July 27, 2007

"Everything you thought about online marketing is completely wrong."

The field of search engine optimization is always changing, and that's what makes it exciting. Yet, the same changes that make search engine optimization exciting, make it a struggle to work with. If your business is shying away from optimization, you're losing valuable customers.

Search algorithms used by the major search engines are being tweaked randomly - and the rate at which they change is rapidly becoming smaller. Updates to the webmaster guidelines are made more frequently with each passing day. The rules of SEO change on a weekly basis. The strategies and approaches towards search engine optimization are not set in stone, and their benefits can change without notice. What you think you know one day could be completely different the next.

Weeks worth of work could "go to waste" in an instant. One minute your website is on top of every search engine in the world, the next minute your website can't even be found and everything you thought about online marketing is completely wrong.

Because of these exciting, and intimidating changes there are a lot of people - and businesses - that shy away from search engine optimization (or even look down upon it).

Businesses that shy away from optimization are losing valuable customers - they aren't reaching every potential customer possible. If you're not into optimization, you're not reaching all of the people you could easily be reaching.

Yes, search engine optimization is a tricky field. SEO is full of excitement and failures and success and boredom and everything else you can possibly imagine when it comes to marketing. All you have to do is come up with a strategy that works for you and your business and go with it. Even if your marketing strategy for search engines turns out to be a failure - due to changes in the system - at least you are reaching a wider audience and impacting more people than if you were to not optimize.

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