2 SEO Choices- 1) learn to do it on your own, or 2) pay for it, but you can’t ignore it
Recently I was called into provide an SEO quote for a large satellite tv and cable installation company. This particular company has traditionally been a door to door sales company. In fact, they earn over 90% of their yearly revenues during the months of May, June, July, and August, while their door to door salesman are “enjoying” their summer break between semesters. This company has been very successful with that sales model, but they have begun to notice a radical change in their marketplace. On a cruise hosted by Direct TV for all of their top sellers, they found that unlike in years past they were the only door to door company invited to the cruise. While it seemed like every other invitee had earned their cruise invitation via Internet marketing. Hence, the company called me in for a consultation. During our conversation, I told them there were really two routes that they could take if they were serious about competing with the other dealers and affiliates online: 1) learn to do it on your own (or, more likely, hire a full time employee or team that can learn and perform in house), or 2) pay an individual/company like me to do it for you. The cruise invitee list was proof that they could not afford to simply ignore search engine optimization in Utah.
You may find it funny that I actually encourage potential clients to look into it trying to learn to do SEO on their own. Many SEO’s act like the process is magic and that they learned this magic process only after being invited into a top secret group owned and sponsored by none other than Google. My theory is this: while SEO is completely learnable, most people will never take the time to learn it. I developed this attitude while a consultant for Prosper Learning a coaching/consulting company in Provo, Utah. During my time at Prosper Learning I was consistently amazed at how little people were willing to actually do in order to learn about something that they apparently wanted very badly. Although, I personally learned a lot while working for Ethan Willis I was consistently surprised at how little the students learned despite having a wealth of information at their finger tips.So now when I go into a meeting to pitch a company on my SEO services I am very upfront with the business owner I speak with. I always let him/her know that if they are willing to invest a significant amount of time, energy, and money into learning these concepts they can probably learn to do SEO on their own. I have not had any company take me up on that offer ;).
