Meet your New Employee, SEO

You have a small business and you are working on growing and sustaining that business. And I have some news for you, you have already hired an employee into your organization. This employee will be responsible for marketing your business, sending you the majority of your sales leads, positioning you as a thought leader, and making you more money.  In fact, you are trusting her with the future of your business.

The employee goes by one name, because when you are this important one name is all you need.  Although it is an acronym, her name is SEO.  Her full name is Search Engine Optimization, but all the cool people just call her SEO.

The great part about SEO is she will do everything you tell it.  If you publish an article, she will let people know.  If you create a new website, she will tell Google it is there.  If you launch a new product or service, SEO will tell people exactly what you have to say about it.  That really is the great part about her, she does exactly what you say every time.  She also never calls in sick.  Even when you head out for the weekend, she will be working hard with her team of search bots pushing your message.

But with all good qualities comes bad ones.  The bad part about SEO, in full disclosure, is she doesn't think for herself.  If you make a mistake in your description of a product, she will release the bad description to Google.  If you leave out details, so will she.  If you forget to finish the website, everyone will know.  If you are an attorney who practices business litigation, but you leave that off your website, no one will find you.  In fact, any detail you leave out will be hidden from view!

SEO is your most important and valuable employee in today’s world.  She replaced the traditional sales model without even asking permission.  One day she just was there and she had completely changed the organization.  One of her siblings, also named SEO, was actually so bad she put a very old company out of business.  No one bothered to feed him!  It was really bad.  You see, without constant TLC SEO just won't perform.  

I heard about one company that another sibling, still named SEO (like George Forman's kids all named George), got them on the first page of Google.  The whole company celebrated this huge achievement SO much that they stopped feeding him.  He had nothing new to say to the world.  Before long, the company was invisible on the internet and sales ground to a halt.

So make sure you take time to celebrate your new employee.  Be really appreciative of the fact that she works for free.  But never, never, never, forget to feed her.  Because SEO is the most valuable person on your team.  Make sure you always give her fresh new things to say.  Refresh your website and content.  Think of your website as a lawn.  If you don't work on it weekly, pretty soon there is nothing left to cut.