These are the people in your neighborhood, remember that jingle from mr rogers?

Ok that may have been a little corny but really if you think about it, Search engine markeitng OR S.E.M is really quite about that, well in my mind it is.

I have a little bit of a different approach to marketing and blogging and search engine stuff than do most. I like to think of google or your favourite search engine as a community.

Sort of like walking down the street in your neighborhood and looking at all the store fronts and shops that are set up there.

Taking a trip down one block will show you one group of stores, websties and blogs and with a click of a mouse you’re on the next block.

Why not pop in and say hi, find out what theyre about make a friend or two along the way and see how you can best be of advantage to each other.

How this works is by typing into google the keyword phrase you’re trying to rank for and then start visiting, look for the contact link and bang off an email saying

“Hi Im new here just wanted to say you have a great site or a blog I’m in the same niche market as you and was wondering if or how we could help each other out.”

Or something along those lines, you might be surprised what will come of it.

These websites are run by people, you flesh and blood creatures with lives and families and what not. And somewhere along the line theyre gonna run into hurdle that you may have a solution for.

So take a look at you can provide to someone in your niche, maybe you know a little about SEO, or how to do something in HTML, maybe youre a programmer or a graphic artist. Or any number of many other skill sets.

Approach someone and say hey man I see you do blah, your blah looks good, in exchange for a link or a banner or what ever I’ll help you with that blah and make it a better blah.

Too often I read on blogs about competitve it is and this blog or that one is your competitor and you should crush the competition.

WTF!!!

First competition implies that there is a scarcity of something and there isn’t enough to go around. We’re not a bunch of wild animals living in the bush fighting over the carcass of a dead deer or something.

Depeding on what figures you read there was 26 billion spent online in the first 6 months of 2008, still thinkthere is a scarcity or not enough money to go around better think again.

image courtesy of http://stjoechannel.com