.

Also, since my start-up fees are low they come to me with the mistaken impression that getting those top terms is pretty easy and not very expensive. Maybe it’s my fault but there’s that misconception thing again.

 Over this past two years I have been able to take the core of traffic generation and online business development and create a basic process that has never failed to increase, not just the traffic but most importantly, the revenue of almost every project I have accepted.

{NOTE: The key phrase was just mentioned in case you failed to notice. EVERY PROJECT I ACCEPTED. The key to my strategy is in the ability to know which projects to accept and being able to walk away from the ones you don’t.}

Basically, I don’t tell them what they need, I show them. I assure them that I can indeed get them the placement they are asking for and after taking a look at the idea and the site, I develop an outline of an objective and strategy that starts to display the scope of how to turn the site into something that can actually generate revenue which is what ALL prospects really want. The strategy may include a better way to sell their product or service online, or maybe it includes a system for setting up affiliate programs or adsense but it  will always include a statement re-assuring them we will get the placements they are expecting.

I offer the outline and without dissuading them from the placement thing, they start to see how we set up the processes that we can monitor and manage and that they can verify.  Within that outline there is also mention of the fact that this particular strategy will require time and resources beyond the scope of the original agreement but that we will not increase the fees if they are willing to share the revenue only from what we generate. In other words, we only get paid from what we produce.

No one says no. If they did of course we would have to cancel the project and refund the money because we can’t do this level of work without getting paid. BUT the point is that I chose the third option of finding a creative solution and it has worked very well for me.

The main thing to remember is that the quickest way to lose a sale is to point out to the prospect that they are wrong or that they have made a mistake. Find a creative way to show the client how smart they are in choosing you to help them and you will get far more sales and a lot more happy customers than trying to “teach them” the error of their ways.

Recommended reading

http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Branding-World-Class/dp/0887309372

Review
http://www.v7n.com/22_immutable_laws_of_branding.php

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The SEO Guru

you kids quit pesterin that dog and get outside and play!