Commitment Phobia … Anyone?

So, coming home in the car today I heard a *new* scientific breakthrough that is blaming commitment phobia on genetics. Really?! …*sigh* …Why am I not surprised. Anything that offers a plausible explanation enabling people to sneak out of commitment due to a factor they simply cannot control sounds too good to be true… No?

OK, so how come some of my most adorable friends claim total commitment phobia when it comes to relationships, yet manage to run a complex business day-to-day with absolutely no concerns about being committed to their business? Is it a case of being able to commit on one score and not on another? Hmmmm…

So, as this is an SEO blog (or as this tries to be an SEO blog – commitment levels depending) I thought I would look at commitment phobia and SEO. [For our lovely readers, this post is also in the same layout as the last post which did not get a single Sphinn, but generated a lot of traffic and interest – which is super J]. So in the name of experimentation, and based on our viewers current apparent preference for light-hearted SEO stuff in these upsy-downy-dow-jonesy times…Sometimes you just need to keep letting out the rope… it usually ends in a hanging. Sound familiar? My editorial comments are in *little text* - I have kept them to a minimum as I could have just had far to much fun with this and made it a complete farce… not that it isn’t, but … you’ll see.

Client: I need SEO. What can you do?

Me: We can do whatever you need. We can audit your site. We can provide you with a proactive strategy to redesign your IA and optimize your site on a page by page basis. We can identify new opportunities via keyword research. We can monitor your exposure in the SERPs with analytics tools. We can conduct an aggressive backlink campaign. We can…

Client. Yeah. Great. I mean how fast can you get some new pages to rank number one for great key words?

Me. Have you had keyword research done? You know your core phrases?

Client. Marketing did a great job of customer research and we have redesigned the new site *tautology rules* to maximize the efficacy of our known conversion tunnels, and we’re now using a new CMS to facilitate personalization and tracking.

Me. Ah. So you have redesigned the site, you have a new CMS in place, and you want us to simply audit the site and provide you with insights and keyword research to facilitate better customer interaction followed by an aggressive backlink campaign?

Client. No. Not really. See, we’re really quite happy with the site. We need you to just check out some of our content and make sure it’s optimized for the search engines.

Me. You want us to check your site is optimized for the search engines based on the existing site structure and content without doing any further keyword research, simply optimizing your pages for the engines based on what we can see you are already trying to optimize for?

Client. Sort of. Like I said, we love the look and feel and usability of the new site. But we have heard that having a blog is very important, and that reputation management is important. So we need to make sure that we have great blog posts that are optimized and speak to our offering. Press releases too.

Me. So you don’t really want your site optimized, but you do want to have optimized blog posts and online press releases? Is the blog on the same URL as the site? *please, oh please*

Client. Actually the blog is on our parent company’s site, but we are allowed to contribute 7 blog posts a month for inclusion and syndication along with the rest of the corporate divisions. *whoopee*

Me. Ah. So you simply want us to come up with some great blog post ideas, write them, optimize them efficiently and generate some link traction?

Client. Mmmm. Not really. We know what we want to write and we have to write it a certain way due to brand and legal constraints imposed by corporate. Our copywriters in house are very good you know *um. So, no*. We just need you to copy-edit them and then make sure people link to them. We also need you to make sure they are syndicated elsewhere to generate traffic. All your contact will be through our agency account manager who will pass your ideas to the PR team.

Me. Right. You don’t want us to research anything, write anything, or comment on anything. We have no access to your team except via third-party, and you just want us to take something already written and make sure people link to it? You do know that that is not what SEO is? *Hello?*

Client. SEO is about generating traffic through the search engines right? So we need you to make sure people read our approved blog posts and press releases by finding them in the search engines.

Me. Right then. I assume that there will be links to your site URL in the copy of the press releases? And some tracking on the press releases for analytics purposes? *rope’s so long it’s getting frayed*

Client. Um. No. Corporate only allows us to mention our sub-division but not link to it directly. The copy does contain full email and contact details however. That’s good for local search. *Really? Where was I?*  As to analytics, we can’t duplicate results with corporate so all press release and blog post traffic will be part of their analytics data stream which we can’t share at this time. *snap*

Me. *Ahem* As a matter of interest, what is the budget for this ‘SEO’ work.

Client. $5 figures, guaranteed 6 month contract if you can prove results *dangle and gasp*.

Me. We’d love to be able to help you out, but you really need to go for genetic testing unfortunately we will not be able to help you at this stage.

Final note from the hangman…errr, woman. You know, for an industry that is growing as exponentially as this one is (£330mm in the UK on SEO alone in 2008*), the continued lack of understanding and education is endemic. And with all the money flying around – or so it seems – what are these good folks committing their hard earned advertising dollars and pounds to? There are so many great SEO campanies out there, but there are also a lot of unethical practitioners. If I could just get my grubby little hands on 1%…1/2 a % even – shoot I’ll settle for a tenth… You KNOW I’m totally committed to helping people understand SEO, what it is, how it works and how it can benefit them… at least I think I am… or I was until I missed out on SES San Jose. Perhaps I should focus on SMM a bit more? Mmm, yes… right then, see you on Twitter…

* eConsultancy [just for you Jill ]