Bill Solominsky

I am preparing to start a new SEM campaign and recalled a TechCrunch post this summer regarding regulating the industry, http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/13/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-search-engine-marketing-and-seo/. It is written by an anonymous writer that is a “well known executive”, and argues that the algorithms for ranking on search engines should be disclosed. The writer compares it to free trade and controlling of boarders, where Google is the boarder patrol and can allow or disallow companies into the ecosystem at their will.

The only way I’d agree with this is if Google does have a conspiracy to omit selected sites based on personal bias. I have never heard of this being proven, although some companies do complain that partnerships with Google competitors seem to drop their rankings.

Overall, I disagree with this author for many of the reasons listed in the comments, and one big one: there are other ways to advertise your product besides Google. The main reason to work on SEO and SEM campaigns is to take advantage of this form of advertising. There are plenty of other ways to advertise a product online, including other search engines, niche ad networks, link building (to actually reach other interested customers, not just increase PageRank), and partnerships, to name a few. If all of these are performed well, and you have a relevant URL to match your company or product, there is no way that Google can keep your company down in the rankings. This applies to both start ups and established companies.

The other thing to look at, even if you’re a pure internet company, it doesn’t mean that marketing has to be done purely online. How did people advertise before the mid-90′s when there was no internet? Print, TV, radio, door-to-door, conferences, trade shows… All these methods are still valid. And the big upside, even with all of the fancy analytics to be gained from online metrics, nothing compares to meeting and talking to your customers face-to-face. You get genuine feedback, suggestions, and take a huge step in customer service in establishing a solid relationship. That, in turn, will help bring in more revenue than a top ranking on Google.

A interview posted on CNN.com today with the writer of “Creating Success from the Inside Out”, Ephren Taylor, discussing his start up experience at such a young age. The basic premise is to start a business when you’re young since youth is typically more risky and has less responsibilities. He lists 5 tips for young entrepreneurs:

1. Turn your disadvantage into your advantage
2. Persistence pays
3. Read
4. Don’t over analyze the opportunity
5. Recession = opportunity (if he’s a computer programmer, shouldn’t this be “==”)

This is good advice, but I worry that people reading this won’t take a step back and see the big picture and weigh the negative as well. You can only be persistent for so long. At what point do you realize that you do not have a good idea, or that your product will not sell? If you wait too long, especially right out of college, you could miss an opportunity to gain valuable experience. Its a huge gamble and leads to a paradox, because if your company is a success, you instantly become a credible expert on your industry but likely don’t need to look for work again. However, if your company is not a success, you could be labeled as lacking experience which hinders your job search, which is now necessary to keep up with responsibilities.

People like Mr. Taylor, who are widely successful at such a young age, tend to be over-optimistic about risk and attempt to lead people down their path. I believe people that were successful later in life, and have gone through failure before obtaining wealth, can offer much better advice since they tend to see both sides of risk.