How do you stand out from the competition? 

When you spend as much time as I do reading what the big guns of the Search Marketing world have to say on a daily basis, it can be a little daunting.  How are you going to make your mark?

What if you were Ringo back in the early days of the Beatles. He joins the party late as a last minute fill in.  No doubt a talented drummer, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney could fart in a microphone and it would be a hit. How is he going to get noticed?

So now you’re the Ringo of the SEO world. How are you going to make a name for yourself?  How are you as a new SEO going to get noticed among all this competition?

What makes you so different?  

You may not hear this very often, but as a kid I thought it was my name.  I was bully fodder.  I could either die from a terminal wedgie hanging from the school flag pole or get smart, fast and funny.  Smart and fast are good, but nobody can laugh and run at the same time.

Choose the right friends.  Learn from the leaders.  The best in the business are doing business right in front of you.  Research what they do, see if you can do it yourself and then try to improve on it.

Listen to those around you.  Observe why some business fails when one offering a similar product or service thrives.  I was in a restaurant that was informed they were offering a steak special.  When my dinner came I asked for steak sauce.  The waiter said they were out of steak sauce.  I looked across the parking lot at the grocery store and realized that the service could be improved upon.  Experiences in your life can help you recognize in this endeavor what will set you apart from the competition.

Do you hate link building?  You hate it because you suck at it.  Stop whining and get better.  The secret to link building is to compel others to link to you.  Pick a website that you want to link to yours.  Do something on your website, a review, a recommendation an acknowledgment of their greatness.  Let them know when you have finished and show them.  They will link to you because you make them look good.  

A few high value links will get a lot more power than hundreds of free directory links.

If you are running a  Pay Per Click campaign, make sure that the keywords you are paying for are actually relevant to the page they point to.  Mike Piper wrote a great post about this.  Make sure that every word you target lands on a page that is actually relevant so searchers who click through won’t just back off the page.  A quick example: searching for "flexible solar panel," I get a PPC ad for Chevron Energy Solutions.  But there is nothing obvious on the landing page relating to the product I want.

Life has taught me two things.  First, glue works better than tape on eyeglasses.  And second, if you want to be a leader you have to think outside the box.  Leaders get a better view.  You have experience different from everybody else.  Use what makes you different to make a name for yourself.  Go forth and be different.