I got a couple emails last week I wanted to share in anonymized format. Here's the first one:
It's me again <redacted>, just wondering I have been learning allot more about how to link build without software like senuke x and other automatic software and becoming a better manual link builder with google alerts etc.
And here's the second:
I look after around 6 clients at the moment, but my daily jobs just seem to be very repetitive e.g. finding related blogs, commenting on them, submiting sites to decent directories and guest posting, an now and again creating infographics and sharing them with blog owners and across sites such as reddit/quora etc...mostly I'm just blog commenting though.
I get A TON of emails like this. When folks are relatively new to the field of online marketing, or are moving from classic marketing into SEO, they often reach out seeking advice and help. Unfortunately, the volume's become a bit overwhelming of late, and I'm only able to respond to 50%, sometimes less (side note: I tried an experiment w/ email scalability a couple months back that failed). Thus, I wanted to write a post to express some empathy.
Yes. Marketing is really, really damned hard.
I understand the temptations to phone it in, to spam instead of creating authentic value, to outsource responsibility, to proclaim for all to hear that you HATE marketing, to give up. You're not alone. In fact, I've been just inches from all of those perspectives time and again over the last decade.
But that's also what makes great marketing so powerful. When:
- Very few people are qualified or capable to do something
- Many people believe that thing to be impossible
- Only a handful make exceptional investments to achieve it
That, in my opinion, is when remarkable things are in your grasp.
The marketing channels we invest in - SEO, social media, content marketing, community building, virality - fit these parameters well. It's easy to do the basics, tough to get the intermediate items right and mind-blowingly challenging to get that last few percent that takes us from mediocrity to extraordinary.
So many times, marketing professionals are called in to execute on Step 3 after being handed half-assed 1s and 2s. My friend Philip Vaughn told me at a lunch some months ago that "startups aren't really an engineering, product or organizational problem. They're mostly a marketing problem." But if we're handed crap to market, we can't help but do crap marketing.
At the risk of pissing a lot of people off - A large portion of SEO is just compensating for not being awesome.
— Rob Woods (@robdwoods) April 23, 2012
So many of the questions I see around inbound marketing boil down to the same fundamental challenge:
The way I see it, we only have two options:
A) Give in to giving up.
B) Take/earn responsibility for Step 1 and 2
Embracing option B and taking responsibility for your product -> marketing lifecycle is something very few people are qualified for, or capable of doing, many people believe to be impossible and only a handful ever execute exceptionally well. And it means remarkable results are in your grasp.
I tell you why marketing is so easy to get all wrong: 'lack of business intelligence'. You don't understand the business, you don't understand the industry and you jump straight into keyword research, content development and link building and then expect miracles from your compaigns.
How many of us spend weeks in understading the client's business, market and competiton? I said 'weeks', doesn't sound scalable? Yes it is not. Gathering business intelligence is very time consuming task esp. if you are new to the industry/market but this is what eventually seperates one campaign from another. This is what seperate one marketer from another. The better your understaind the market, the better business decisions you can take. This has nothing to do with SEO tools, tricks or tips. Marketing is all about taking the right decisions at the right time. Without deep understading of the business you will have hard time identifying the right audience, creating contents which help improve the bottomline and reaching out to the right people. Business intelligence infact eventually makes you more scalable and efficient in your tasks as it greatly reduce the 'guess work' (the biggest time sucker) in every area of SEO, PPC and other marketing channels. You achive faster results in less time. This is a win win situation for both marketers and the clients. So i would suggest spend enormous amount of time in understanding and strategizing your marketing campaigns. Remember the 80/20 rule. 80% of your output comes from 20% of your input. Cheers!
I agree absolutely.
Without knowing the business as though it were your own, there are too many "cracks" for your marketing efforts to fall through.
This is a constant joke with my family:
Mom - "what are you working at today?"
Me - "Today I'm a plumber"
Mom - "Is that the same job as last week?"
Me - "oh no...last week I was a defective drywall specialist"
...but really I'm not joking. When I really understand the business, I understand my client, but more importantly, I understand their customers. That is when my effectiveness as a marketer really begins.
Sha
I also agree with SEOTakeaways. Before we jump into some work we need to know what exactly we are going to do and what could be the possible consequences. Before sending an SEO proposal, please think or better communicate more with the client about its business. Try to understand the business purpose, its target audience, how its competitors are doing it and what could be the scopes.
After a deep study, we should formulate the plan rather than just sending proposals for generic SEO.
Thanks Rand for sharing such a simple yet overlooked points.
I agree completely that nothing of lasting value can be done until you have a deep understanding of the industry and your client's position in it.
I always begin with a throrough interview with lots of open-ended "dumb reporter" questions like:
- What business are you in ?
- Who are your competitors ?
- How would you like to compete more effectively ?
- What do you sell ?
- Give me an idea of your main products and how much of your revenue they produce
(and my favorite):
What keeps you up at night?
The answers are often very revealing and the good stuff tends to come at the end (just like on the old TV series "Columbo"). Example: I had no idea that 1/3 of the revenue from a high-end gym came from the therapy rooms off to the side. And I was a member of that gym and thught I knew all abut it!
This interview takes 90 minutes to 3 hours and usually reveals a lot. I also use the interview as an opportunity to educate the prospect abiut SEO basics, using case studies. I liken myself to a portfolio manager with a variety of techniques at his disposal and say I customize to each client.
I do this it in person or via Skype. Then, and only then, do I start on keyword research and putting together a proposal. These days, I insist on a minumum 3 month commitment.Sometimes, i can waste 5-10 hours on all this and end up with nothing. But it beats a 30-day contract on which I lose money in hopes the client will renew.
Totally agree with this.
Most of the times Link builders are very enrgetic and wants to work more and more for quick results but unfortunetly they never make any startegy how to work and what will be the benificial, so the results as they expecting will not come and they think marketing is really hard to do but i think Marketing is a mind game and in this you have to just learn your target user mind what they need and how much and when they need. If you will able to do this then this feild is all yours :)
Cut
Paste
Print
Take to quarterly SEO progress review
Staple to foreheads of senior management
I did the same mistake, when i came into SEO field. Too much emphasis on link building, stuffing keywords and the like. Gradually realised that internet markering is a marathon, not a sprint. It helped also that i came across seomoz early in my career.
suck up :)
I can relate. I'm a bail bondsman. A good one if I say so myself, but just try to go out and get Likes and +1s for an industry based on being arrested. Lol. Stil,l I muddle along.
Dude! I would definitely read/share blog posts about your adventures in arresting. I bet you've got some stories...
I would read and share too! It could be interesting. People love stuff like cop/law shows and watching people get arrested. I mean, Dog the Bounty Hunter has a tv show so you could probably get some interest for a blog.
I think we share a similar problem.
I source leads for property investors from motivated sellers read people who needs to sell their house quickly because of debt or repossession ...
Pretty hard to generate exciting contents that can attract visitors and likes ;-0. Maybe we should team up and exchange ideas?
Well said, Indy!! lol...
Link building is the narrowest prospect of SEO IMO, and so when a person sticks to it he actually kills the Awesomeness of SEO process. For me SEO is far more than just link building, guest posting and stuff, for me the process is all about creating an visible online identity for your client. Although, blog commenting, guest posting, link submission are easiet and proven methods in the process, but lets not forget we are marketers at the end of the day and so we need to be as creative in order to endorse our client (website we are "optimizing"). As Rand mentioned it is only possible when we take the charge from the start and then make it even better with help of the SEO guidelines infused with your own creative ideas.
Very Intellegent post RAND (as per usual ... Every time I read something by you and it evidently increases my fanship to you)
For me having a solid background in the more traditional marketing has helped with integrating the Digital side (I'm still not happy about the two being seen a seperate although companies often split them out).
I think the chance to 'win the internet' can only happen with points 1 and 2. Good point from seoug_2005 above!
"But if we're handed crap to market, we can't help but do crap marketing."
I always tell potential clients, SEO can't fix what is fundamentally wrong with your company. If you can't identify your exact audience and tell them why your brand is awesome, nothing else you do in terms of marketing is going to make a big splash.
Totally agree. I think Rob's Twitter quote dovetails with that beautifully.
Great article Rand! I always kept away from marketing 'cause I saw it as trying to sell unneccessary stuff to people. Bothering them with your messages. When online marketing came up, marketing became cool again. Not pushing, but pulling people in with great content, really helping them, interacting on social media. But now with blackhead SEO techniques, buying fake social media followers, I sometimes really don't like it anymore.
On the other hand, it is a challenge. Clients ask me to help them with SEO. I do. But at the same time I see that their products of services are not outstanding enough to make it in this competitive online business. But where to draw the line of my services?
Hmm, challenging.
Hi Rand, This is great to hear for startups like myself that sometimes feel overwhelmed it's nice to know that you were someone that had felt fed up at times but as mentioned here you did not give up. I believe that with hard work and perseverance (you must want it) most can do it obviously some people will do better than others. However I firmly believe that what you said here makes a lot of sense and it's very encouraging to remember when life sends a curve ball your way. Great post. Sincerely, Thomas
it's a daily fight.
When you have an amaizing product to promote it's easy, to share it, to speak about it ... the product sells itself.
But when you have to promote a mid or low quality product ... I always say "it tastes like plastic", it doesn't have any value or consistency, it's an empty.
You may sell a few, but the customers are smart enough to see that they pay to much on it.
I always ask myself "Why would this website rank first?" and most of the answers are ... because the owner wants it to rank, not because it is a higher quality website.
We should focus more on bulding amaizing products and websites that are a pleasure to promote, than building a mid product and struggling to promote it (because nobody wants it).
The community-building aspect of inbound marketing is probably the most challenging to execute and maintain but likely returns the best rewards. In my experience, most communities operate like a church who doesn't know which god they are worshipping or what their purpose for meeting is. Fortunately, that's not at all the case here, so thank you to the SEOMoz community team.
One of my favourite parts of SEO is the fact that you work more closely with clients & need to educate yourself about their business to truly succeed. You need to learn about the keywords/industry/audience etc you're trying to rank for and convert. SEO for me is more than an executionary role - you need to be proactive by providing ideas & strategies.
I agree with Rand re: our involvement in Steps 1 & 2 - this is paramount & makes everything more interesting :)
I do want to say I definitely agree a fundamental understanding of how business is conducted and respect for human beings is 100% essential in any business whether you're selling tiddlywinks or SEO/ Inbound marketing whatever you do must have complete respect for your customers and your competitors. A longstanding knowledge of how business is conducted I know it pays to do the right thing as people will do right by you if you do your best for them. I have been a chemical engineer for over nine years and still am. I founded three companies all are still in business today I found the first at 20 years of age and I don't think that I would have had the guts to start a fourth company if I had not had the education then experience to learn the basics. I do want to bore you guys but the most universal part of business is treat everyone better then you want to be treated. I hope this is of some help. Respectfully, Thomas Zickell
Love the quote from Rob Woods. I love getting clients that are totally awesome on their own. They seem to succeed at everything they do. We just give them the tools for success and point them in the right direction.
Very well put! I'm a newb to the SEO world and learned a lot from this post... key take away... WORK HARDER~! lol
"Yes. Marketing is really, really damned hard."
Word.
Marketing is hard work - sometimes you hit on something that works first time but normally it's a case of trial and error mixed up lots of lesson learning before a strategy can be built that sustains itself. The way that people look at SEO as a marketing process is skewed by the birth of the internet and the initial .com bubble in which we all bought the line that there was so much money to be easily made out there.
"startups aren't really an engineering, product or organizational problem. They're mostly a marketing problem."
An amazing engineer would say startups are an engineering problem
An amazing product developer would say it's the products problem
An amazing operations manager would say its an organizaional problem
And an amazing marketeer would say its a marketing problem.
Surely its a matter of point of view, all of the above define startup success and vary in influence depending on the lifecycle stage of the startup.
HOWEVER - I do agree that in the longer term, marketing and product matter the most :)
P.S. Agree with Rands tone and to the non-believers who are stating the competition and how they are ranking...well that usually means point 1 of 4 has gone wrong somewhere!
Hello Rand,
Awesome Post. It is very useful for me. But i want to know some thing different from this post. I want to know that how many backlinks i can make for a website in a day? I don't want to get penality from "Over Optimization".
One thing more, is same class c ip websites are harmful for seo?
You are absolutely right in your words because a lot of people from our field don't pay attention to focus upon targeting the right audience and they don't properly understand the business to whom they are providing services. For performing our job best its compulsory to spend some time to better understand the step 1 and 2.
I'm very fortunate that in the company I work for I get to work closely with the BI and R&D team right from Step 1. :D
Rand, you're not giving the complete picture.
The reason it's easy to get all the marketing wrong - I'm talking about people working on their own or very small businesses, not the big companies - is that they are doomed by market forces and time constraints before they even start.
The reality is that in today's world it is virtually impossible for an individual to do all the white hat marketing stuff and still have time left over to sleep more than 30 minutes a day.
Think about it.
Creating "amazing stuff", such as great content for example takes a huge amount of time. I know this because I've worked over ten years as a content manager. And even with the time put in, most individuals are doomed before they start. Why? Because there is so much content being produced every minute by hundreds of millions of blogs. Many of the blogs that get ranked highly based on their content have teams of specialized pros working full-time to create content. And not just writers, but developers, graphic artists, etc so that the writer is free to just write mostly.
On the other hand, the individual has to think up of ideas on his own, then create the content, then stylize it for web audiences (which takes time finding all those pictures, icons, deciding what to bold, where to use bullet points, etc), and then has to put the content on the page since he doesn't have a team of developers sitting around like a company does. Yeah, posting a blog post isn't a huge feat development-wise but it is a time sucker getting the pictures to align right and all the little other little things.
And that content has to be "amazing." Good luck with that in this environment where there are thousands of blog articles on practically every conceivable topic. What is an individual going to write about? "5 Great SEO Tips for 2012". Done a thousand times over already. So, the "home run" to "stirke out" ratio is going to be incredibly low because it takes a huge amount of time in today's world to create amazing content.
The bar has been set so high, the internet universe populated with trillions of articles, that an individual has to spend many more hours than before thinking of and executing amazing content. And most times the content will still fall on deaf ears.
But let's say the individual creates great content. With the few hours he has left in the week, he now has to market it. So he has to build a Twitter following. Build a FB following. Maybe create a monthly email newsletter (which takes a lot of time creating and stylizing so the recipient doesn't hit delete). He has to comment, respond to comments, interact on social media, and so on.
None of that is hard, but it's a big chunk of time.
And now comes the linkbuilding. The individual has to create custom emails to each person. He has to research who to email. He has to be personal, thank the recipient for a great blog, offer to fix broken links, offer something for free perhaps (like an e-book, which the individual now ahs to add to his list of things to do), etc. That is a lot of time for just one email, but he has to do it many times over, often with much less success than he hoped for.
5-10 years ago, marketing one's blog/site was much easier. The field, while not leveled, was not as 1% versus 99% as it is now.
Sites like Mashable, LifeHacker, etc so on have such an incredible advantage over any site trying to get started now by an individual.
There is a reason why most of the major blogs nowadays have teams of specialized people. There is a reason they don't expect their writer to also do web development and SEO and graphics.
So while it's technically possible for an individual to do all that is necessary to create amazing content and market it, realistically those who are new to the field should be made aware of what they are in store for and just how low their chances are and what they're up against. The dialogue should talk about 90 hour weeks, never leaving your desk, gaining 30 lbs, killing your health, etc just to be able to compete on one's own.
You say that, but PandoDaily looks like a serious competitor in the field after only a few months. My wife started a travel blog 3 years ago, and today, it would likely be rated one of the top 10 in the field (and yet, she refuses to do any SEO - just good at content and active on Twitter).
If you get step 1 right, step 2 becomes easier. Get step 2 right and step 3 becomes WAY easier. Get all three? You win.
Don't get me wrong, nothing worth having comes easy, and this process is worth having. But it's also not impossible nor does it mean working 100-hour weeks to make it.
I have to disagree with you (seo_f2012) on this. There will always be larger and more established compeitors out there. But if you get in the game and do what it takes, not 90 hours week, any new company will be just fine.
You may not see top results overnight, but you will see results.
My 3 step formula for making "amazing" stuff:
Step 1: Brainstorm > Step 2: Get Creative > Step 3: Just Do It!
Or: Idea > Twist > Execute
I agree with some points you make, things are getting harder then say 7 years ago. You just need to scale up the operation where possible, if you think it is impossible to beat Mashable, then do a guestpost on mashable and do branding via their website. I mean nothing is easy I agree you need to spend hours working on things but really you just need to look for opportunities and attack them.
Big Brands do have advantages but they also have disadvantages, things take time to happen its not a matter of just making a page like a small business you need multiple levels of sign off.
Yes. Marketing is really, really damned hard...
Specially Online Marketing........
I totally agree that GREAT MARKETING IS "REALLY REALLY DAMNED HARD"! I've been a marketing consultant for 16 years, pulled out my hair many times, and I can't emphasize enough the importance of great strategy before executing an outreach plan. And even then, you have to really work hard to keep your client "on strategy"!
Imagine reaching out with a weak/convoluted message...to targets who don't really care...and giving the wrong price....but damn it, you sure pummelled them with a lot of junk! A colossal waste of money!
And there you have it...and I LOVE Rob Wood's tweet above!
I estimate that many things I have learned about SEO means Patience and Content! Regards.
That roadmap chart is so totally on-point. Scalability is one of the biggest issues facing online marketers, and most of them don't really know it, or know how to approach it. Scalability not only in marketing resource, but in online goal-setting to begin with.
good article man.question:
At what point does blog commenting become NOT SPAM?Also, at what point does scaling marketing BECOME SPAM?
Marketing should never be spam. These are entirely different things, imo. Spamming involves annoying the living crap out of people for the benefit of a couple click-throughs. Blog commenting should add value and send users to a relevant link. Generally, I would say blog comments should be similar to answering a friend on Facebook. You're speaking to a person, not a user. You have to treat it as such.
Marketing (in nature) should be directed to a specific audience and be non-intrusive. Really the combination of necessary objectives in a Marketing campaign should do one of a few things:
Hope this helps!
Blog commenting is NOT spam when it's authentic, useful, valuable and contributing to the community (like 95%+ of the comments you see on SEOmoz).
Scaling marketing doesn't usually become spam. In fact, in my experience, it's the folks who can't build scalable marketing that spam. When your community isn't growing and your search/social/content channels aren't working, that's when we see folks use automated, inauthentic junk to prop up their rankings or spam with emails or the like.
Blog commenting becomes spam when it doesn't contribute anything at all. Even a small contribution to the conversation is worthwhile as long as it adds some value. A two word reply with a link probably doesn't add much and could end up in the spam category in my opinion.
Rand, you had me at the Roadmap graphic - awesome stuff :)
Good points. If your site doesn't offer much value and doesn't truly "deserve" to rank well, then you can try black-hat tactics that come with risk, or white-hat tactics that come with slow progress because nobody wants to honestly link to you. Either way some people seem more focused on trying to "work hard" at SEO to outrank the position they deserve instead of also trying to increase their value and deserve a better position.
We are responsible for step 1, 2 and 3. They are all related. SEO and inbound marketing is tied togheter, its hard, it evolves quickly.. but is'nt this the exact reason why we love our job and come here ? learning is mad fun!
As always and impressive post!
Creating Good content before doing any linkbuilding etc is a good strategy but ensuring the client to first work on content before going for deep SEO seems a bit confusing. People often wants to start making money from the first day.
We get involved from Step 1 where the client lets us. We encourage them to build the good stuff and then can work with that content. At our size of business and the size of the businesses we are working with often the client just doesn't have the time to keep building good stuff, but if the normal website is great then that can be a good starting point before point 3 kicks in.
The issue we do have is scaling link building without turning it into some sort of crappy process for poor links and I think that's something we will be wrestling with for a while.
Anyone point me in a good direction for scaling (quality) link building?
Thanks!
"Marketing is really, really damned hard."
Particularly good, effective marketing. I don't think this fact is expressed often enough, yet anyone involved in marketing in any way needs to always keep it in mind.
I regularly think about Seth Godin's purple cow. Nowadays, if you're not remarkable, you're history.
Do something interesting.
Thanks Rand for the post. This is something I struggle with regularly - how do you market a site that isn't going out and creating amazing content. I'm assuming the web is like a bell curve - the majority of the sites are going to be somewhere in the middle, with an average, run of the mill product. If we only are going to work on sites that are at the edge of the curve, I think that would make it a lot more difficult to win new clients and create a sustainable business.
I think in such cases, you need to do your research, realize you're not going to get this average, run of the mill site to rank highly for these super competitive head terms in their niche, and build out a plan to rank for terms and groups of phrases that are a bit more feasible and long tail.
Hey, empathy!
I really think that's critical in marketing efforts across the board, and too often lacking in the online space. Who can benefit from what my client offers? Where can I find that person online? What kind of content supports her...realization, maybe, that my client needs to be in her life? How can I package and present that content in a way that speaks to her?
Ensuring visibility for your client is one thing. Doing something with that visibility is the real goal, though. And yes, that's really hard. Which is good, because otherwise there's not a high ceiling in any of this.
My choice has always been B. The more I read SEOmoz and other sites about SEO and online marketing, the more I realized the necessity of a complex approach - not just plain link building and onsite optimization.
Terrific, light read today. Thank you. I often wonder if you deliberately toss up an easy read on the heels of a PitA read. Feel free to clear up the mystery. Onward.
I say it to prospects, colleagues and customers often: all this kind of marketing (SEO, link building, SM, et al) does is beacon on what you already are. My customers are Mom & Pops mainly and they are so careful about customer retention that they think of this stuff as the latest till-robbing snake oil anyhow. So the burdens are double what you're talking about here: (1), the whole lipstick pig exercise and (2) get them to even agree is has value. Often times I've found that once I can help them see there's value - literal return - they begin to shed their ugly veneer and actually kinda begin to luck cute in certain lighting (albeit dim, smoky rooms). Kudos. Fun read.
Thanks for clearing uop that misconception.
Also, every business has customers that go through a buying process.
There are common trends amongst these buyers as to where they go when they start researching, what questions they have and what answers satisfy them to move to making a final decision.
Our job is not to control that process, but support it with the answers they need.
This is where SEO comes into play. It's merely a tool to get in front of these buyers who are researching or comparing options. It's great if you can optimize your content for the search engines, but your audience wants relevant content delivered instantly. You either give it to them on your site or they are gone.
Again, SEO will help you get in front of them, but you must do you research, so you know what to say.People should stop only focusing on these marketing tools and channels and get obsessive about using them only to support the buying process.
Read Kristin Zhivago's "Roadmap to Revenue" to find out how online marketing fits into the bigger picture.
BTW, you must talk to your customers before you can assume you know anything about online marketing. Most marketers make their decisions based from data analysis from their comfy offices without ever truly knowing what their prospects want when they go searching online.
I do have to admit I've almost never been involved in Step 1. Sure I've helped with Step 2, or yes, only been called in at Step 3 ("Build some links!"). I might sound a little naive, but how does identifying the audience help with online marketing?
(Aside from creating content for a more specific target audience)
Hi Martijn,
Accurately identifying the audience gives you the two most important answers you need to succeed.
Knowing WHO they are tells you WHAT they are looking for (what to give them) and WHERE to find them.
Sha
I like the roadmap, but I think I may have improved it ;)
It's been awhile since I posted and it's been a bad day so this made it feel better. I apologize in advance for the lack of the last E. We'll just call this TAGFE....
https://oi47.tinypic.com/mkvdrl.jpg
A little more to the point if ya ask mE so maybe we should include that final vowel ;)
Loved your explanation of the pic, wining internet is surely $$. ;)
Yes it is, but apprently a few people didn't get the joke.
OR......... they just thumbed down my amazing photoshop skills. Maybe they would like my previous work better:
https://www.localseoguide.com/how-to-get-a-link-from-a-blogger/
OR.......... it's possible I'm just not very funny :(