I was checking Kim Krause Berg’s (cre8pc) blog post about how theres hostilities building up in the SEO community on all levels of experience/popularity, then Lisa Barone’s take on it… and I had to remember something. By nature, SEO’s are part ego, part creative artist, and a whole lot of other things too. And if we can’t nurture our creativity, we become crabby little bastards. We might start screaming that the sky is falling (aka “SEO is dead” blog posts and forum threads), or worse, we might start thinking that there is nothing left to do. We got it all sussed out now. Usually when this happens, many of these little crabs scuttle off for a bit until something tends to fire them up about SEO again.I sincerely think that if there’s nothing rocking the SEO community at large, be it good or bad, then we start becoming a bit bored and quick to turn on each other some. Maybe it’s time for Google to release some sort of insane algo update that makes absolutely no sense, just so we have something to get excited about. Or maybe Jimmy Wales could finish loading the rest of the sites into the Wikia index and actually give us something to start optimizing for.

Avoiding The Crab

Education is key. The more we learn about how to do new things for our clients, the more we grow as marketing professionals. It’s like working a job that never lets you expand on your skill set.. it gets old, you get jaded and eventually you become somewhat hostile. Even on the level of independent contractor, this can happen due to time constraints and a lack of opportunity to explore.

I’m not gonna sit here and go on and on about how this is a new year and how there’s some kind of obligatory logic in learning something new just because it’s a new year. That’s stupid. Instead of lecturing and setting up braindead examples, I want to suggest some avenues on how you can step up to a different area of marketing.

Things To Learn That Might Be Really Cool

Become a master of the hosting environment with super cool .htaccess tricks. I mean the site is sitting there, why not learn a new trick in on-site SEO optimization?

Harness the power of the press release! It’s like content writing, but it’s so condensed and ready for keyword love that you can enjoy the satisfaction that it brings within 24 hours of submission. This is a hot ticket for niche audience exposure.

SIGN UP FOR SEARCH MARKETING STANDARD!! I have been active in this industry for 7 years, and after 2 issues, I was reminded and introduced to some really cool avenues and techniques that truly do work. If you can, find Kim’s article about customer feedback forms. Serious kudos to her on that one! A great piece of work!

Ask to become a guest writer on a blog. Ironically as it stands, I’ve had 3 invitations, which unfortunately I’ve only been able to write on one very sporadically. Besides the obvious ego boost, it serves as a great opportunity to brand yourself as an authority on the topic or specialty you do best with. From there, the reaction of the public does and will serve as education to you and you alone. That to me, is rewarding and exciting.

I think the biggest piece of education we can all work with is the simple fact of math. There are over 8 billion websites out there.. so there is plenty of opportunity for all of us. We don’t need to be competitive. Instead, let’s network together. We’re all learning everyday how all of this works, and we all want our peers to be successful because they are the teachers we need in this field. You want proof? I had coffee with one of the only other relevant Hawaii SEO practitioners out here and have had multiple conversations with him where I wanted to work with him on some projects I was trying to bring in. We live in a micro-business community, but there’s still room for us to both work independently from each others territory.

I’ve learned that the value of networking, even with DIRECT competitors is good. I have a great deal of respect for Dave, and with time, I look forward to calling him a friend instead of a peer in this local industry. Don’t be afraid to make contact… there is some truly awesome people out there that can help make this all exciting again.

Conclusion

All I’m getting at here is that we all know how engaged we become when we learn and utilize a new SEO method that produces positive results either in the SERP’s or increasing our own knowledge in the field. I remember the first time that I witnessed the power of social bookmarking to increase traffic and rankings. I was like a kid in the candy store that week. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the opportunity that was now presented to me in terms of getting faster satisfaction on my marketing effort for my clients.

Go out there and tackle the one thing that you wish you knew more about. Learn what you can, become more valuable… become an expert.. become more than you are right now! It hurts nobody, only helps to make you more valuable to the community and your potential clients.