There’s something to be said for the softness and innocence of nomenclature surrounding these updates that leaves an aura of comfort around an earned visibility organization like Terakeet.

Why? Because these updates are not meant to wrack punitive damage to search marketers attempting to gain visibility for their clients the right way.

Terakeet understands the types of relationships our clients need to foster across the web and we seek out the people we need to speak with to build those. We understand the types of content that inspire people to mobilize, to share, to act, to be inspired, and we work to create that engagement. We research and cultivate the types of citations that reinforce the authority of the brands we work with and we inject our client’s core competencies into those resources.

People had been whispering about an impending crackdown on steroids in baseball since the late 1990s. In 2005, after much wrangling with the player’s union, anonymous testing, and public outcry, Major League Baseball instituted its first comprehensive testing program for performance enhancing drugs. Over the eight years since, people haven’t stopped hitting home runs, but they’ve become harder to hit for those who couldn’t pump stananzanol into their back-side. And like the juiced ball era in baseball, the “juiced link” era in search is over. Systemic controls built into the algorithm now allow for the true cream to rise to the top.

At Terakeet, we too have been listening to the whispers of search leaders for a decade. If you’re a progressive web marketer and have been listening to things Google has been saying for the past decade, these updates should neither surprise us or disrupt us from amplifying the things that make us and our clients great. This isn’t modern search engine optimization. It’s modern marketing. The confluence of the two is now just algorithmically blurred by Google and other search engines.

Since the Panda and Penguin pendulums had begun swinging in early 2011, not one of Terakeet’s clients has been negatively impacted by an algorithmic change.

None. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

While we certainly monitor this type of change, as we’re likely to benefit from the devaluation of some of our less prescient competitors, we do not fear and will never fear, the furry or the feathery.

Military campaigns are often named things like ‘Operation Sparrowhawk Strike’ or ‘Furious Lion.’ When Google starts naming their updates like that, then I’m going to be scared. But it’s clear right now that different than military campaigns, this isn’t a war on search engine optimization or marketing, it’s a battle for quality and search marketers need to embody quality rather than try to exist alongside it.

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We are seeking an on-site or remote lead web designer with 5+ years of professional and front-end web design experience. Candidates with a strong balance in his/her approach for media responsiveness, identify, audience emotion and behavior is preferred. Projects range from small micro-sites to expansive web properties communicating topically rich material to varying audiences.

Candidates for this position must have excellent written and oral communication skills and the ability to work in a varied, fast paced environment.

Ideal candidates will also possess the following skills:

• Able to work independently and efficiently to meet deadlines;
• Able to promptly answer support related email, phone calls and other communication;
• Self motivated, detail-oriented and organized;
• Team player willing to teach and learn;

Proficiencies should include (but are not limited to):

• Experienced with UI/UX design and usability across device mediums;
• A strong understanding of design software (Adobe Creative Suite, etc.);
• Comfort working quickly based on internal or client creative briefs;
• Collaborating with other members of the Terakeet team to visually achieve internal or client-specific goals and objectives;
• Contributing conceptual ideas and feedback during organizational and client-specific team meetings as needed;
• Facilitating the continued development of a work environment that stimulates personal growth and advancement across the organization;

Compensation and Benefits:

• Health Insurance
• 401k with Matching
• Parking Stipend
• Corporate Gym Membership
• Competitive Salary

For consideration, please submit:

• Your résumé;
• A commercial web project, including multiple conceptual revisions, you’ve worked on (highlight specific responsibilities for larger team-based efforts);

Please send your résumé, portfolio attachment, and any links to: jobs@terakeet.com

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But as long as we’re on the topic…Why is SEO so “expensive?”

I should preface my response by reminding everyone that, at Terakeet, our version of the craft is somewhat different than that of our predecessors and peers in the industry. So rather than speak for the industry as a whole, I’d like to discuss what I believe are the four best arguments for our own cost model.

1.) SEO is Never “Done”

Many in the industry claim to sell “sustainable” SEO. The idea of optimization itself, as it relates to search, is inherently unsustainable, because the definition of optimal website performance changes as frequently as the evolution of the search algorithm. Search engine rankings, strategies, and tactics may indeed be unwavering, but the only sustainable expectation between them and how they influence each other is change itself. And so, rather than a means to  an end, an investment in SEO represents an investment in strategy, adaptation, and agility beyond that of your competitors.

2.) Effective SEO isn’t Magic Beans, It’s Hard Work

Understanding SEO today is as much about overcoming stigma as it is knowing the practice itself. One of the more common conversations we have with prospective customers is one about the previous SEO consultants they’ve worked with, and the bad taste those vendor’s tactics left with them. Among those stigmas is the idea of the “quick-fix” or automation. Sustainable (here’s that word, again!) search engine optimization strategies are carried out by real people, not computers.

Providing SEO isn’t unlocking software or secrets, it’s providing human value as search engine algorithms require. Connecting with user intentions, reinforcing brand value, and providing great content is a war that requires soldiers, not drones.

3.) Opportunity Cost

The cost of not investing in SEO has never been higher. The organic search results represent among the last vestiges of objective consumer influence available to brands. Just as Angela was wise to bring to our attention, consumers have never relied more heavily on word-of-mouth than they do right now. With the way social media has been folded into organic search, the value of a seat at the table where decisions are made is only growing by the day. While people continue to pull down the blinds on traditional points of influence, organic search continues to represent a way for brands to reach people in their living rooms, in their cars, and on a park bench.

4.) Competition is a Relative Concept

SEO specialists speak a lot about competitors and how you can one-up them in strategies and tactics. It would be nice if evaluating the effectiveness of methods was that easy, but most of the time we’re left to make educated inferences as to why one site outranks another. There are too many factors at work at one time to assign causation between search engine ranking changes and SEO tactics at play. Understanding wins, losses, and draws as they relate to you and your competitors is not an exact science, because you’re often competing against non-actors. You may never be able to outrank a .gov or .edu site for your keyword through link curation alone (or any tactic for that matter), but you can reinforce the strength of your site’s content and user experience in such a way that you may be able to loosen that site’s stranglehold on traffic. Investment in SEO requires a cross-deployment of resources and human capital across different strategies and opportunities, rather than putting all of one’s eggs in one basket.

As seems to be the case with many things these days, you can seemingly pay as much or as little as you want for SEO services. So while we claim competition to be relative concept, perhaps what we perceive to be expensive is also relative- particularly when you take into account the demands of effective SEO consultants as we outlined above.

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