Search Engine Marketing Spot

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In part 1 of this article series I listed 7 things that you need to ask yourself and make sure you can do. This article is a continuation of the last four items listed. You could add to the list, however I am only listing these seven for now. If you have not read the first part of this article then you may read it here, Is The SEM/SEO Business For You? (Part 1). If you would like to add to the list, then please do so by adding it to your comments.

Knowledge – To succeed in this industry you need to know more then just SEO techniques. You need to know marketing strategies, techniques, analytics/tracking, placements, and concepts. I believe that a lot of people read a book or two, chat on forums and then think they are an expert in the industry and are ready to start a business. When you ask if you should start an SEO company or get into the industry you have already failed. SEM (Search Engine Marketing for those that don’t know) is the industry, SEO is nothing but a piece of the puzzle. It is more then simple on page techniques that you utilize. It’s the off page optimization that can make or break a marketing campaign. I will write about on and off page optimization later this week for those that do not fully understand what the difference is. Keep in mind that in our industry things can change overnight, keeping on top of the newest methods, techniques, trends is a must. However more importantly is testing out your own theories and ideas to not only educate yourself on what works, but to help the industry as well. Education and knowledge should be an on going process for you and your co-workers. The internet doesn’t stop, so why should you stop learning about how to rank better on it?

Experimentation – To succeed in this industry you need to step outside of the box and experiment on your own. You probably have read about techniques that worked in the past, what if you tweaked it, would it work with today’s search engine algorithm’s? What if you took two concepts, adapted them slightly and combined them together? Best one though is to brainstorm and come up with an idea that has never been tried and see if you can get it to work. Marketing and optimization techniques you read about on forums, conferences, and blogs are not the only things that work. There are techniques out there that people use that we do not hear about. Those people experiment with websites to see if there technique or combination of techniques worked for the search engines to achieve better rankings. Most of the time you will not even know about those techniques until either everyone else already knows about it or the search engines ban the technique or change there algorithm to adjust for it. In most cases that is the order in which it happens. Never stop thinking of new ways for search engine marketing and do not be afraid to test them out. With out experimentation, they will just remain theories you have written down or typed up and saved to a word document on your computer.

Patience – To succeed in this business you need to have patience and understand that good results to not happen overnight. You also need to educate your clients that search engine marketing takes time. If you are targeting a high volume keyword, in most cases it will take longer to rank well then for a lower volume keyword. Without patience you will end up making so many changes that you will have no idea what changes were beneficial or detrimental to your search engine marketing campaign.

Time – To succeed in this business you have to apply the above six things together and realize it will take time. If you think that by buying that search engine software that it will do all the work for you then you are wrong. Yes there is software out there that will give you advice on what to change on the page, but how do you know if the software is correct? They might make suggestions that will take your marketing strategy and do a 180. Also loading the URL, keywords, description, etc. and hitting the GO button is not SEO. A successful search engine marketing campaign takes time, time to do and time to see good results. If you are not willing to spend hours a day, and realize that even planning out a marketing campaign for your client can take a week then SEO/SEM is not for you. Planning out a search engine marketing campaign is the most important thing you do. The research involved can take day’s, putting it all together and forming a proposal for your client can take another day. If they do not like the direction of the marketing proposal or want to alter it a little bit then guess what, that is more TIME. You want to succeed then you need realize a lot of us out here have put in the time and continue to do so to this day, are you willing to commit to it?

Write down or print out these things listed above so you do not forget. It is easy to read something and agree with it, however in some cases people forget about it. Even by looking at it once a week, once a month or whenever you will keep yourself focused on the end result and that being a successful search engine marketing company.

More to come in part 3 of this article series.