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SEO Tools and Internet Marketing Resources...Why Hide the Info?

By John Rasco

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Published: 06Dec2007
Word count: 569
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Looking at the tongue-in-cheek MindMap document "Internet Marketing Made Easy," which prints out at about five feet long, we decided to do the research to discover the links to these resources. Why would someone publish a directory and not provide the information? That is an old way of thinking, where a vendor only has value if the prospect cannot have access to the information. Since the open attitude and source citing of Web 2.0 is the new norm, why not help people who are newbies? The funny thing is that search marketers did this--don't they think people will just do another search to find the link?

It's a great tool, organized around the process of developing an effective website, from getting customer feedback and understanding what is going on currently on your site, to installing analytics, understanding the buying cycle and tracking your conversions. A more useful version of the task list would have live links to connect you with the sources and resources. Unlike a lot of practitioners who want to keep you in the dark about how SEO is done, and what tools the pros use, we believe that the more you know, the better. Why?

It is true that search marketing is complex. Keyword tools give very different answers on what terms have what traffic, and it takes some digging (and usually, shelling out some money) to get access to enough tools to piece together a realistic approximation of what real people are searching on, as opposed to search marketers checking their rankings. However, just knowing more about site architecture, keyword selection, pay-per-click advertising, site analytics, market research, web design, usability, on-page SEO strategies, link building and social media makes you a much better prospective CLIENT, at least in our self-centered view. If you have a small site, or are a sole proprietor, then why not share the information to help you to have a site with a richer customer experience, and the favor of the search engines? After all, we are prospects too, and we might be looking for what you sell. If we can just teach you how to rank well, it makes our search so much easier!

I guess the idea of having educational web resources is to get people's interest and attention, then move them along in the sales process. However, we try to educate people about the complexity and cost of the process, because we want a prospect who really wants our help, not someone who is expecting a quick boost from SEO pixie dust. On your site, can you educate a prospect and gain the leadership position of being the source of their knowledge? This is one of the most expensive things to do with traditional media, but a real advantage of web marketing.

It's important to keep in mind that search engine optimization is all about understanding your prospect and making iterative change to your site, to get closer and closer to meeting the needs of the market for information. It's hard work over time that pays off. It may take a year or two on a large site to develop enough content and links to get top rankings, but whenever you achieve "authority site" status on your main keywords, you begin to own that real estate at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). That pays some nice dividends.

Specializing in marketing technology-based companies since 1987, and active in Internet marketing since 1992, John Rasco's skills as a marketer, team leader and strategist are key to successful client engagements. Founder of RefreshWeb, a B2B web marketing agency, John has an entrepreneurial gene, a creative bent and a passion for challenging projects. Visit the site at www.refreshweb.com for free SEO tools.

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