Search Engine Tigers

It’s been a while since I’ve let my natural pythonesque tendencies filter out onto this blog, so I thought that the time was nigh to put a knotted handkerchief on my head and hit myself in the face with a vase of flowers while talking about how watching Monty Python as a bairn prepared me for a career in search marketing…

1. In the land of the superheroes, there’s always a need for a bicycle repair man: Yes, the on page issues are generally easy to fix, and not as sexy as generating viral content, or coming up with a social media strategy, but there are still people out there that are blocking their entire site with their robots.txt, or duplicating content across multiple pages, etc, etc. To them, getting those basics fixed can make an absolutely fantastic difference.
2. (Miss) Anne Elk’s brontosaurus theory: Some people sound like they have a great story to tell, or some secret that you can only find by listening to them, then you hear it, and realize that it’s just common sense, or ridiculous, and was a complete waste of time listening to in the first place. Figure out where the real information comes from, and avoid the disinformation from those who just like to hear the sound of their own self-important voice.
3. It’s only a flesh wound: Know when it’s time to get out of a particular line of business or service. It’s all well and fine being told that a particular area of search marketing is lucrative, but when you determine that your business model doesn’t work, figure out why and either change or get out. Don’t keep throwing good money after bad, hoping that it’ll change, before long you’ll find out that you’ve sunk so much money into it, that you won’t have a leg to stand on…
4. Always look on the Bright Side of Life: This is such a fast changing, a still relatively new industry, so there are always opportunities opening up if you keep your eyes out for them. Don’t sit back and wait for them to come to you, go out there and market yourself.
5. If a Budgie is coughing up blood, it’s a good idea to flush it down the toilet: When, for whatever reason, you have a problem with a client, and the relationship goes completely sour, with no real hope of recovery, then you have to learn when to shake hands with them and part as amicably as possible.
6. Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson: Personal Reputation Management is an issue that you need to think about, one innocuous comment, image, or video can follow you around for ever, regardless of what you do for the rest of your life.
7. The Cheese Shop Sketch: If someone comes into your site using a particular keyword, then your site had better have something to do with that keyword, and if you’re an e-commerce site, then you’d better have that product for sale, otherwise they’re not going to convert, no matter how many excuses you give them.
8. Even the Piranha brothers had a weakness: While Google is the undoubted king of search engines, who knows what will challenge their dominance in the future, although it probably won’t be a 12 foot tall hedgehog called Spiny Norman, maybe it’ll be one called Facebook?
9. Whizzo Crunchy Frog Chocolates: An unboned dead baby frog covered in lark’s vomit lovingly encased in the finest Belgian chocolate may fool people once, but it’s unlikely to do so a second time. The same goes for a website that you’re attempting to market. You can do a great job, sugarcoating the message, but if the site is abjectly horrible, either design, navigation, or functionality wise, then the visitors are not likely to come back.
10. But I didn’t eat the Salmon Mousse!: If your site is hosted on a shared server, take a look at who else is on there, and try to see if they’re likely to do things that can affect that entire C block. You don’t want your site to die by association when the Google Grim Reaper comes calling.
11. From Accountancy to Lion Taming: If you have a specialty, whether it be a particular vertical, or area of Search Marketing, and you decide that you want to do something in another area, make sure to research that area prior to leaping in. If you think you’re going to be taming an anteater, then you’re going to get one heck of a shock when you realize that you’re actually standing in a cage with the king of the beasts, with your only training being in the best use of pivot tables…
12. An African or European Swallow?: Know the right questions to ask. Prepare yourself before you have that first discovery meeting with a new client / vendor. Identify what it is that you don’t know, and that you will need to know in order to complete your SEM tasks.
13. Free Dead Dog with every jar of Coffee: In order for your marketing to function, you have to make sure that your offer is the right one to the target audience. If it’s not, you’re not going to see the conversion improvement that you’ve been paid to make happen, in fact you could see a decline if your offer is poorly thought out.
14. There is nothing quite as wonderful as money: The job of the Search Marketer is to improve the marketing of the site to increase conversions, and increase revenues, generating the best ROI possible. Of course, the reason you’re doing it is also to get some of that money flowing your way.

So there you have it, back in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, despite there being no such thing as Search Marketing, the Internet, or even personal computers, that group of Cambridge and Oxford educated gentlemen that formed Monty Python were thinking ahead to a time such as this, where their advice could shape our lives… and now for something completely different…

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