What motivates you?

[jcolman]

Ross asks and answers this question on his blog.  He points to progress -- or perceived progress -- as being particularly important.  This made me think about my own motivations and what gets me excited to "do SEO" each day:

• I don't really "do SEO" all day long.  Part of my day is spent as an analyst, another part as a creative consultant and code reviewer, still another part as a business case developer, yet another part as a researcher and forecaster, and another part as a technical writer.  Wearing many different hats -- as most SEOs do -- helps to keep things moving.  Invariably I can find tasks within each of these disciplines that are fun or exciting.
• Results -- even when they're not what I want them to be.  I love that you can launch an SEO campaign or make some optimization and then start digging into the data almost immediately.  We're blessed in this industry with a sort of instant gratification for our efforts (as compared to, say, off-line publishing or -- god help us -- politics) that we probably take for granted.
• Emerging tools, tactics, and trends.  I can confidently say that search marketing evolves every day.  So there's always new ideas and strategies to explore.
• My colleagues -- they're the best and they rock.
• You: I learn from experts in the field all the time.

But enough about me.  What gets you going when it comes to SEO?

[scanlin]

1. Free traffic. Company on a shoestring that can't afford to buy traffic with PPC (my particular keywords are $5 or more per click). Have lots of time, though. So can learn and implement correct and good SEO.

2. Almost immediate gratification of seeing higher rankings in SERPs followed by higher number of visitors/day. Direct correlation between my efforts and results.

3. Satisfaction from beating the other players (people competing to rank for the same phrases I'm targeting). It's almost game like, and Google keeps score with rankings.

[moldybacon]

1. Free Traffic.

2. When it's done right, it lasts!

3. Free money, with a bit of work

[KBolsinger]

Seeing the great links roll in, watching our pages crawl up the serp's, and finding a creative way to get my sh*z done with the limited resources I always seem to have

[Guest]

This post is deleted!