What is your Philosophy on Search Engine Marketing?

By John Alexander

What is your personal philosophy on SEO and search engine marketing? You may not have thought too much about it, but it's an important question. Some people will reply, "John, I just need to get better rankings and more traffic." Others will go into detail about specific "link building strategies." There are a variety of replies that come back to this question and the key is that everyone has their own personal philosophy, even if we are not consciously thinking about any philosophy at all when we first start out.

In part, our ideas may come from what we are first told by others when we are new to search marketing and SEO.
Then some of our opinions will be formed by our experiences as we first start applying different techniques and focus on building our content. By reason of practice we can test and see for ourselves whether or not something is beneficial and contributes to our visibility or not. Bit by bit, we each form our opinions and our "understanding" of SEO as both a science but also as an art.

Regardless of whatever your current belief or personal philosophy about SEO is, we each have the power to "choose" what we will believe. We will choose what we wish to try or test.

By reason of experience, we have our ability exercised to grow and profit from our experiences. Of course most prefer to not make any mistakes or errors in the learning process. Some never really get started because of the fear of making a mistake. The philosophy of "I insist I must know absolutely everything and once I do, then I'll get started," is a philosophy linked back to fear of making a mistake. Unfortunately for some, this philosophy keeps them from ever getting started.

Making mistakes is part of the learning process and it is fine, so long as you learn from your mistakes and don't just keep repeating them in a cycle. I one time heard somebody give that concept as the definition of "insanity." To do the same things over and over but to expect different results.

Okay, so let's give you a thought about search marketing and your business that you can benefit from.

With all of your "information gathering" and getting of:

advice
old tools
new tools
newsletters
e-books
training
counsel

There is one thing here that will make greater impact than all the others.

Getting advice - is great but only if it comes from a trusted resource

Old and new tools - are the same - they are only as good as whoever is keeping them up to date

Newsletters - Can be helpful - but so many of them are just selling you products

E-books - There are some excellent e-books out there - but some that are worthless and/or out of date

Training - There are companies that say they offer training - but are often just trying to sell services or tools

Counsel - Lot's of free advice floating around - but in most cases you get what you pay for like anything else.

The one single most important thing to "get" is to "get a solid understanding." What I mean by this is that it really comes back to the original element of building our understanding and being up-to-date. The one way to minimize the time in your "learning curve" is to get genuine skills training.

Don't get me wrong, there are some very good professional tools to know about.

But your training needs to be more than just how to use a tool. There are some good e-books, newsletters, free tips and advice which are all good. But if you focus on building your search engine marketing skills, it leads to "understanding" quicker than everything else. Personalized instruction plus ongoing mentoring maximizes the impact of your learning and produces results quick and drastically reduces the time element for you possessing that understanding of what you are doing.

Hands-on SEO training is not the "only" way to learn, but it is the fastest way to learn.

Having a true understanding tones your personal philosophy.

And why is that so important?

Our own personal philosophy about SEO, produces the attitude we have about our methods.
The attitude you have leads to which type of actions you take part in.
Those actions or methods you employ lead to the final results you will achieve as well as the impact of those results.
The results we achieve are what really contribute to produce the current lifestyle in which we live.

The results you achieve are also what expedite the growth of your reputation which snowballs into more success in only minimal time. Are you happy with the results you are achieving? Are you content with the current lifestyle you are living?

If you are happy and satisfied with your results then keep doing what you are doing. If you want help, that is where we are standing by to help you minimize the time it takes you to take your Web site to whole new level.

Read Wordtracker Magic Volume 2.0 - Keyword Forensics for SEO

About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses. John is author of an e-book called Wordtracker Magic and has taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries world wide. John is also Director of Search Engine Academy with localized Search Engine Academy training centers where the Complete SEO Mastery Workshop and 6 Month Mentoring program is taught locally to business owners and individuals in communities across North America and Internationally in Asia.

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What is your Philosophy on Search Engine Marketing?

John Alexander

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