I’m Done With SEO.

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

After a few months worth of thinking about it, I’ve decided that I’m not going to offer SEO any longer.

The Sisyphean adventure of trying to educate the marketplace on certain aspects of this industry while still trying to win business and convince people that I’m A) better than my competitors and B) actually good too, was just too much.

I thought I’d get smart, and create a Client Expectations Document, where I outline in precise detail each step of the project.  Where I give minimum time limits to wait for results.  Where I politely make it clear not to ring me, just email me because it’s so much easier for my life.

And these things all got ignored.  Not by everybody, but by just enough clients that I realised I wasn’t actually happy with a new project any more, I was dreading it.  I was waiting with dread for each new client to cause problems, or expect things outside of project parameters, or to simply stop returning my emails…

I started this business because I wanted to help people with their websites.  I wanted to give them analysis and reports that mattered, that made sense to them, that told them important things about their websites.  I started doing SEO because people were looking for it (nobody seems to search "web analtyics expert" much) and because it could pay the bills.

4 years on, and that’s all I’ve been doing… paying the bills.

Actually not quite.  Little by little, I built some tools in PHP and WordPress that helped me keep up on client reporting, Google Rankings, Search Traffic, and AdWords success.  They helped me with Keyword Research, Competition Research, Link Analysis and Overall Website Analysis.  I put them on a website called Jex Solutions, and made it a Membership site.

I kind of figured, "Man, these tools do SO much for MY business and MY clients, I’ll make them available for all!"

Then hardly anybody signed up.  Then those that DID sign up, couldn’t figure out how to use anything.  It was an epic failure.

But, by that same token, it was a tremendous success.  I learned more about what really makes a website successful than I ever would’ve just looking at stats and graphs.

I started a blog, open to other web folks of wonderfulness, called Stone Soup – Recipes for a Better Web.  A place for web professionals to take a no-holds-barred approach to blogging about the web.  A place where we could say bad words as much as we wanted and bag on clients that pissed us off… all with a lesson, of course.

I’ve registered, and have big plans for, Have a Good Website, a site that’s going to have anything from the basics of picking a web designer to the intricacies of finding the right kind of inbound linking plan for your SEO.

I also wrote a book!  A romance, followed by one I’m working on that’s sci-fi futuretasticness.  The books, and the wonderful people I’m involved with in my writer’s group, have inspired me to make a website for authors called Page Buoy.  It’s not bulit yet, it’s in progress, but it’s going to be unique and pretty awesome for writers of just about anything.  I’m stoked.

And finally, wife and I are about to have our 4th child.  Little Boy Blue is due on the 20th and I’m going to take a few months off just to enjoy my last child, my baby boy.

During that time, I’m going to:

Sure, it’s a lot, but it’s what I want to be doing.

Wish me luck.

Category: SEO, State of the Web | 1 Comment

One Response to “I’m Done With SEO.”

  1. James Bull says:
    April 7, 2011 at 10:29 am

    Good Luck!

    SEO as it is “commonly understood” is a thing of the past anyway, imho.

    Reply

Leave a Reply