Ask the SEO Guru

I've mentioned before how I find it strange that I get more questions by email than by comments on the Ask the SEO Guru blog but at the end of the day, I'm just glad to be getting asked anything by anybody from anywhere.

I recommend that you never be afraid to ask anything from anyone if you're sincere. Most people are flattered that you respect them enough to ask their advice or opinion and if you've read anything from the Guru's blog you already know how I feel about flattery.

When asking for something you want from someone else, always appeal to their own self-interest and never to their mercy or gratitude.

Well, today I got an email from someone who was sincere and the Guru was flattered that he had a question he thought I could help with. After replying and answering his question it occured to me that there are probably a lot of other people who may have the same type of question. And it is the kind of question that you would have a difficult time finding answers for in a search so I think it's important that someone post this kind of info.

It doesn't have to be very good to be the best when  you're the only one. THAT is the secret behind the value proposition of unique content.

So today I'm going to post the email exchange in the hopes that it helps more than just the person asking me specifically. I'll remove names to protect the guilty. The Guru's responses are in bold.

{note: The reference to The Google Story comes from this blog post http://massa.techndu.com/2008/03/17/TheGoogleStory.aspx}

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I've enjoyed reading The Google Story - it was a real good recommendation. Are there others that you would recommend that might help to understand the industry and help me to get better at this stuff?

The Cluetrain Manifesto --- by 4 guys I don't remember their names right now
Don't Make Me Think -- by Steve Krug
The Purple Cow ---- by Seth godin
The Tipping Point ---- by Malcolm Gladwell
The Long Tail --by Chris Anderson
Marketing Warfare by Jack Trout and Al Ries

Also Guru, I was wondering if you had any recommendations with regard to how to start a SEO business... I've considered starting a big PPC push with little campaign on AdCenter, Yahoo, and AdWords to try to get a few leads and hopefully develop a couple decent sized PPC clients - I figure if I can get a couple good PPC clients then in time I can upsell them to SEO services. Hell, maybe I should be trying to sell them SEO first... I dunno. I sure know that if I can get a couple of decent clients then it could mean some more work for you guys too.

I can tell you how I did it in 5 easy steps! (except for the RSS stuff. they didn't have that stuff when I started out. in fact when I started out we had to walk to the library to use a computer and it was uphill all the way. BOTH WAYS!)