I’ve spent a couple minutes today playing around on some forums and I’ve found that there are two types of SEO’s.

There are the ones that call themselves experts because they’ve read every single patent, email, article and have hung out at or spoken at SEO conferences. These people have studied the search engine papers and understand how they feel the search engines should work. They have their understanding of what is to come and spend a lot of time on forums and blogs debating how they feel the future will play out.

They are good to have around because they keep the rest of us from having to do what they are doing. However the more I’ve gotten to know these people the more I’ve learned that most of them get their clients from the forums or conferences. They rank their sites for obscured terms and point, yell and jump up and down at their rankings.

Then there is the other group. The doers. They’re not much interested in doing SEO work on your site because they’ve already built their own site that is ranked in the search engines and bringing in affiliate money. They’ve got sites making them $50 to $100.00 per day. No client to deal with, no deadlines to meet, no employees to hire and no phones to answer. They hang out on the forums and blogs but are not seen as the experts. They have their network of sites that they would rather not talk about.

I’ve spent the last couple hours thinking about where I want to be at the end of this year. Last year was a tough year for me as the business grew faster than I was able to keep up with. This has caused me to have to regroup and rethink my next moves.

1. Customer service has to be at the front. There is nothing I’ll ever do with my business that will be more important than customer service.

2. Never ever stop. There are times when I want to through my hands up and walk away; those are the times I need to work my hardest.

3. Never lose my cool. No matter what the problem always remember that no one is getting out alive. It’s all just a game.

4. Simple is always better.

5. Plan, strategize, and organize before making any moves.

6. Answer every email in person; never try to automate an opportunity to communicate.

7. Never try to sell anything, just be a friend.

8. Target a market and go after it, do not try and conquer the whole internet.

9. Always remember that internet marketing is nothing more than common sense and persistence will always win.

10. Never play for the money; it’s all about the business.

11. Track everything

12. Work at making my website stupid proof.

13. Network more.

14. Start an affiliate program.

15. Write a contract for every job.