Have you ever seen a five-foot-long list of websites, SEO tips and references on internet marketing called "Internet Marketing Made Easy?" Why would someone mock your search for good information, with an extensive list of sources, but no live links to the best online resources for proven SEO tactics, search marketing strategy and even a list of free SEO tools? It's a mystery this article will try to explain, but it's funny search marketers would do this, when any intelligent prospect can search on the language of the document and find the source.

The list of internet marketing resources we found is a great tool, showing a lot of insight about the specific things you need to research, think about and tasks to do in order to win on the web. A more useful version of the task list would have live links to connect you with the sources and resources. I think a lot of SEO "experts" have a business model of keeping their customers ignorant about how search engine optimization is done. We have found that educating prospects helps them understand the complexity of the business. Why?

It's a fact that marketing a web site requires many skills, and the information can be confusing. Keyword tools give very different answers on what terms have what traffic, and it takes some digging (and usually, shelling out some money) to get access to enough tools to piece together a realistic approximation of what real people are searching on, as opposed to search marketers checking their rankings. However, just knowing more about site architecture, keyword selection, pay-per-click advertising, site analytics, market research, web design, usability, on-page SEO strategies, link building and social media makes you a much better prospective CLIENT, at least in our self-centered view. For a site owner with a small budget, do we mind you accessing good information on our site which will help you DIY--to help make your site more search engine friendly? After all, we are prospects too, and we might be looking for what you sell. If we can just teach you how to rank well, it makes our search so much easier!

I guess the idea of having educational web resources is to get people's interest and attention, then move them along in the sales process. However, we try to educate people about the complexity and cost of the process, because we want a prospect who really wants our help, not someone who is expecting a quick boost from SEO pixie dust. Can you use your site's content to inform and educate a prospect, and thereby become a bookmarked resource? This is one of the most expensive things to do with traditional media, but a real advantage of web marketing.

It's important to keep in mind that search engine optimization is all about understanding your prospect and making iterative change to your site, to get closer and closer to meeting the needs of the market for information. It's that old combo of attention to detail and consistent discipline that works. It may take a year or two on a large site to develop enough content and links to get top rankings, but whenever you achieve "authority site" status on your main keywords, you begin to own that real estate at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). That pays some nice dividends.