SEO mania is counter-productive

A life lesson that's not easy for an impatient person like me to learn is one that's ancient and powerful. Who realized it first, do you suppose? That simple maxim: moderation in all things.

Nothing could be more contrary to human nature. When we find something we like, we want more. When we figure out a system, we want to game it. When it looks like a shortcut, we want to take it.

Where we are rushing to, do you suppose? It seems that getting there first, faster, bigger is always admirable. Taking the moderate route seems downright anti-American, anti-business. Everywhere we're encouraged to push hard, to make things happen, to get ahead and then get ahead some more.

So it was interesting to me to read a forum discussion (private, so I won't cite it here) with the following gist: business owner goes to great expense and stress to optimize his search engine presence in a hurry, raising his rankings right to the top within a couple of weeks. It works just as it's supposed to, except after a day at the top, the ranking starts to fall. The business owner theorizes that overloading the search engines with content and links as he had, suddenly looked like spamming to the search engines, which quickly penalized him. The comments did not all agree with this explanation. Nonetheless, what a lovely case-in-point.

Inbound marketing isn't about billboards and bombardments. You can follow all the SEO rules to the letter and still bomb in the inbound marketing department if you don't act like a human being. Humans live cyclically, dawn to dark, work to play, young to old. Humans juggle many responsibilities and concerns, no matter what their station or role. Far more powerful than blasting at your customers is simply breathing with them.

Give them some space. Don't send three newsletters a week, no matter who you are. Don't expect to establish your social networking empire in a fortnight. That would be a contradiction in terms. Social networking is about the drip; the slow building of trust. It's gaming-proof, because it's centered on proving your value over time.

All things in moderation. Eating, sleeping, sitting, walking, talking, listening, working, relaxing, dreaming, doing ... and even your business marketing.

What do you think?