ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS, I LEARNED FROM SEO.

• Author: Turner, Jared
• Position: SILICON SLOPES

The wildest ride of my life, no question, has been starting my own company. Nurturing this little seedling of an idea with my partners and then watching it grow into something bigger than we ever imagined has been like nothing else I've experienced.

I often contemplate how we did it--how we achieved so much success while steering around the pitfalls that sink many startups. There are plenty of great answers to this question (including a lot of luck). But if you ask me, the best one is that we learned everything we needed to know about business success in the daily grind of our work, performing SEO for our clients.

It's true. I can't think of another skill that does a better job than SEO of teaching the fundamental aspects of business success. As I like to say, "Everything you really need to know about business, you will learn from SEO." It's a lesson we at Boostability get every day and one I think people with even a passing understanding of search engine optimization can benefit from.

Here are just a few lessons SEO has taught me that have made me a better businessman:

1. FORGET THE BILLION-DOLLAR KEYWORD. YOUR FORTUNE IS IN LONG TAIL.

   One of the hardest things to explain to clients who are new to SEO is that the keyword they've spent long nights dreaming about--phrases like "best insurance agent" or "No. 1 dentist in Utah"--is beyond their reach. At least in the first few months of SEO, the work, time and money spent trying to rank for these kinds of broad, highly competitive keywords may as well be flushed down the drain.

   Real SEO success comes as you invest in optimizing for more specific "long-tail" keywords with lower traffic volume and less competition. In other words, instead of optimizing a web page around the keyword "best insurance agent," you'd be better off going with something like "$50-a-month life insurance in Weber County." Long-tail keywords like this may not drive millions of visits to your website but they will bring in people who are looking for exactly what you offer.

   The principle at the root of this tried-and-true SEO tactic is also the first piece of advice I give to entrepreneurs. Forget trying to rule an entire kingdom--the shoe industry, international travel, social media--whatever it is. Instead, focus on carving out just a few modest acres in your own specialized area.

   Of course, before you can own that specialized niche, you've got find it. As in SEO, this is the most important step. The best advice I've heard...