SEO Is Not Going To Make Your Business Work
A lot of guys get into internet marketing with the hope that they’re going to “hack” business and money making success. A lot of people become writers, SEO guys or even more generic things like “affiliate marketer” and hope that the tricks that they learned on an internet marketing forum are going to see them eclipse the competition.
Needless to say, it’s not really like that.
Most internet marketers are going to try and sell you internet marketing information. Most SEO guys sell you a package that’ll help boost you to the front of Google – whatever that might mean.
Most freelance writers are going to deliver work late and unedited, because you aren’t paying them enough, and hey, they’re trying to make quick and easy money just like you are.
If this sounds like something familiar, then don’t worry; you’re in the same position that a lot of folks on the internet money making circuit are. All you need to do is read on and I’ll give you a blueprint for building a better mindset for creating an actual business online.
Speaking of which…
SEO is NOT Going To Make Your Business
I remember going on a business course once. There were some young guys who were dressing up the idea of building niche sites as starting an online publishing company. That’s fair enough. However, the room was filled with people who were trying to build tech start-ups, recruitment companies and wholesale import/export businesses.
Those people asked the niche site guys things like, “Why would I buy from you?”
The guys replied, “We are going to use technical SEO techniques.” Of course, those “SEO techniques” were complicated and blah blah.
When you are going to put your life savings into a wholesale business, you have to answer a lot of questions before you spend that money. You have to know who you’re selling to, how much it’ll cost and all those other financial figures that’ll ensure your retirement money is still safe.
With an internet start-up, you don’t have to worry about anything like that. There’s no monetary loss to starting a hundred websites, and so you don’t have to think so hard.
The problem is that a lot of internet marketing guys don’t think about things that other businesses take for granted.
SEO is not going to make your business. If you have a terrible white label product and a terrible website, then nobody is going to buy your product. It doesn’t matter if you rank #1 for “best white label product.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve got some insane skills on Twitter.
SEO isn’t a marketing strategy. It’s a tiny, tiny subdivision of online marketing, and if that’s all your business is pinning its hopes on, then you’re going to be out of luck and money quickly.
How do I know this?
Because the most successful business I’ve started so far doesn’t involve SEO at all. I used to fall into the SEO-is-complicated trap. Then I started writing freelance online and didn’t even have a website for the first year of doing it.
Now my SEO strategy is “write content and post it online where it’s relevant.” I don’t spend hours learning about the different types of header tags or meta-data or anything like that.
Even on SEO dependent stuff like niche sites, my strategy is really simple. I wrote about it here.
If you’re starting an online business, I’d recommend not planning an SEO strategy until you’ve already done a ton of other stuff. When you do, don’t let it swallow you whole.
Here’s why.
SEO Isn’t Complicated; No Matter What the Gurus Tell You
Sometimes, I go on SEO sites and immediately regret it.
Luckily, in the wake of Google tightening up its algorithm and the other search engines following suit, the idea that you have to blast tens of thousands of links in multiple tiers has died a death. However, it’s been replaced by uber-nerds talking about keyword density to the hundredth-of-a-percent and testing out the perfect placement in terms of the words within the first paragraph and the placement of heading tags and all sorts of other alchemical stuff.
What Should You Do Instead?
I’ve said before and I’ll say again: This stuff doesn’t matter. The search engine algorithms are trying to replicate human behaviour. Ergo, if you create webpages like a human, eventually you’ll win. SEO is long term, and working out in robotic detail things that work at this moment is a waste of time.
Instead, concentrate on writing good content and doing the basics (like, putting what the subject is about in the title) and you’ll find that over time your site will do well in search results.
The Key Mindset
Here is a key mindset to think about when you’re planning your SEO, marketing and business.
Marketing is putting your business in front of customers who are going to buy your stuff.
Some internet marketing guys think that SEO is marketing, or that all they have to do is get to the front page of Google and they’ll make a million dollars. They think that “If this search term gets 500 hits a month and I get one sale out of that, that’s $100!”
This isn’t really a marketing strategy.
Sure, if ending up number one in the search results is the way to get in front of your customers, then do it.
Remember though that there are tons of ways to get in front of your customers that aren’t SEO. If you can get two customers through SEO but a hundred through sending out leaflets, then you’ll spend more time doing the leaflets.
With every marketing action, ask yourself if you’re actually getting more eyes on your product with any action.
Building hundreds upon hundreds of spam links is a surefire way to not do this.
Final Thoughts
Gurus love to break everything down into tiny details so that when they’ve drained everyone’s wallets with one tiny detail they can move on to the next tiny detail and repeat the process.
Succeeding in business is more a case of big ideas and fulfilling simple needs in a straightforward way.
Not everyone can master technical programming and analytics and navigate complicated marketing jargon, but everyone can do the following things:
Find a need.
Create a solution to the problem.
Give people a solution to said problem.
People have made billions doing the above without knowing the blindest thing about the technicalities of what they’re supposed to be doing. If you’re spending hours at a time reading about SEO, those people are getting ahead of you and building businesses right now while you’re wasting time.
/Rant over