Derek’s Sandbox –  8

In continuation of my SEO Training at MorePro…

I’ve realized this week that there are two kinds of Authority in this world.

Oprah- and Google.

(Allen, August)                  (White, 2009)

These two authorities can make you or break you effortlessly.

If you have a website- Google probably owns you and you don’t even know it. This is bad news if you’re not one to take any kind of authority from anyone. So this is the point where you park your pride and accept that Google can destroy you, while at the same time, creating COUNTLESS opportunities for you to market yourself or your business.

Google has a stranglehold on 84.91% of the search engine market share (DJ, 2009). According to some statistics 1,733,993,741 people in the world use Search Engines every day. That means that 1,472,334,085.4831 people use Google on a daily basis, and you are still choosing to not optimize your website to be seen on them? If you’re still against optimizing your website, then I am questioning your intelligence.

At risk of sounding prophetic, search engine optimization is honestly the future of marketing. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. Honestly, when was the last time you listened or watched a commercial on your TV or radio? Items like TiVo, DVR, iPods, CDs and the Internet have crushed any kind of possible exposure that commercials might have had.  The Internet has changed music, television, news, and so much more. But has your marketing and business changed with it?

Beyond optimizing for a universal search on Google, there are many other tools to be used in marketing with Google. The main one that I want to talk about is a PPC Campaign. A PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign can be optimized very well by focusing your budget, keywords and ads very carefully. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it could very well just waste your money.

I could go into many many many more blogs about PPC advertising, and I’m still not even finished with my training on it. But know that it’s a good investment if it’s done right.

Here’s my point in this-

If you’ve followed me through this series, I’m trying to figure out if SEO is worth your time and your money-

The collective answer so far is, Yeah-

“But Derek, won’t they fire you if you say no?”

Probably- But that’s not the point. I am on this journey to find out if this is worth your time and money, and my time and hour long light rail ride. I have still continually been writing blogs tracking things that I’ve been learning that I find will be useful for those that are on the fence about SEO.

So unless you’ve got a best seller book and some good “people”, I would suggest investing into SEO instead of trying to get on Oprah. Especially since she’ll be off the air this next season.

Bibliography

Allen, H. (August, 4th 2008). WWOD. Retrieved December 18, 2009, from harryallen.info: http://harryallen.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/oprah.jpg

DJ. (2009, December 1). Search Engine Market Share November 2009. Retrieved December 21, 2009, from risetothetop.techwyse.com: http://risetothetop.techwyse.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-market-share-november-2009/

White, C. (2009, July 9). Catherine White. Retrieved December 18, 2009, from Catherinewhite.wordpress.com: http://catherinewhite.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/google-passes-over-newspapers-and-uses-a-blog-to-make-big-announcement/