Yes.

You read that right.

I am confident that search engine marketing is a great career for gamers, and I want to tell you why.

Before the why though, let’s go over the how.

The affinity between search engine marketing practitioners and gamers stems from a similarity in the skill sets, mindsets and work preferences inherent in both activities.

While not every search engine marketer is a gamer, there is likely a genre of gaming that every search engine marketer could simultaneously excel at and enjoy.

The opposite applies as well. While not every gamer is a search engine marketer, I regularly suggest that gamers research the field when looking for a career.

This is because hundreds or thousands of hours of gameplay has likely ingrained analytical abilities and lines of thinking that are directly applicable to search engine marketing.

A common reaction to this assessment is disbelief, which often transitions into smirking or even audible scoffing. How can hours of playing games prepare anyone for a professional career? Well, let me provide some examples.

Gamers, feel free to skip the gaming application sections. You are likely already familiar with the systems and terminology, so just pay attention to the SEM application sections to find out how these concepts are applicable to SEM.

Min-Maxing

Gaming Application

Min-Maxing is a shorthand gaming term for simultaneously minimizing skills, abilities, or layouts that are non imperative to succeed and maximizing other skills, abilities, or layouts that have the greatest impact on success.

This strategy is often utilized in role playing games in which different classes of characters rely on different traits for success. As an example, a tank needs stamina, armor, and other defensive attributes to be successful at withstanding damage from enemies and protecting allies.

On the other hand, a mage needs intelligence, mana, and other offensive magical traits to be able to cast enough spells that deal sufficient enough damage to eliminate enemies before they overwhelm the tank.

If either of these classes do not min-max their attributes in the appropriate manner, not only will they fail as an individual, but the overall group will likely not be able to succeed as a result.

SEM Application

Min-maxing in the SEM world revolves around using previously attained data or testing new concepts to determine which tactics will contribute most to success, and then bolstering efforts in those areas to maximize results.

As an example, let’s say you want to utilize PPC advertising to drive new customers to your website. Luckily you have available data from Google Analytics and previous campaigns on Google Ads and Social platforms to determine how to min-max your efforts.

You know that 25 to 34 year old women living in major cities who are interested in yoga are your highest value customers and that the best way to reach those customers is through fitness related video ads on Facebook that drive traffic to a landing page specifically catered to that audience.

Instead of developing a series of campaigns geared toward general audiences across multiple advertising channels often utilized in traditional marketing strategies, by adhering to the min-max methodology you would know to focus solely on Facebook ads to your high value demographic until your budget is capped, your audience is capped, or the segment becomes less profitable.

If you don’t already have access to data about your most profitable customer segments and advertising channels like the example above, you can implement the same strategy at a slightly higher cost by developing segmented campaigns for each medium and continuously cutting your least profitable efforts while iterating on your most profitable efforts to reach the same conclusion.

Competitive Advantage

Gaming Application

Having the ability to analyze the rules of a game and find alternate win conditions can lead to dominate strategies that are often referred to as “breaking the game”.

One famous example of this strategy is Tim Ferris, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, winning a gold medal in 1999 at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championships.

Tim could not compete in a strait kick boxing match with fighters that had trained their entire lives, but he found an alternate win condition in the rule book. If a fighter fell off the elevated platform three times in a single round, their opponent won by default.

Tim used dehydration techniques to meet the weigh in requirements and then immediately hydrated back to a weight well above his opponents, which allowed him to use a weight advantage to push his opponents out of the ring each round.

This approach of shifting the focus to an alternate win condition that is easier to execute for the person implementing the strategy has been demonstrated in a wide spectrum of games ranging from Magic the gathering to StarCraft and can be used in marketing applications to great success.

SEM Application

The strategy of choosing to compete in only the areas for which you hold a competitive advantage is a cornerstone of successful search engine marketing.

Imagine trying to build a brand that competes in an established industry against companies with multi million or billion dollar yearly revenue. How would you position your brand to allow for meaningful SEO efforts to drive traffic to your website?

One option would be to pick a segment of the market that is under served by the industry leaders and cater your brand to that demographic. If your chosen demographic cares about potentially dangerous ingredients, focus on how your ingredients are all natural. If your chosen demographic cares about quality, focus on how you use premium materials and an unparalleled manufacturing process.

As long as your competitors focus less on the differentiator you select than you do, or at least appear to because of a lack of readily available information and/or advertising, you have the potential to out maneuver them within that segment and become a leader within that niche.

By refusing to compete on factors like price, optional features, delivery time, or any other factors for which industry leaders would have a clear advantage and choosing instead to contest only in domains where you hold a clear competitive advantage, you can force larger brands to compete with you in areas outside of their expertise.

A Call To Gamers

If any of these examples resonate with you, I implore you to do further research into the search engine marketing and optimization fields because you may find a profession that is both fun and rewarding.

Additionally, if you know anyone with skills similar to these I encourage you to share this information with them for their personal and professional benefit, and so that I have the opportunity to interact with more gamers in the industry on a regular basis.