*note this is a work in progress*

In my line of work its very easy to get swept away by it all, Essentially a never ending task, Search Engine Optimising and Search Engine Marketing & Promotion occupy such a huge arena that is the internet that it would not be difficult to spend every waking hour perfecting your web presence. The abundance of opportunity, through sheer quantities of human communication on such an easy low key level can be a mind blowing, viral, all encompassing thing.

Essentially still in its pre-pubescent stage the internet is still an unknown, people still see it as they did gold digging in the america’s only times 10, and then 10 and then 10,000 - in fact give every human, even children access to another single persons voice, ideas and business concepts, give them easy payments from their banks that they can easily access and that’s where we are at. Gold Digging times 50 million.

All viral concepts by nature, usually are flash in the pan, partly due to the fact that they are usually sponsored by people with short attention spans enough to ditch their last viral addiction in replacement for the new one. Its then a constant battle to retain their interest. Facebook is a prime example - people loved it, it spread and now I have no doubt they are realising a lull in attention, even with their introduction of ‘eye-catching’ yet thoroughly annoying applications. While we all have our opinions you cannot deny facebook made money, essentially it dug a good size net nugget.

Hence everyone is jumping on the viral bandwagon - we are a few years behind but everyone is chasing their ‘facebook-nugget’. SEO is the good spade to this process, a good basis to ignite the viral flame. I should note that as I discuss SEO I look at it more from a business owners standpoint than a SEO company’s. Primarily because this is my day to day role but also because Business is what makes me tick.

The overall point I am trying to make is that SEO is as much a foundation as any aspect of business, as important as headed paper and a major factor in any online service. There are deviations from this such as established brands moving online, but for all relatively young companies and especially internet start up companies, SEO can be your foot in the door.

Essentially SEO/SEM/SEP (Optimising, Marketing and Promotion) is marketing. Its the same as writing a good advert for the paper or script for your radio advert. It is a core constituent of any online start up, but more than that it has deeper more principle based positives. The things you, as a start up entrepreneur, a leader and a manager should be aware of are simply replicated in the modern format of SEO/M/P.

If you consider the principles of good SEO, 1. Optimise your website (good for users, good for search engines, good for business.), 2. Promote your business (get backlinks, create site relationships, gain a userbase), 3. Maintain (continue to seek backlinks but less, create relevant interesting content, optimise content, promote content, gain more users, repeat.)

Although very broken down these 3 points are easy to understand, they apply without contest as SEO/M/P skills. But further than that they are the key points of marketing in general. Search engine optimising, marketing and promoting is amazingly easy to get caught up in, and in my opinion rightly so - it is the new age of marketing, the modern way to get in peoples faces. But the concepts scale back to every type of business almost without fault (I was going to say not coal mining but even that!) If you look at the actual things you are doing in your SEO/M/P campaigns - I almost guarantee they will translate to real world actions, and depending on your company this can be a great tool.

Explaining how you want your new marketing manager to work can be a pain, but look at it in terms of your SEO campaign.

Replicate the scenario of your online actions, replacing users with customers, website with shop/premises/service/business as a whole. Good business needs good foundations:

• Optimise your business - cut the crap out, bad employee attitudes, difficult to understand literature, badly situated premises - all similar evils to browser compatibility problems, broken links and complicated navigational menu’s.
• Promote your business - once optimised you can proceed with a sure footing, give good customer service, chase sales leads, meet and greet suppliers, chat to customers, get out on the street and promote - exactly the same concepts as getting backlinks online (same as referring customers), creating relationships with other business’s (B2B) and targeted paid advertising.
• Maintain your business - Get in good routines (but be ahead enough to deviate when opportunity arises) - Plan ahead, set up good process’s with good employee’s, with good attitudes - this will free you up to plan for the bigger picture (seperate management and Leadership!!). Real world examples include HR, boundaries and responsibilities. Good people doing what they are good at, in such a way that builds positively upon your base of positives. Comparatively you can continue to build positive experiences for your customers, effectively empowering them into being walking talking backlinks, Keep things fresh - never show a tired or sad face, create a positive interesting experience that remains in a similar style but has a viral interesting element that is effectively the same as your ‘original new content’ online. Advertise, Promote and Market effectively - as this is the maintenance part, monitor what does work and what doesn’t for your company -try new ways without too much risk - keep the ones that work and mercilessly cut things that don’t - the same as your paid ad’s, eshot’s, webinars and what have you - except often more difficult to monitor.

The things we talk about in SEO can become detailed and complex, but the fundamentals remain an offshoot of a positive business psychology that does track back incredibly well from computer to board room. Next time you see a new SEO concept, or come up with a campaign - sit back for a minute and realise - it all applies to the real world optimise, promote and maintain - Search engines by definition are essentially a guide to human approval - get high up the rankings and get paid. Get to the top of the chart’s ten years ago and get paid. Search engine optimising is an offshoot of Real World Optimising and both are essential business skills!