It's Not the Guru, It's the System - Future Certification of SEO, SEM, ILM Professionals - Part 4

It's Not the Guru, It's the System - Future Certification of SEO, SEM, ILM Professionals - Part 4
By G Wheeler, Jr.

Ever notice that 95% of the Web Marketing GURU's never talk to their customers, never return emails and will not give out a phone number. Most hide behind autoresponders and never deal with a customer.

Here's the implied statement one can take from this "Hide-The-GURU" attitude, "Hey prospect, I'm the GURU that's too busy to talk to you, but here's what I need you to do, give me your credit card numbers and I'll show you how to be just like me. And by the way, if you think I'm too busy now, wait till you pay me the money?"

Fast forward to the prospect. He or she is sitting there reading this "buy now and ask latter" email from the GURU-In-Hiding's autoresponder and thinking, "Ok, do I do something STUPID like give them my card number anyway (assuming that everybody gets this abuse), or should I sleep on it and look more into this?" The GURU is gambling on the Psychology of Sales without the Ethics of Sales. Psychology of Selling as correctly taught to me by Zig Zigler, Brian Tracey, Tom Hopkins and others never ever suggest a justification for the type of conduct and unprofessionalism I see many marketers display today.

Since sale's is the oldest profession, I believe it deserves to be respected with a bit more integrity. There are some, who would argue that something else is the oldest profession, but even that's just a subsection of Sales.

Sales 101: "build the excitement, build value, ask focused questions, build urgency, use take-aways, puppy dog closes and create a sense of urgency. Ok, nothing wrong with any of that that. In fact, that what I've done for 20 years and still do it every day.

Here's and example of the problem:

"Mr. or Mrs. Prospect, Today I'd like you to: Make an Uninformed, Irrational or Emotional Decision."

Irrational - emotionalism seems to work on the internet, at least that's what many of my colleagues claim. And yes, they all get mad me when I challenge them on this, but so what? Irrational, emotional marketing has fundamental flaws and cracks that quickly show up after the purchase. Over use of automated tools tend to remove the GURU so far from the selling process that they become complacent, arrogant and some just never learn the fine art of Sales.

Selling is not telling, bragging and show-boating. Selling is about asking focused questions, establishing a need, qualifying the prospect, risk reversal and guarantee of quality and timely delivery.

All this is being lost in today's GURU driven automated selling process. As a result establishing rapport and trust with your prospect is becoming a lost art.

The present Internet GURU marketing model is fundamentally flawed and is not the future of the industry. New marketers would be wise to choose a different style to grow their list and relationships. In the long-run, people connect more to people, features and benefits as opposed to products, tools and self proclaimed GURU's.

Rational - emotionalism and automated tools can co-exist but only if they are honest, engaging, proof positive and customer centric.

The internet is impartial to these personalities jockeying for position and popularity. The people behind the social grid seem to be aware of the games and are focused on being gatekeepers and stewards of their respective search engines.

In new websites, they look for short titled site names and themes for cool new NICHE communities. They look for keywords and cool content matching descriptions. They look for relevant links, articles, page volume, video, pod cast presentations, etc. When you present these elements, you crack the code and find the Secret.

Does the Guru really want you to know all of this? With this knowledge you sort of become your own GURU?

The future of web marketing is to actually become a truly competent and qualified professional / Search Optimization Project Manager Pro

An industry benchmark Black Belt Certification Program should contain specific tools to become a true industry professional in this field. Such a program should include professionally produced tools for home or off on-line study such as while driving or for an iPod. Also any program should be a work-book and resource manual. This type of program would be an absolute must-have for anyone responsible for Online Marketing, Internet Media Promotions, Website Optimization, New Media Promotions and Internet Branding. I believe the marketplace metric support a course this strong as the ideal solution for Students, Home Business and Small to Mid Size Office Entrepreneurs, Colleges High School Vocational Department and Libraries

SEO, SEM and ILM are complementary web marketing segments that require similar business and marketing ethics, legal compliance and an appreciation for basic consumer rights. With that in mind, I believe any course instruction, lectures and case studies should include certain specific topics such as:

1. Campaign Message Targeting
2. Demographic Study, Competitive Analysis, Budget, Project Management
3. Google Analytics, Syndicated Search Directory Listing
4. Site Map Design and Optimization
5. Campaign BETA Guidelines, SWAT Analysis
6. Film or Video Marketing Optimization Plan, Production Teams
7. Aspect Ratio Test
8. Multiple Media Integration and Cross Platform Distribution Planning
9. Meta-frame Split Testing
10. Frame Forwarding vs. URL Redirect
11. Embedded Search Technology
12. Progress Trackers
13. Web Based Applications
14. Web 2.0 Content Syndication
15. Dynamic Auction Listing
16. Hop Links and Link Isolation
17. Tracking Id's
18. SEO Duplicate Content Avoidance
19. Reverse Syndication
20. Social Bookmarking

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