The Heart Of SEO: 8 Everlasting Truths, Part 1
Posted by Marty Weintraub on July 11th 2011 in SEM Poetry Slam, SEO | 4 comments
I’ve recently had two transcendent experiences to further frame my now nearly 20-year career as an online marketer. First, I essentially stepped away from aimClear’s offices in Duluth and Saint Paul for 6 months to write a book about Facebook Ads. Then, literally as the book was completed, I had heart damage fixed. During cancer treatment over five years ago, my aortic valve was seriously impacted by chemo and radiation. Both the book project and open-heart surgery took me away from my decades-long daily study of SEO for weeks at a time. Both experiences turned out really well, were essential and deep, made aimClear an even better company, and provided me with magnificent perspective I would not have realized by other less extreme experiences.
Any CEO, whose company grows over five years from only him to approaching 20 souls, needs to trust the team. I knew aimClear was totally cool because now, these years later, we’ve got an office full of brilliant SEO brainy-types who practice state-of-the-art social, PR, SEO, PPC mashup strategies and tactics with vigor, wit and thought leadership. After each chunk of time away, the team briefed me so I never got personally very far out of sync with SEO changes. From daily vicissitudes in Facebook, YouTube template changes to Google’s +1, I asked for and received comprehensive studies from our team whenever anything important evolved. Still, being away from my beloved SEO study broke my heart. Well, it was broken already. The whole thing was very ironic.
Still, temporarily stepping aside made me a much better marketer. The unexpected silver lining was that constantly returning to SEO news tuned out to be a bit like perspective gained by a lonely parent who rediscovers his children after weeks away at summer vacation camp. Though I was (truly) stunned at how significantly SEO had changed each block of time away, not too much had changed at all.
In fact now that I think about it, not much has not changed at all since the days of “Fetch,” “Archie” and my hot little 14.4k Modem (V.32bis) (2400 baud) modem. Heck, not much of marketing’s essence has changed for hundreds of years. As I wrote Killer Facebook Ads, the book became much more about marketing, beyond just Facebook Ads. After completing the book, the sabbatical from the daily SEO grind to repair my heart gave me some unpressured time to assimilate things, to think and I felt inspired to see things clearer than before. SEO is ever new and barely ever changes. Long Live SEO! This is the first installment of two, the second half of which will be published later this week. Read the rest of this entry »
Did I just lose a contact, or does it seem like the lines between public-relations practitioner and online marketer are blurring? An increasing number of SEOs seem to think so (I happen to agree), but their perceptions of the role PR pros play in the SEM sandbox range from toy-sharer to sand-village slave.
