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Excuse Me While I Give My Sales to Someone Else

Sep 20, 2007
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In the last couple of years, I’ve met some bright folks who appreciate natural search engine optimization (SEO). They’re doing a respectable job on their own – without a consulting firm backing them up.

And then there are the other people…

From what I’m still seeing, plenty of businesses don’t get this SEO world. They’re hardly even trying. I just spoke with a large professional services firm that had sense enough to include SEO in a web redesign RFP – their first since the last design nearly a decade ago.

What confuses me is the lack of urgency and perspective. The marketing folks at this firm don’t seem to mind waiting. Sure, at least the SEO planning will coincide with the design. But what about social search, links, online PR, paid search? They’re hardly even being contemplated even though competitors are in all of those areas.

I mean, competitors are hardly hiding. They’re grabbing all of the traffic and leads. They’re establishing and continuing to bolster new relationships with new prospects and customers. When Johnny eventually comes out to play, someone will say, “I already made a new friend.”

Clearly, the problem is that the top executives above them aren’t turning up the heat. Plenty of other marketing endeavors are in place to hold everyone’s attention. Old School still prevails.

Marketers of a large industrial website spoke to us last year and decided to go it alone — without the help of any SEO firm. Now they’re back after the fact. Yep, they’ve got some odd configuration of subdomains. They’ve thrown their PageRank out the window. When we pointed out a number of problems and some solutions, they put the matter on a “fast track,” agreeing to a follow up meeting sometime later in October.

I’m all for a comprehensive strategy, but some baby steps can help in the meantime without tying up a lot of resources. I’d love to see how much money some of these businesses are losing to someone else every day.

Maybe I’m naive, but I’m surprised more marketers aren’t tuning into SEO in a manner that has them saying, “Dang, I’m sick and tired of less experienced companies getting all of the business.”

Sometimes taking it all in stride keeps peace between people. Sometimes it costs dearly.

I created a white paper called “Is Search Engine Optimization Worth It? SEO and the ROI Debacle.” It’s loaded with industry trends and a bunch of tips (and a bit of my dismay). If you’re interested, just send an email to mmurray at fathomseo.com. Try to send it during the day. I get a lot of spam each night (long story) and wouldn’t want to miss your request.

Filed under: Online Marketing
  • http://www.jeffmolander.com Jeff Molander

    Mike:
    It seems to me that the reason for your observations has been documented in many reports: top brass doesn’t *understand* SEO and until they do so they will continue to spin wheels and take a lax attitude (which you illustrate so well) about executing it properly and to the extent that they achieve objectives.

    Until the industry starts explaining SEO (and not just to itself!!!) to top brass in a way that *commands respect* (i.e. no smoke and mirrors, no silver bullets, no promises of top listings, no claims of having stood up for Matt Cutts at his wedding, etc.) nothing will change. That’s how I see it.