I hear it almost every day, someone asks me for input or advice on a decision they have already made and it usually goes something like this “Hey Jesse, hows it going today? I just paid Uber Guru SEO/SEM/Social Networking / Internet Marketing God / Licensed Plumber and Life Coach (insert any name here) $5197 to tell me how to “streamline” my online business, social networking profiles and or website and guess what?? They guarantee I will make $74,296.54 by 8:26PM next Tuesday, provided its does not fall on night when there is a full moon.

This type of practice pains me for a few reasons, one being the fact that I hate to see my friends being taken advantage of and the other that they gave that money to someone else when they could have just given it to me as a gift :-p Marketing is the same no matter what you are peddling and we can all learn a lot by looking back a few years and watching how a 5 year old understands things. Website optimization and content need to focus on a few simple items, there is no magic bullet (system or not) that will solve everything and make you an overnight success, if you provide an answer or solution to a need or want that your readers have, you will be successful. If you try to peddle garbage that noone wants and information that noone can use you will fail miserably with your readers and the search engines as well.

It’s really simple, and that 5 year old that we all were at one point in time understands it best. If there is a corner market with a sign in the window showing a picture of a big delicious cherry flavored sucker the 5 year old will likely want to go inside to get one, but no matter how glittery the store is or how much smoke and mirrors are put up, if there is no big delicious cherry flavored sucker in that store, the 5 year old will not be a happy camper. It really is that simple, if you advertise something you better be able to deliver it, no fancy complicated words, bogus testimonials or spam backlinks will make up for your site or your content sucking eggs.