For this week’s “What would ____ do if they were an SEO?” our SEO company is taking it back.  Way back, in fact, to 17th century Britain where three hundred and seventy-six years ago, renowned philosopher John Locke was born.

Our SEO company has come up with a few simple rules of online marketing; essentially, they are the ten commandments of search engine optimization.  Here they are without further ado:

There is one key question that everything SEO or online marketing consultant must ask themselves. That question is “are you an SEO tortoise or an SEO hare?”

Reputation management is one of the major buzzwords in the online marketing community these days - it seems that you can’t visit an SEO blog without coming across posts entitled “The Importance of Reputation Management” or “Top Ten Reputation Management Techniques” or similar. Our SEO company has even written about managing your reputation online on more than one occasion.

Our SEO company has learned that there is only element that is absolutely critical for a successful search engine optimization or online marketing campaign - and it is probably one of the aspects that many SEO consultants and their clients are most likely to overlook.

Blogging and participating in social media are two of the biggest marketing trends at the moment; in fact, most online marketing and search engine optimization gurus are essentially saying “come on in to the blogosphere!  The water’s fine!”  However, creating a successful blog or social media presence is certainly something that is easier said than done.

If a search engine optimization or search engine marketing company tells you any of these things, it is time to show them the door - and find an SEO company that isn’t trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

There are lots of consultants claiming to be social media experts out there, promoting whatever the social service is the current flavor of the month.  As our SEO company has already pointed out, social media marketing is not just about creating profiles or submitting a few posts to digg, reddit, and the like - and as SEO ROI pointed out yesterday, it is important to realize that there is a difference between a social media platform and a community.

Stories about businesses that have experienced huge amounts of success marketing themselves with social media are all over the media lately; everywhere you look there is another profile of a company that used MySpace, Facebook, or YouTube for fun and profit.  Social media marketing and social media optimization are the latest buzzwords in the search engine optimization and internet marketing world.

Reputation management, search engine optimization, and internet marketing should all be PRO-active, not reactive. Unfortunately, many companies do not seek out SEO or reputation management consultants until it is too late - until after they’ve gotten bad press or numerous negative reviews already, and now they need an SEO company to step in and fix the situation.