Over the past year and a half I have shifted my focus to a lot more SEO and online strategy. I know this may seem like it is late to the party, but this is the first time my digital strategy had to rely solely on online traffic to convert leads.

My businesses in the past had (and many still have) a strong in person presence. This meant that online was a medium used to capture the customers information and support the conversion, but not necessary. My storage company for people living all over the metropolitan Washington, DC area requires more of a focus more exclusively on online customer acquisition.

Toward that end, I have invested a lot of time speaking to website owners of all sizes, and wide variety of importance and reliance on digital strategy. When speaking with website owners who have been around for about 6 years or longer, there is a stressed importance on doing everything organically and slowly.

When I ask how they started the business, the answer is almost always some for of using a shorter term less organic approach than they recommend. I am fully aware of the updates that Google has implemented and as much of there effect as is generally known, but there is a hybrid approach that can be successful.

The interesting theme that I hear from successful people is, ‘I have success using a tactic, but I don’t recommend you taking the approach that I took.’ That is something I find interesting and have not 100% reconciled as I write this, but would appreciate comments and thoughts.