The Truth About SEO

(promise yourself that you’ll read to the bottom of this blog….it is absolutely, positively worth it)

Now that I’ve had my website re-designed (really!…take a look HERE!) by the capable House of Hancock in Henderson, Nevada…I’ve…well…. I’ve got a newly re-designed website.

What I mean is…it’s pretty, and it’s out there with how many other websites?

156-million as of Jan ’08, according to Digital Inspiration.

Sure, it’s a place I can send prospective clients and other interested parties to hear my demos and find out more about me, but is it practical as a marketing tool?

Ah…good question..!!! 

Lots and lots of people are selling SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) as the next best thing since Google….er…yeah….the guys who started all this in the first place.  The nice guys at House of Hancock, too, have a SEO package they’ve pitched to me that’s quite impressive.

For a 2nd opinion, I decided to go to Doc Phillips, a voice actor who’s dabbled/is dabbling in SEO for some time, now.  And for a 3rd opinion, I went to the inimitable Chris Wagner.  They both basically said the same thing.

I first met Chris at VOICE 2007 here in Las Vegas, last March.  He was a presenter, and has an impressive resume with big software corporations on the list of present and past employers.  Now he’s a web guru beyond being a successful voice guy, and devised the current VOICE 2008 website.

His response was a bit of an epiphany to me, and I asked him if I might share it here.  I’m sure we might all benefit from his observation of the use of SEO for voice-acting.

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Here’s how I see it, Google, which is really the only
search engine most people go to out there (other than Yahoo which gets results
from Google as well, I mean there is only one web right?) Asks that you build a
google friendly site.

That means making sure that your images do have an alt tag, that
you have the proper meta tags in your code, such as keywords and a description.

 SEO is really a way to ‘beat’ the search engine system
and rules, to get you listed higher in a search engine.  A search engine
that is there for anything from how do I get the best mud for mud pies, to what
is the formula for my algebraic problem?  And search engine companies will
de-list you from their indexes if you are seen to be someone who is trying to
work the system.  Google states it quite plainly.

See, here’s the deal, make your site friendly to google,
add those things, but in all honesty who are you trying to get to come to your
site?  It all comes down to you targeting your market.

Are you selling training?  Are you selling your voice over
services?  Are you trying to build up business by giving information out
to the voice acting community?

Are you focusing your efforts in the right direction at the
right time?

That is what it comes down to.

I was thinking of how to respond to your email, and one of the
images that came to mind was a person setting up a fresh produce market in the
middle of a large field, with one road coming in, a couple of signs and a small
stand.  There is no traffic on the road.  Well the person who runs
the stand decides to put a listing in google for their web site, and they sit
and wait for the cars to start rolling in.

Well, they get maybe one or two cars coming in a month, mostly
people just looking around, maybe they buy a head of lettuce.  Not
impressive.

The owner of the stand contacts an SEO firm to see if they can
get higher listings in the search engine.  They pay lots of money, and
yes, they are higher in the search results, but there isn’t much
improvement in traffic that will bring in the revenue.

I think it goes this way, Search engines are tools, tools that
people use to find interesting stuff.  I can tell you that from my
experience and from the people I have done work for and from my agents, the
word is that search engines may be the LAST place someone looking for voice
over goes to.  Really.

So instead of spending all this money on SEO, which is not going
to guarantee you any gigs, refocus your efforts on REAL marketing, get out
there and learn your market… Network, connect, do the things that have
been building business for the last couple of thousand of years.. take your
talents to where they are needed.. don’t sit on an interstate in the
middle of nowhere hoping that someone may pass by your car with the sign on it
that says “Voice Actor for hire” and possibly give you a listen.. 
Those who work it, get the work…

Use your web site as part of your marketing materials, don’t
count on it alone to make you money… it just doesn’t work that way.

 Get rocking on networking and getting out there.. it’s hard, really hard,
but the results can be great… And rethink your focus on a regular basis..
better to make small course corrections than to have to pull a U turn later.

———————————-

Thanks, Chris….you make perfect sense, and I owe you one for re-orienting my focus to what’s important.

Yeah, I’m going to do some basic optimization like Chris mentioned above.  I’ll dabble in it myself, or find someone to do it for a fair price.  Chris or Doc would be at the top of the list for that, just because they were generous with their time explaining it to me.  And as Doc points out:  “you’re never done”… it requires constant tweaking.

CourVO