Getting good SEO these days is like getting a good hair stylist. Every online marketer thinks they got the magic touch. Price is always the bottom line factor. The customer tries to save “a few bucks”. But when they walk back out into the street they realize they bought a discount service in more ways than one. Just like the time I tried to get a haircut at a discount place and I walked out into the open street with a Moe Howard haircut!
Stylish? NOT!
But seriously, walking into a search engine optimization company can be very intimidating lately. It is so pretentious. I am not speaking for all of them but there are some real pompous firms out there. I am talking about the clinical look. They got the AC cranked up to the point where there is crystallized frost on the window panes. Everything is painted bright white. Uncomfortable chairs with ergonomically correct fixtures and a glaring white bluish light intensifying the whiteness around you. You are too terrified to touch anything. You feel like you’re in a doctor’s office.
Naturally, as a prospect you feel threatened and intimidated. As a fellow certified SEO guy I do not pretend to understand the pretentious nature. I never even heard of Leonard Cohen until I went to college. My parents never jammed out to him while I was growing up. I mean honestly, what is he doing on the sound system. The whole thing is set up to make you feel awkward.
The nerd squad has a welcoming committee. The 40 year old woman in pigtails and nerd glasses makes me want to run for the door. The grubby tech guy in the mustard yellow long sleeve shirt gives me the sudden urge to jump head first out the window. These are the people who are going to be taking my credit card before I walk out the door. Of course, as a customer I am scared, wouldn’t you be? What is the natural response supposed to be?
When In Doubt – Take The Money And Run
When a SEO firm is wrong they still take your money. They run for the hills. Literally. They run for the Hollywood Hills in most cases – they will leave the state, blow town, and disappear. Web site designers pull the same type of stunts causing much dismay to the public. Overall this has tainted the entire scene for customer and web marketer.
So what do you do?
Rebel Marketing
Cut a video. Grab a camera and shoot and save it and download it to your desktop. Throw it up on http://YouTube.com and 700+ other web video sites. Take no prisoners. SEO can only take you so far. You have to learn how to bend the rules and have the 8 families of search engines bow down to you. You have to know how to grab the handle of the knife and twist it.
I scrapped out the academic approach of what was expected from SEO firms. I stopped listening to the sponsors of the academic circles of the SEO elite. I shut them out and the best thing of all I stopped asking for permission. Short end of the story, I stopped listening to the “In” crowd. That in itself paid off handsomely. I was glad to get out of that ridiculous stuck up know nothing circus.
There are some great places to take your cue from. The book, “Punk Marketing” is worth picking up from a manifesto standpoint. There are some great introductory film books that you should get a hold of too. “The $30 Dollar Film School” is a great book for learning about how to put shots together and how to communicate with video online.
Taking action in areas that haven’t been fleshed out yet by the experts paid off for me. I was able to get my material indexed quickly in the search engines. Who could argue with that kind of success. Getting pages indexed in as little as 4 hours instead of 3 months. High Google rankings in as little as a few hours and getting my blogs read by the right people has really changed my business. The networking opportunities that came forth from posting my material blew me away.
The new partnerships I was able to create was a direct result of hard work and positioning my web sites. I was a firm believer of doing business this way after I got $15,000 in the same day from my prospects. The kicker was I didn’t have to meet with these people in person. I conducted my sales over the phone and directed my prospects to my pre-recorded media online.
The whole Rebel approach was all about never asking permission. I simply stopped listening to advice after I picked up an a new online marketing book. The book asked me to visit message boards and subscribe to newsgroups. My God what year is this?
I thought this was 2008.
There are too many books written by “experts” who never stepped a foot in an ad agency, work in the field, spend time with real clients or achieved online visibility. I take offense to this type of advice because it lies on speculation and theory. Those two nasty words are just the ticket to take you to the poor house.
Web 2.0 is a great place to start. But that should only serve as your springboard. There are so many great services out there that can help propel your rankings, visibility and build traffic. Your job as a business owner is to be open to them and to work with these tool sets. The results can literally transform your business into an online powerhouse.
I encourage all business owners to step up to the plate and get their own material made. Distribute your own video clips, record your own podcasts, populate your blogs and web pages. Stop handing your money over to PPC, SEO bumpkins and techno shamans. You have to take charge of your own marketing and deliver your marketing messages to the right people.
There is too much bad SEO companies out there. You need to ditch these guys no matter how good their coffee tastes.
Scrap the ROI charts and statistics and other poofy fluffery, smoke and mirrors. Take an active roll in your marketing. Leave the cold air conditioned clinics to people in the medical field. Come down off the cloud and get real with yourself and your business.
There is nothing like charting your own success. So get responsible and take charge of your marketing so you can call the shots.
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