Is Search Marketing Infinite?

Everyone remembers Buzz Lightyear’s famous quote, ‘to infinity and beyond’. I believe this manly-chinned space ranger may have summarised the exact nature of SEO – we continue, and continue, and continue, and push the boundaries so it seems like ‘infinity and beyond‘. I also like to believe that many of us search marketers are heroic space faring people!

And I also believe that to be a proficient search marketer, it’s necessary to grasp the concept of ‘foreverness’: once you start, you’re forever locked in a battle of you, Google’s astonishingly secretive algorithm and your competitors: akin to a never-ending ‘search threesome’. And yes, this applies to the big boys as well.

Now, I’m not talking about the smaller picture i.e. search marketing being divided into little tasks involving link building, content writing, guest blogging, coding and the usual hubbub of SEO. This will provide short-term gains such as getting to ‘numero uno’ for a specific search term. I’m talking about the bigger picture. Once you’re locked in, you’re locked in for good.

Let’s take a look at a different kind of job: off the top of my head, a car engineer. With this job there’s a clear beginning, middle and end: you get the job, you fix the car, you hand it over to the owner and grab your money. THE END. With SEO, there’re only ever two parts: a beginning and a continuum. You get the job, you dominate the market, and you maintain your presence. Let slip and your dominance will slip.

Perhaps it’s just that. I like to view SEO as a vast ocean (that can be tamed!) of swirls and eddies, sometimes rough and sometimes calm.

How do you see search and what’s your metaphor to describe it?