The Motivation and Passion Behind My Madness
I was meeting with a potential client yesterday and we got talking about careers and why people choose the path they do in life (yes very philosophical). John said,” I want to give you this business, but you have to answer one thing for me before I make my decision”. I was thinking, wow this could go in any number of directions based on our previous conversation topics. John said,” Why do you do SEO”? I sat and thought for a second perplexed as we just had an hour long conversation about this exact subject. So I started to restate my reasons for doing SEO on a website once again stating better rankings, how the spiders work, but he quickly stopped me and said,” No why did you pick SEO as a career”?
I had internally thought about this many times, but didn’t want to come back with a flat answer of, “I just like it or its fun” (not a good story nor really the reason). So I paused for a second and gathered my thoughts and told him the deeper reasons of why I have such a passion for what I do.
The Progression (Of Rankings)
Ever since I was a young boy I enjoyed doing odd jobs like mowing the lawn, raking leaves, or in the dead of winter in upstate NY shoveling the many feet of snow from a nor’eastern the night before. Why did I enjoy such mundane and somewhat tedious tasks? The same reason I enjoy SEO, because as time passed I could visually see a progression of my hard work. I guess you could say I liked the positive reinforcement and the somewhat instant gratitude of the visual reinforcement of the progression of a job. These simple psychological attributes that are written about in every college text book motivated me and pushed me to not only expect a progression in my day to day job and SEO, but also in the bigger picture of my life, my happiness, and my career.
The Passion (For Computers)
From as far back as I can remember I had two passions in my life, one being baseball and the other being computers. When I was younger I remember eagerly waiting for the snow to melt enough so my father and I could head out to the backyard to throw a baseball around. About the time the I had mastered catching and throwing a baseball (as good and someone who was 7 could) I got this overwhelming desire to explore technology and the up and coming world of computers. Now, since I didn’t know if computers had been made available in the home, and all I knew was the simplistic industrial version I messed around with when I would go with my father to his job.
Why did I have such a desire to learn every little thing about them? Well my thought is, like with the ‘x’ factor in regards to SEO there are some things you have to chalk up to the “x” factor in life.
The Challenge (Of The Underlying Puzzle)
As with any SEO campaign there are going to be unexplained ups and downs due to your competition’s ever changing online strategy, the algorithm’s ever changing formula, and the dreaded “X” factor that everyone talks about on the surface, but only a chosen few have insight into. These 3 factors are always pushing my knowledge, and driving me to sharpen my SEO skills in regards to trends and changes.
As much as people would like you to believe that SEO is easy by inviting you into SEO schemes of guaranteed rankings and false hope, SEO does not always take a positive progression for all websites. When a site suddenly drops with no warning because of an unknown change in the algorithm, site structure, or in your competitions focus, that’s where I love to come into the picture. It’s my job to research and determine how to get a website back to where it needs to be by examining the rankings puzzle. In a weird way I feel like I am taking part in a SEO version of House (Hugh Laurie), not knowing what happened or what your sites sickness is, but so determined not to let the algorithm beat down a good site, that I almost obsess over it, ruling out possibilities and digging deeper and deeper until I find the solution (which I will admit does not always happen).
Helping People (Find What They Need)
Not everyone has the ability to travel around the world and help people face to face, but I feel if we all do our part to make someone’s life a little easier it definitely has a positive impact. With that said, this past weekend I was searching online for a walk in clinic in the suburbs of Chicago and could not find the information I needed after almost an hour of searching. This frustrating task of finding a medical facility, which was time sensitive, added stress to my day, stress that could have been avoided. By optimizing sites correctly and helping people find what they are looking for I feel I am doing a little something to help someone out, and make their day a little less stressful.
Bill is the Lead Linchpin at the company and focuses on SEO and content strategy. Bill’s ten-year background in digital marketing, SEO, and building online companies has helped him rise to strategic lead for some of the largest online brands and content websites in the world. Bill believes that at the core of a website's success sits the value that website provides it users.
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