Accountant Turned SEO

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | August 2, 2011
Marketing Research Chart: Formalizing SEO processes adds up to large gains

Today I read an article on Marketing Sherpa about formalizing an SEO process and plan. Wow! It took me back to college, aka twenty years ago, when I was enrolled as an accounting major. Yes folks, this SEO started out as an accountant. My Reality Check as a Future Accountant My college years were self-funded. I lived off waiting tables and I paid tuition via grants and loans. My 30+ hour work weeks were spent waiting tables. My days as a server did more than just bring in money. They taught me about sales, marketing, and why I’d make a horrible accountant. I said a horrible accountant, Read more

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The Indisputable Power of the Blog Post

Posted in: Blog Management | July 13, 2011

Today is vacation. I sit alone, quietly drinking coffee, as the rest of my family and our friends sleep. It is our annual family vacation up north and this is the first morning. As I sit with my cup enjoying the sunrise over the lake, I begin reading Engage by Brian Solis. I am bothered. Not by the book, but by a conversation I had with a prospect a week ago. Yes a week ago. The woman was an SEO referral from another marketer I know in Detroit. We had a wonderful conversation about her company’s lack of SEO and outdated website. When I mentioned blogging, she told me “they will not Read more

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DIY SEO or Professional SEO Consultant?

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | June 13, 2011
DIY SEO Dude

What’s your SEO approach? Are you a do-it-yourself SEO or did you hire an SEO consultant? DIY SEO can be great because it is a whole lot cheaper than hiring an SEO professional. And even better, since you are your own SEO expert, you are in control of everything. On the flip side, DIY SEO can also be very time consuming and it can lead you down a dark path of destruction without you ever even knowing. It can also give you a false sense of security and make you believe you know enough to be effective, when in reality you know enough to be dangerous. The Case of Harry, the DIY SEO Over the Read more

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Internet Marketing is a Battlefield

Posted in: Internet Marketing | April 6, 2011
Internet Marketing is a Battlefield

Winning the Internet Marketing War Requires a Marketing Recognizance Mission, Bulletproof Armor, and a Strategic Plan of Attack Make no mistake, internet marketing is a battlefield.  You’re going to war against a million other websites and you need to have sufficient weaponry to compete and to walk away unscathed.  You need to know your enemy, you need armor for proper defense and you need a clearly defined plan of attack to win the online battle. When was the last time you performed a marketing recognizance mission?  Have you looked at your competitor’s website recently?  Or even Read more

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Bad Website Architecture: The Silent SEO Killer

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | February 21, 2011
The SEO Killer

My focus is small business marketing, so I encounter a lot of people who have tried a do-it-yourself SEO approach to internet marketing. The semi-savvy business owner thinks his SEO knowledge is pretty darn good, yet he just can’t figure out why he isn’t seeing increases in website traffic. In our conversation he provides obscure long-tail keywords to illustrate his SEO tactics are working. He also tells me he lacks traffic and real revenue resulting from all the time he has allocated to his SEO research and implementation efforts. He finally informs me that he cannot allocate a Read more

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SEO Can’t Help a Website That Sucks

Posted in: Website Design | February 17, 2011

Each week I speak with potential SEO clients who ask me to “make their phone ring”. It is an honorable request, but I struggle with this because in many cases, SEO alone can’t solve their problems. SEO can help, but once the website visitor arrives to their website, they’ll run screaming for the hills. I’m not a website snob and I value the small business owner and his desire to bring sales in through the internet. I think internet marketing is critical for many small businesses, because it is relatively cheap compared to other marketing tactics. The problem is most small Read more

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What’s Your Threshold of SEO Pain?

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | February 2, 2011
SEO Pain

My husband and I are finishing our basement and attempting to make it the cool place for our kids and their friends. Whenever we make a major purchase, the decision always boils down to my financial pain threshold. I don’t know the competitive market price for granite or quartz, but I know my budget and what I can afford. My list of wants end up being scaled back to what my bank account will allow. As we discuss a custom bar and bamboo flooring (I’m a bit high maintenance I’m told), it reminds me of my SEO clients. Like myself, they themselves have a pain threshold. While we both Read more

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Successful Internet Marketing Begin With Goals

Posted in: Internet Marketing | January 24, 2011
Internet Marketing Keyword Cloud

When a potential client approaches me about launching an internet marketing campaign, SEO project, or even requests a quote for website design, the first word out of my mouth is usually “goals”. Before I can even begin to contemplate your project, formulate requirements in my head, or provide a quote, I need to understand your business goals. That means you need to do too. Why does it really matter?  For me, I only want to engage with you if I can help you and help make your project a success. To determine if that is possible, I have to obtain an idea of what success means to you. Read more

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Local Search Will Become the Golden Child in 2011

Posted in: Local Search | January 19, 2011
Local Search Directory Logos

There’s been a lot of talk about local search recently. A lot of SEO experts, including myself, feel local search is still in its infancy stage and as it matures, it will have a major impact on search engine optimization and internet marketing. Many of us feel 2011 is the year in which local search will come of age. Not only come of age, but also become an important part of the internet marketer’s bag of tricks. Remember when most people had no idea what social media was, what it meant, or why it mattered? Well that time has past and now social media’s little brother, local search, is Read more

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Migrating a Website Owner Through the Five Stages of Grief

Posted in: WordPress | January 3, 2011
Stages of Grief

In college I was a Psychology major until I realized I’d have to reach a PhD level education to obtain a job with any real earning potential. That meant staying in college and thousands more in student loans. With much sadness I switched career paths and moved into a world of technology. Flash forward twenty years and I now claim to be an Internet marketer who spends many hours as a WordPress designer and an SEO expert. I love what I do, yet still miss my first love of Psychology. Recently my two loves collided as I remembered Swiss-born psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and her book Read more

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