September 2013 - Greg Shuey

Stop Wasting Time & Energy On Problems & Start Putting It Towards The Solutions

I’m listening to a new book, well, not a new book, but new to me called Think Big and Kick Ass In Business And Life by Donald Trump. Last night while driving home from the office he said something that made me think deeply about how I approach problems and solutions and realized that I’ve been doing it all wrong.

He said something along the lines of “can you imagine what you might accomplish if you stop wasting time focusing on the problem and instead putting it toward the solution”. My mind was blown and what’s sad is that it was blown by such a simple concept!

I think back to some of the problems I’ve faced over the last month… the biggest, we need to grow revenue as quickly as possible across all three companies. What does the average person do when they hear that? They begin strategizing and writing down every way they can grow revenue, meeting together to discuss, going back to the drawing board, meeting together again, etc. Before you know it, you’ve sunk countless hours into strategizing without any action. Freaking A!

Let’s take another recent problem… oh no, my keyword data is gone from analytics! I can’t tell you how many hours I was consumed with this issue let alone everyone else in the digital marketing space. I saw hundreds of blog posts being written about it and how it is such a bad thing. I saw thousands of tweets about it as well. Now that I think about it, it’s actually quite disgusting how much time and effort went into focusing on the problem at hand instead of the solution. Our solution of course is to focus on what we can impact positively and ensure we can track conversions across traffic sources (organic, paid, social, referral, etc).

I’ll tell ya what, even though Donald Trump comes off as a you know what, he’s a smart dude and if this is the only thing I get out of his book, then it was worth the eight hours of listen time because starting yesterday, I will approach problems and solutions far differently.

Why An SEO Audit Is An Extremely WISE Investment For All Companies

I’m always amazed by the growing number of “SEO Experts” out there… I mean, hey, if you’ve been doing SEO for more than six months, your a friggin guru!

Because being an SEO is the cool thing to do for a profession and there’s a plethora of information about the trade online (good and bad) it’s hard to know if what you/your team/your agency is reading and executing on your site is going to provide sustainable results for years to come. Because of this, third party SEO audits are becoming a very popular thing and are an extremely wise investment for just about any company.

Let’s talk about the different situations you might be in and how an SEO audit can help you tackle your marketing initiatives and accomplish your goals.

You’re Just Getting Started With SEO

If you are just getting started with SEO and are serious about investing your time and money into a campaign, an SEO audit can give you a good idea if your site is in good shape from a search engine stand point or if you are already in some trouble. A good website audit can help you uncover technical issues that could make it hard for the search engines to crawl and index your website and so forth. An audit can also tell you what is working for you and shouldn’t be changed.

You’ve Been Outsourcing Your SEO For While

This is probably one of the biggest reasons companies want an SEO audit. Let’s face it, there are a lot of CRAPPY SEO companies out there and they can hose you over in a hurry. I always recommend to anyone outsourcing their SEO to have a third party perform a site audit at least once per year. This keeps the SEO company honest and alerts the client of any foul practice or low quality SEO that could hurt them in the long run.

You’re Thinking About Bringing SEO In House

Very similar to the one above, if you’ve been outsourcing your SEO and are thinking about bringing it in house, you will definitely want a third party to perform an SEO audit. This will give your in house team a road map of areas that need your immediate attention and strategies and tactics that haven’t been working so well for them in the past.

You’ve Been Doing SEO In House For Awhile

If you’ve been doing SEO in house for awhile and your team hasn’t had much turnover, it’s also wise to perform a site audit… probably yearly. Yes, your team is most likely reading and staying up to date with the latest and greatest strategies being spewed by thought leaders, but are they doing exactly what your business needs for sustainable results? You’ll never know unless you get a website audit.

You’re Not Happy With Your Website’s Current Performance

Another reason to get a search engine optimization audit is because you are unhappy with your current website’s performance. If you’re working your tail off and things don’t seem to be improving, a site audit can quickly uncover the root cause and provide insight into what you can do to boost your visibility in the search engines.

You’ve Been Hit By An Algorithm Update

Um… fairly obvious, but if your website has been hit by an algorithm update, you should consider a website audit. Not only will an audit help you identify what algorithm update affected your negatively, but what that algo update targeted and what steps need to be taken to fix it.

You Need An Advocate To Sell SEO Changes Internally

Believe it or not, a lot of companies have a hard time selling SEO to executives as well as site changes to IT. This was the case when I worked with Dell. If you need an outside “advocate” to come in and help sell your strategy and changes, a site audit is a fantastic idea!

I’ve also seen companies hire a consultant to perform site audit just to receive confirmation that your recommendations have legs and will provide value to the company.

You Want To Measure Your SEO Progress

Lastly, if you want to measure the progress of your SEO efforts, you might want to consider an SEO website audit. For my clients, I try and perform website audits on a monthly basis, just to make sure we are on the right track and making progress.

In closing, if a search engine optimization site audit isn’t in your plans for 2013 or 2014, I highly recommend you to consider one, regardless of whether you work at a large or small organization. 9/10 times, an audit will always help your SEO campaign, will open your eyes to new ideas or methodologies, and will validate your strategy when selling your IT or management team.

Time Flies and It BLOWS!!!

disneyland at halloween Probably a short post today, but this past week we were at Disneyland with our two kids and I was reminded of how fast time flies… and it sucks… big time!

The last time we were at Disneyland, Olivia was three and Kade was six months old. Olivia was in heaven! She was totally into all of the Princesses and we spent hours hunting them down for signatures and pictures. This time, she is almost six and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Princesses. All she wanted to do was ride the big rides over and over again. Her favorite rides are the Tower of Terror and Space Mountain. While standing in line for the Tower of Terror I looked at her and I got really sad. She is old… and it happened over night.

I guess the reason I’m writing this is because while looking at her it reminded me of how short life is and how important it is to spend time with my kids while they are young, because it won’t be long till they want nothing to do with me 🙂

Since returning home, I’ve started shelving my phone and leaving my laptop in my bag until they are asleep. I want to give them my full, undivided attention and it has been amazing. I also try and leave work around 4:30 (of course I go into the office super early and work late into the night after the kids are asleep) each day to get home and see them. Some might say I’m crazy… some might say if you don’t spend 10-12 hours a day in the office, you aren’t a good employee, let alone a leader, but I disagree.

I believe that you have to have a good work/personal life balance in order to be a good employee and a good leader and just because this is the way I work, doesn’t mean I get any less done or my work/clients suffer. I would say the opposite. I get more done because I am focused, efficient, and productive during the hours I’m in the office. It works great! You should try it sometime 🙂

Well, I don’t have much else to say other than if you are a working mom or dad, take enough time to spend with your family before you blink and they are old and don’t like you.