It amazes me how many people spend energy and time trying to find workarounds to getting found or a sale rather than doing the hard work characteristic of those that truly pay the price. It’s almost like watching someone who is a cheat that would be better off getting a job. The latter would provide better and more predictable revenue.

Maybe there’s some other psychological kickback that comes from trying to cheat Google. However, here are the problems I see:

• Google is smarter. They have paid millions for their talent. They are extremely talented and insightful.
• Google is always changing. Their algorithms continually change, especially to thwart cheaters.
• Google is in control. They control what search results come up based on criteria in their algorithms.
• Google can create consequences for you. You may find it even more difficult to get found.

If you insist on looking for workarounds or paying some SEO company for so-called optimization, then your work could not only be wasted, but your future efforts may be harder.

Here is the way we look at getting found online when billions of searches are occurring for goods, services and information:

• Build information assets. There is a compound interest effect if you have a volume of information. It lives and persists online forever. It is an asset. Adwords and pay-per-click are fleeting. You get a click and pay a lot of dollars. You still don’t have an asset.
• Create valuable content. It is not good if people land on your pages and find your content worthless. The foundation for truly getting found is around having something real and valuable to share.
• Join the conversation. There are conversations online in legitimate places. Other authors, social media and sites can endorse you as legitimate thereby creating valuable equity for your online assets.
• Continually innovate. Thinking that someone will set up your SEO and you are done is naive. You have to be committed to being continually relevant and current. This requires innovation. It is today’s business. It’s not very different than seeing a bricks-and-mortar business and their continual maintenance and innovation. If they stop growing, they are opening the doors for failure.

The truth is that you have to be smart, hard-working and substantive. It’s honest and fair. Google rewards such behaviors as you can see from your own searching and consumption. Avoid the gimmicks. Pay the price and do the hard work of being truly valuable.

What do you think?

At the core of our business, we are innovators. We do not seek to rest on our laurels and successes. Each success we experience is ultimately a building block. If we continued with marketing strategies from five years ago, much less even a year ago, then we would be on the path to obsolescence.

We have seen our share of businesses that fade out because they have not adapted to the extreme change and speed of the marketplace. I have seen the fortunes of small business owners change overnight because old channels of marketing and ways of selling no longer worked. They were living in the past.

One of the things we do at AscendWorks is continually question how to improve our service offerings. It keeps us pushing the boundaries. Here are some ways our process works, which may help you in your own businesses:

• Technology evaluation. We see new marketing technologies continually. We push and prod on the merits and fit for our clients. Just because something is out there does not warrant attention or application. We like to test and get feedback quickly.
• Results. When we apply a technology, we build strategy and process around it. We are looking for a signal to the noise. We want results. When we don’t see it, we iterate quickly until we find the signal.
• Focus. We say, “No,” more than we accept the latest fad. We are always looking to cut out steps to streamline processes for our clients and make things easier. Every new item that is bolted on has a management cost associated with it. We would rather work with fewer items and refine them to perfection than throw a bunch of things against a wall to see what happens.
• Knowledge Sharing. Our team reads, studies and writes. We share and look for innovation wherever we can find it. We like using Google+, our internal project management systems and collaboration tools to push on new ideas, strategies and technologies.

We used to be able to depend on the status quo. That was in an analog world where things moved slow and dependably. The exciting part of the digital revolution is that change is continual and the unimaginative and entrenched are exposed continually. Many old stalwarts and industries are overturned quickly.

Security is not going to be in finding a right answer. It is going to lie in talent and acumen to how things change and applying them quickly.

Perhaps you are looking for ideas because the old is not working. What do you think?