SEOenthusiast

Yup, I used the word “expert” and yup, I’m on that list and yup, that’s a heap of gumption, eh!

But I’m just re-stating the title that the folks over at DIY SEO used, honestly…I claim no such a title…I’m just a working SEO practitioner !

You see, they polled 45 SEO folks that they determined might have something to say to this question…

And what was compiled here in this blog piece, were the answers for many of the SEO folks that I read every day…blog about often…send leads/referrals to too… these folks know SEO, eh…and I wanted to point out a few of their tips herein.

Rand Fishkin…if you don’t know who this guy is, then you don’t belong in SEO, eh! Rand points out something pretty interesting, eh!

“ if you merely copy a competitor, you’re not innovating or creating a unique value proposition/advantage. If marketers built resources and citation-worthy content, crafted compelling designs + user experiences and leveraged the principles of inbound marketing, they’d often be in a far better position than a simple “copy/paste” strategic model…”

Think about that for a bit. If you’ve watched the whole SEO channel grow like I have, many many times I’ve heard it preached that all you need to do is to copy the top ranking competitors in your channel, to enjoy the same success. Rand says “not” to this, and I think he’s right…I do know that differentiating your client from their competiton is the best way to create a unique reputation and that appears to have been ‘vetted’ here by Rand. Great tip here for us all to follow, eh!

Marty Weintraub…of aimClear out in Minnesota is also an acknowledged expert in the SEO world…and his answer to that same question –

“The era of playing beat the algorithm is over, and the focus should be on important content targeted to salient demographic segments who would be interested in it…”

Think on that one for a moment too, eh. Too too too many times at forums, on blogs, on community boards, in webmaster help areas, I read that SMBs are asking how to “game” the algo. This is not only “warped” thinking but in fact, the total wrong end of the stick. As Marty goes on to explain, that what is important is for SMBs to offer up true content for their visitors and to then use SEO to increase the visibility of that content that matters to their users. End of story…and yup, I like that one too, eh!

Mike Blumenthal…is one of the most knowledgeable LOCAL experts around…he’s taught at the #LocalU since it’s inception and as he lives like 80 miles from my offices, he’s a true “local” expert, eh! Mike makes no bones about what he thinks the answer to the question is at all –

“If I had to identify the single biggest mistake it would be that many think that SEO and online marketing is a one time action. Build it and done….”

Done….as in the line “if you build it they will come” type of rationale. And that’s so dang prevalent out there in the SEO world, that my head was nodding YES as soon as I started to read Mike’s answer. Done. Too too many SMBs think that once the site is built and semi-optimized, that this is now complete and the traffic will be here in the morning and now on to other things. Ain’t so, SMB owners….SEO is a long hard process that requires much in the way of constant reasearch, hypothesizing, testing, analyzing and then making tactical changes/revisions to your SEO campaign. When you’ve done that, take a breath….okay, then do it again and again…and again!

While I could go on here…there’s tons of other friends I have on this list….but space and time are limitations that one can not ignore.

So please DO go and look at the piece and even print it out and save it for reading tonite at the dinner table or tomorrow as it’s a holiday….there’s a ton of “easter eggs” buried in this piece!

And KUDOS to the folks over at DIY SEO and Ken Lyons of Measuredsem.com for his work and research on this too! Great piece…now all we gotta do is use the tactics in same, eh!