As a lifestyle, entrepreneurialism
has always demanded the self-employed be prepared to wear many hats.
Business owners often perform executive, sales, managerial, productive
and janitorial tasks on daily basis, partly due to pride of ownership
and sense of excellence, and partly because technology allows them to.
While this gives owners a better sense of all aspects of their
businesses, it can also cloud their critical judgment and decision
making abilities.
I was once asked to review a new website for an online business. The
site took its owner several years to complete. He made it while working
two other jobs in order to fund the creation of his own business.
Building the website helped him focus on his dream, keeping the spirit
alive during those long years of saving money from double shift days
with nights and weekends spent on the business. Needless to say, the
site is massive. Unfortunately it’s also kinda clunky.
A good SEO is an honest SEO though sometimes one’s honesty is a bear
trap waiting to bite you. The site, though it was a labour of love, was
not ready for primetime and I had to tell him so. Knowing his business
back story didn’t help matters. I hoped he hadn’t quit his day job.
Needless to say, the experience left a mark on me. Unfortunately, it
was kinda clunky.
The person was a dedicated do-it-yourselfer. Naturally he defended
his work saying he had read articles by several SEO experts, including
my own and applied the ideas throughout the site. I responded that some
of what he had done was ok but overall there were so many unique issues
a simple review would not have been useful to him. Eventually, this
story came to a happier ending than it could have. He ended up redoing
large sections of his website based on suggestions he talked myself and
other SEOs into giving him. Thousands of other’s aren’t so lucky.
In a similar vein, yesterday while interviewing Neil Patel on
WebmasterRadio our conversation turned towards the need to hire social
media optimizers to keep up with the ever expanding social networking
space. I found myself wondering how a self employed business person,
who also doubles as their own chief bottle washer, makes informed
decisions about where to spend a relatively small marketing budget,
especially if they are just starting their online business.
Recalling my experience with the emerging entrepreneur and his
five-year old dream of building a supply business online, I often
wonder how business people new to the web make critical decisions in
the first place.
Why an online business? Who told them an online business was a good
idea in the first place? Where do they get their initial information
from? Are local business centers adequately prepared to help set up
online businesses? How complete or up to date are their sources? Are
there secondary advisors or professional mentors helping them make
sense of the information available to them on and off-line? Is it an
SEO’s responsibility to act as online business coach if the business
clearly needs it?
The advantages of using the Internet as a means of communication are
obvious. The ways the Internet has changed entrepreneurs and their
decision making processes is somewhat more subtle. I’m not sure I’ll
ever fully understand that.
For the past fifteen years, the Internet has provided unprecedented
opportunities for individuals to create and manage their own
businesses. Many online businesses have been created by people who, in
most cases, would otherwise not have found a way to satisfy their
dreams of self employment. My first attempts at entrepreneurialism
nearly two decades ago were both almost dead before they started due to
the enormous entry costs associated with opening a brick-and-mortar
business.
It is hardly surprising that fifteen years on, the Internet economy
is doing pretty well. What is surprising is that it has done so well
even as most of us participating in it have been making it up as we’ve
gone along. Along with unprecedented opportunities, the Internet has
brought us unprecedented situations.
Twenty years ago, nobody could have envisioned a better advertising
system than television. This year, more money is going to be invested
in online advertising than in will be spent on television ads. Though a
major chunk of incoming cash comes from Madison Avenue the bulk of the
“new” online money comes from the small to micro-business sector.
I hold a huge respect for small businesses and the people who run
them. It’s a tough and sometimes terrifying reality of long hours and
sleepless nights. It takes a lot of courage to start one’s own business
but more than courage, it takes a lot of knowledge. Making critical
decisions about something as detailed as the structure of an online
business is tough and, even for experienced webmasters it isn’t getting
easier. In most communities there are small business support systems
such as a Chamber of Commerce or non-profit community / business
development organizations. It would be good to know those organizations
were able to offer fundamental information to emerging online
entrepreneurs.
Jim Hedger has written a widely read search marketing column for over five years. Co-host of Webcology on WebmasterRadio.FM, Jim is a writer and SEO consultant with Metamend Search Engine Marketing in Victoria BC.
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