We totally agree with Ryan Stewart -Stop selling SEO

Why I Stopped Selling SEO Services and You Should, Too

Local SEO | Advanced SEO | Basic SEO

This post was promoted from YouMoz. The author’s views are entirely his or her own (excluding an unlikely case of hypnosis) and may not reflect the views of Moz.

In my 28 years on this planet, I've come to accept two things as fact:

1. The sun rises every morning.
2. Marketers screw everything up.

Because of fact No. 2, I had to stop selling SEO.

Why? Here's an interaction I used to have five times a day.

*Phone rings*

Me: "This is Ryan Stewart with WEBRIS. How can I help you?"

Caller: "I'm looking for SEO for [domain.com]. I want to rank for [keyword terms x, y, and z]. Can you guys handle that?"

Me:

I'm over it. 

I'm tired of explaining to people SEO doesn't work that way anymore. And I need the rest of you to get on board with me, because we're driving ourselves out of business.

I mean, come on people. Look around. We need to stop trying to jam websites where they don't belong. The SERPs have changed.

Google shows search results based on what's best for the user. We can't just rank for whatever keywords we want.

Let's take a look at a few examples:

Example #1: Search "best headphones"

What do you notice?

Not a single result on the first page is a product page.

They're all articles about different headphone types, their benefits, pricing, etc.

We're all Google users. We all know these are much better results to get than getting a single brand's product page. I want to shop around, compare products, and read reviews. Don't you?

Example #2: Search "restaurants in miami"

What do you notice?

Not a single result on the first page is a restaurant's website.

As a matter of fact, the results above the fold are tied to review aggregators and Zagat ratings.

Underneath the fold, the results are filled with listicles, reviews, and articles.

I'd much rather read reviews about dozens of restaurants than be directed to a singular one.

Example #3: Search "buy a cheap tv"

What do you notice?

Ahhhh, yes, I threw this one in for the comment trolls.

The top five results are product pages. However, they're all mega-brands. With the current algorithms, we'll never outrank a brand for keywords like that (without spamming the hell out of it).

What else do you notice?

Articles, not product pages, are ranking at the bottom of the first page.

Example #4: Google "plumbers in san francisco"

What do you notice?

Not a single result on the first page is a website. There are only review aggregators: Yelp and Google+.

OK, so what's happening?

It's a combination of two things:

#1: Google's got a lot of data, and they're utilizing it

It's safe to say Google understands what users want by analyzing the massive amount of data it has. If we take off our SEO goggles, it's hard to disagree.

Personally, I love the power of choice. I'd rather pick from a list of companies with reviews and comparison data than one that only includes websites that make it to the top of organic listings.

In addition (as much as I hate to say it), I trust brands. I'd rather buy a TV from Best Buy than www.shop-cheap-tvs.com. Wouldn't you?

#2: We're moving into the "pay-to-play" era with Google

Not too long ago, Facebook moved into the "pay-to-play" era. Now Google's headed that way.

Google's main source of revenue is advertising, counting for almost 90% of Google's revenue in 2014. And one of their main earners, display, is falling fast.

Google's message is clear: If you want to sell directly through the Google platform, then you'll need to pay for it.

Let's go back to my last example, "plumbers in San Francisco." Look at what's happening above the fold with that query:

That's right, baby! Paid local listings.

If this test sticks, it's going to have massive implications on local search. If I were a betting man (and I am), I'm all in that this is the future of local search.

But is SEO dead?

SEO is absolutely not dead. As long as people use Google search, SEO will be alive.

However, let's recap. Money/buyer (i.e., purchase-intent) keywords are:

1. Dominated by huge brands that 99% of the world can't outrank (without spamming)
2. Returning less product pages and more articles and other forms of content
3. Triggering the knowledge graph, review aggregators, and more user-focused results

What this means is it's time to seriously reevaluate the landscape. The days of ranking a products or services page first for these purchase-intent keywords are limited.

If we want to capture that traffic moving forward, there are three things we can do:

#1: Pay for it

This is very straight forward. I like to use paid search as a remarketing tactic. We capture traffic from all corners of the web, and then when those people are ready to buy (using those money keywords), we use highly targeted paid ads to snag their business.

#2: Create valuable content

If we go back to my first example, best headphones, the results are dominated by content that compares ratings and pricing for various headphones.

No one shares, engages, or links to products and services pages. The fact is, no one except for us cares.

Instead of trying to jam those pages with links, create a piece of content that delivers what Google (and users) want. By creating value with your content, you open it up to earning social media shares and powerful links from relevant sites.

If you want to compete against the big dogs for organic search real estate, content is your best option.

#3: Optimize your website for the web

It's SEO (Search Engine Optimization), not GO (Google Optimization).

Yelp is a search engine. Facebook is a search engine. Twitter is a search engine. Amazon is a search engine. Quora is a search engine. Pinterest is a search engine. YouTube is a search engine. See where I'm going?

Each of these platforms offers unique benefits to the user. In a lot of cases, people looking for things on these platforms are likely to bypass Google altogether.

For example, l just moved into a loft in downtown Miami. I loathe shopping of any sort, so I allowed my girlfriend to manage the process for me. She ended up purchasing all of the furniture from Etsy (an e-commerce platform I knew very little about).

I asked her how she arrived there. This is what she told me:

• Pinterest - She used Pinterest search to find inspiration on how to decorate. Using keywords like "loft decorations," she narrowed it down to the specific pieces of furniture she liked.
• Amazon - She then went to Amazon and searched with keywords that were based on the furniture she liked on Pinterest. She was looking for rustic furniture. Amazon didn't have a great selection of that type.
• Ebay - So she moved to Ebay, knowing that she could find cheap, secondhand (i.e., rustic) furniture there. She found that most things were a little "too used," so she moved on.
• Etsy - Finally, she landed on Etsy, knowing they specialize in unique handmade items. She purchased all the furniture from there (and simultaneously broke my bank account).

Now, I realize she could've used Google to search for all these things. She chose not to, though, because she felt it was an extra step she didn't have to take. 

She chose to use those specific websites/platforms/search engines because each one was built to handle exactly what she was looking for.

Applying this to your website

The long-winded point I'm trying to make is this:

It's no longer just about optimizing your website for Google. It's about optimizing your presence across the web.

By understanding who our target audience is and where they spend their time, we can attack those platforms and build an organic presence.

• If you're an attorney, you need to be on sites like Avvo, Lawyer.com and Find Law because they dominate the SERPS
• If you're a local business, Yelp and Thumbtack are crushing it right now
• If you have an e-commerce store, get your product on as many platforms where your customers are as possible (including Pinterest)
• If you sell large-ticket B2B services, SlideShare and LinkedIn are gold mines for connecting with C-suite executives looking for information

The list goes on and on...

Bringing it all home

This is why I stopped selling SEO. I'm begging you to follow suit.

We need to educate non-marketers that times have changed. We can't just "rank and bank" for whatever we want anymore. 

We don't want to wait around until it's too late. This isn't a phase. This is the way it's going to be going forward, and we all need to get on board with it.

As Google gets more intelligent, we need to get more intelligent about how we approach marketing. That doesn't mean looking for ways to beat the search engine algorithms. Instead, we must learn to use them to our advantage.

About ryanwashere — I've been working in digital marketing for almost a decade, specializing in web analytics, SEO and inbound marketing strategy. I currently own and operate Webris, a Miami based search and web analytics agency. Connect with me on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or Instagram.

https://moz.com/blog/why-i-stopped-selling-seo-services-and-you-should-too?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=stopselling_seo&utm_campaign=blog_post

The Seven Habits of the "Just Good Enough" Social Marketer

April 17, 2014 

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I've always been a perfectionist, and it worked for me when I was getting through the early part of my career as a journalist. Sources were carefully grilled. Everything had to be fact checked twice. Sentences had to be carefully crafted, and words chosen carefully. My first editor at BusinessWeek told me, "Magazine real estate is precious. Use it wisely."

Now we live in a new world that is no longer shaped by printing presses and information scarcity. Yet everyday I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect social media program, write the world’s best blog, create the polished video, and so on.

They are suffering from the curse of the corporate perfectionist.

They find out the hard way that this is not what social media and blogging is about. It's more about conveying compelling ideas and connecting with audiences in authentic ways, not just writing beautiful prose or top-down marketing approaches.

Speed is more critical too. There's not enough time to go through two rounds of approvals on every blog. Slick videos are meanwhile seen as advertising--they don't ring true.

The new style--conversational, open, engaging, and fluid—just doesn’t mix with traditional marketing and communications. Think oil and water.

It's not easy to break old habits but we must. We need to adapt a “just good enough” approach.

Just good enough (JGE) is not abandoning our processes and discipline – these are still critical to the success of any program. It’s more a way of refocusing and balancing quality and related issues against the needs of the new social media world. It’s both a mindset and operating strategy, a slightly revised lense through which to view our world.

The following seven "habits" apply to blog programs, and writing and managing blogs, but the concept cuts across social media, marketing and more:

1) Don’t try to please everyone. If you’re in a corporation and just starting out with a new blog, focus on your key stakeholders. You don’t need to engage with every stakeholder, just the ones affected by the program or blog. Work carefully with them to understand their goals and programs, and any potential conflicts; communicate your program every step of the way, and reach out where appropriate to enlist their support. Pilot programs are a great way to engage key players, garner support and get off to a good start.

2) Don’t try to cover too much. Don't try to boil the ocean with your blog--focus on a specific theme/topic. This can be very narrow. I read social media bloggers like Louis Gray,Steve Rubel and Chris Brogan. They may veer into other areas but mainly they stick to what they know. Their writing may not match a top business magazine but their cutting edge content and conversational style more than makes up for it.

3) Don't worry about being the most beautiful: Blogs aren’t a beauty contest, and some of the most successful platforms will make your head swim. The Drudge Report is basically just dozens of headlines and a few pics, with little thought given to graphics.

The Huffington Post is a media circus, packed with graphics--rotating story heads, screaming headlines, dancing bears. Both draw millions of viewers. I'm not advocating an intentionally bad design, but you don’t need to go overboard with graphics.

4) Learn to write fast--and often. The founder of BoingBoing said when he first started the blog in 2000, he'd left for a week only to return and find a big traffic increase. The reason: the guy pinch hitting for him was blogging 20 times a day vs once a day for him. It wasn't exactly Hemingway, but good enough--and readers loved it..

Another example: TechCrunch would never be mistaken for Fortune or BusinessWeek but they churn out the copy. Most are short, punchy, opinionated, industry focused -and very well read.

5) Keep it simple: Break your ideas down to the simplest form, and make it easy for your readers to understand. Limiting your number of key points will give you focus and help you communicate more clearly. Example: "Just came out of an amazing presentation, and two key points really hit home. Key point #1....."

6) Write short (if you want). Many marketers still think in terms of long articles or white papers. Think again. Look at Seth Godin, who takes one quick idea and briefly expands upon it with a link or two. Think in terms of “word bursts” vs essays.

7) Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Let your bloggers write in their own voices—if they screw up, you can fix it later (your readers will let you know). On a larger scale, companies that try social media experiments and fail will actually advance faster than those that sit on the sidelines for too long ("fail faster").

Bonus tip: Listen, converse, and connect. Quit working so hard to push ideas down the readers' throats and back off the hard messaging. Try providing quality information in a human voice, listening and engaging with your audiences; chances are, they'll come to you.

Sure, there are times when you need the very best and “just good enough” is not good enough.

But in most cases you don't need to have the very best blog posting, no more than you need to take the very best walk in the park or see the very best sunset.

Settle for less, and do more. Keep it moving, while giving yourself a break. The next project will always be waiting.

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Social Media Doesn’t Drive Sales… But That’s Not the Point

November 25, 2013 

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The point is that social media is a teeny tiny reflection of what happens in day-to-day life. In Jonah Berger's Contagious, he makes the salient point that only 7% of word of mouth happens online (other studies say 5%). I'm not sure if all of that even belongs to social media channels, either. I'd guess a bunch of it happens over email and private chat.

There are hundreds of ways that your customer will find you (or not find you) online and offline. However, when it comes to spreading a message, word of mouth has always been the most effective way of marketing messages spreading. But these messages become ineffective when they aren't authentic. The most salient point here is:

You cannot force word of mouth.

It doesn't matter the media or the amount you spend on it – some stuff just doesn't spread. And though marketing impressions make a brand awareness difference – whether it's a billboard or a paid tweet – it's never guaranteed to work.

So I'm continually bowled over when I hear people complain about how their social media marketing doesn't work. Usually a few questions helps me realize what's really going on:

What's really going on here is that companies think that paying for marketing is some sort of silver bullet. It's not. It never was and it never will be. Hell, some Super Bowl ads go unnoticed – and that audience is one of the biggest captive audiences in the universe!

You are probably asking yourself, "Okay then, why would anybody in their right mind pay for marketing?"

Good question. I sometimes wonder myself because not everyone is ready for it... and sometimes they are too late for it.

But why pay for marketing when the results aren't guaranteed? Because, like I said before, there are hundreds of ways your future customers will find you (or not find you) and it's better to be findable than not. And good marketing means that you will be more findable AND have more credibility (if the branding is done right) when people do find you. And all of that helps with what you want: sales.

There are all sorts of wonderful things built into social media marketing that you won't have built into traditional one-way channels. There are:

1. analytics: you can't really tell who paid attention to that television ad, but you cantell who watched your YouTube ad all the way through, and who liked it, and who shared it, etc etc. The data available on how people interact with your content is AMAZING.
2. feedback: it's right there in the comments. It's also there on Twitter. Oh, and you can find out what people are saying on Reddit and on their blogs and in forums and... well, that is invaluable. Read it. Report it back to your team. Improve your product with it. Respond to it with thanks. Hell, you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this feedback from focus groups each year and here it is for you for free. Completely raw.
3. relationships: you aren't going to strike up a conversation through the TV or radio. But that two-way conversation is built into social media platforms. It's really awesome. You can find out so much about your customers and start to really build a bond.

What really baffles me is the demands that brands make of social media marketing when they pay a fraction of the price to use it. They'll hire interns and junior staff to run it, they'll lowball agencies and consultants ("I pay you what for a couple of FB posts?! I can get my kid to do that!"), they get impatient and want instant results without being willing to invest the thought needed or take risks, they'll tack on a social media strategy (which has no strategy) to a made-for-television and magazine ad campaign thinking that it's yet another direct marketing channel (which is a limited medium, too).

All of this and the brands ask for stellar results. They look past the amazing insights and feedback and potential for relationships that no other traditional marketing medium every had and they say, "Meh. Social media doesn't work for me."

And completely miss the point.

You want to know the ROI of social media?

Number one. It's the ability to listen. It's priceless. Not with some damned tool that measures sentiment or finds influencers, either. Really listen.

Number two. Serendipity. It's opening yourself up to constant and amazing opportunities to participate and by participating, you will find numerous opportunities to lead the conversation and make a great impression. Oreo's dunk in the dark tweet is a great example of this. They are doing a really great job of being a relevant brand again by seizing opportunities like that. Do they do it every single day? Nope. But when they do, they nail it.

Number three. Community instead of customers. The difference is incredible. If you have patience and build a community instead of just a customer database, you will have finally tapped into that magical word of mouth network you wanted to buy a few months ago. But this time, it's real and authentic and it spreads.

So PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF DOG stop thinking of social media as a direct marketing tool or some sort of silver bullet that will drive sales through the roof. Stop reading those case studies where Facebook... no, Pinterest... no, Polyvore... no, Snapchat... drove millions of dollars in sales from a viral campaign.

That's not the point.

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