Last fall, I attended the Oxford Social Media Convention 2009, where Technorati founder Dave Sifry proudly announced that SEO is snake oil, and that if anyone in the audience was approached by someone offering SEO, they should run. The audience chuckled and moved on. I think I must have been the only optimizer listening, because looking around me, no one was sneering at him like I was. I guess it’s to be expected, since aggregation doesn’t involve the same kind of strategic targeting that underlies search engine strategies. I regret not shouting obscenities at him across the auditorium and defending my craft, but I had kinda… well… snuck in to the convention as it is, and decided to keep my mouth shut. Shame. This will make me feel better.
Unfortunately, most people in the audience probably didn’t know all this, so Sifry managed to successfully land a jab at my industry with an unfortunate credibility and even more unfortunate misinformation. Hopefully I can help to change that impression, by first addressing why people might think that about SEO, then providing arguments for its clear value that even Dave Sifry can’t argue with.
I’d like to clarify that my work places me in a hybrid-role, a merged spot between social media and search engine optimization that finds balance between the two. They are not mutually exclusive, and work together quite nicely, in fact.
The Frauds
In every service there are charlatans. There are singing teachers who convince tuneless shriekers that they can improve, just as there are mechanics who break more than they fix. SEO is still relatively new, relatively unknown, and relatively expensive. These circumstances make it a nice breeding ground for snakery, but they hardly damn the actual process and work when it’s done right. The buyer must beware, of course, but the market is far from an intraversable minefield. I wrote an article on how to know if your SEO company knows what they’re talking about, that can hopefully help root out the unfortunate underbelly.
The Google Ethics
There are searches every month for “ethical search engine optimization”. This has nothing to do with anything humanitarian, philanthropic, or criminal, but with an adherence to guidelines as defined by Google, guidelines designed with their own business model in mind. This has had a polarizing effect, and has brought a special kind of morality into the industry perception. All marketing is laced with marketing dubiousness, of course, but “ethical SEO” has taken things a step further, sullying overall impressions with thoughts of “unethical practices” that site owners might now think they have to worry about.
Even if a case was made for Google-defined SEO ethics to be reasonable, this shouldn’t take away from what Google considers ethical. My impression is that the distinction isn’t always understood clearly by the public, and so perceptions of the craft have been unjustly poisoned.
Undisputable SEO
There are numerous basic search engine optimization strategies that an optimizer can help with, and to dismiss them in dismissing the industry on the whole is straight up foolhardy.
Sifry tied off his point about SEO by basically saying that all you really need to do is create great content, and the rest will happen naturally. This oversimplifies not only SEO on the whole, but even the content creation aspect of SEO.
So, you want to create content. What should you create? SEOs can research topics using keywords that are highly searched, for which there is current insufficient content ranking in Google already, or for content which produces more revenue in programs like Google AdSense, if you swing that way. All else being equal, why wouldn’t you consider aspects like these? They can have a large effect on your traffic numbers, and in no way compromise the integrity of your site. Search engine optimization helps to guide and add strategy to your content creation.
Also, are you sure Google can even read and index your content? Many well-wishing site owners are unaware of important on-page optimization criteria for which Google encourages optimization. Things like page titles, meta descriptions, and proper use of headings are easy to overlook and worthwhile to fix, making it clear to search engines what your content is about. Robots.txt files can unwittingly de-index your whole site, if you’re not careful. Not to fear-monger, but there is just a lot of optimization work that doesn’t just appear naturally, and can actually significantly impact search traffic on your site.
I can go on with more super clean tactics that just make sense (having crawlable URLs, being strategic about keywords when someone’s offering to link to you, using a proper SEO oriented 404 page, and heck, extremely keyword-oriented pay-per-click advertising), but you get the idea. Google has a system, and not every site on the internet is equally fit to succeed within that system. SEOs are facilitators. If you think there’s any value in anything to do with Google at all, optimizers are useful.
A Rejection of Search Engine Traffic
So, the only other area in which someone could conceivably attack SEO is whether there is significant return to be gained from the effort. Far more than other online marketing strategies (and perennially in social media), SEO gives extremely measurable return, and has an accessible set of useful metrics.
Anyone who has really gotten their feet wet with e-commerce knows that purchasers like using Google, and that a searcher’s intent can very easily lead to sales. It’s some of the most qualified traffic out there, and there’s a lot of it across the world’s niches. Being aware of this fact and responding to it can be extremely rewarding, as many of the world’s most successful online entrepreneurs have learned.
This doesn’t have to work against “conversation” style social media sales and successes, and in fact is a nice lead in. Not only does the qualified traffic help build the community, but even presence on social media sites can be improved with search engine optimization strategies.
The Future of SEO Perceptions
As the general public becomes more aware of the SEO and its value, I can only expect that perceptions will shift to somewhere nice and trusting. There are good people out there doing good SEO work, and buyers made too wary will be missing out.
- Top Social Media Strategies session at HostingCon
- Blended Search Optimization: Managing the Reputation of Your Brand
- Universal & Blended Search Opportunities at SMX Toronto
- Guide to Search Engine Marketing Acronyms
- How to Be a Good SEO Client
Posted by Etienne Denis said on 02.02.10 @ 1:41 pm :
Did he explain why he said “if anyone in the audience was approached by someone offering SEO, they should run”?
Posted by Simon Abramovitch said on 02.02.10 @ 1:54 pm :
Not really, from what I remember, no. Communicated a lot through tone, without much backup. I can’t really imagine what he could say to support his statement.
Posted by oggy said on 02.02.10 @ 2:08 pm :
Technorati is technically a Blog Search engine. If you look at their “How to Claim your Blog” section: http://technorati.com/blog-claiming-faq/ it encourages the use of Robots.txt which like you mention is “SEO.”
When your site publishes articles dated from 2009 saying that “Article submission is the best SEO tactic” : http://technorati.com/blogging/article/article-submission-as-seo-technique/ You suddenly realize that Technorati just doesn’t get SEO in the first place.
I’m glad you’re calling him out on his rubbish
Posted by David Sifry said on 02.02.10 @ 3:01 pm :
Thanks for setting me up as a strawman, it’s a lot of fun.
The point that I was making back at Oxford is that there’s a lot of people out there running around claiming to be SEO experts and that they will magically get you better rankings with Google. I’ve been to the conventions and I read the blogs, and boy, there are a lot of those self-promoters out there. And having seen the kinds of techniques and practices that a lot of these SEO “experts” use (link farms, networks, content farming, etc), most of it is designed to try to get you something for nothing, and usually by gaming the search engines ranking algorithms. This is doomed to fail, not only because it is dodgy practice, but because often once you get big enough to get the notice of the engine quality teams, you will get slammed down or put in a penalty box, and there go your great rankings. Oh, and by that time, your check has been cashed and the “SEO expert” is on to his next set of marks/victims/clients.
Now that’s not to say that you can’t optimize your site for getting good search engine placement! The reality is, though, that it isn’t really rocket science. For example, having valid HTML on your page is very simple advice, and it will definitely lead to you getting your information indexed better. Setting up a very simple /robots.txt file and setting up sitemaps are also very simple ways that people can get improved indexing - but that’s no guarantee of top placement! Making sure that you write interesting and original information is another way to get great natural rankings in search engines. But that’s hard to charge for! That requires a lot of hard work and systemic thinking of how your business makes the web a part of its overall strategies, how to utilize user-generated content, attract links, and build community that goes a lot deeper than what is commonly called “SEO”.
If what you’re doing is helping businesses and individuals think strategically about the web, understanding how those systemic changes (along with a bit of technical skill on things like robots.txt, etc) bring about a shift in search engine rankings because you’ve figured out a way to create great information, engage your users, and get them to link to you and talk about you, then you’re really providing value to a business. And if you want to call that SEO, then I’m fine with it, and go with my blessings and apologies!
My biggest concern is that most people aren’t being given the advice on how to do the the hard work - and instead are being approached by quick-fix artists who promise the world, but end up leaving the poor business owner high and dry when those short-term techniques bounce back and hurt them.
Dave
Posted by Simon Abramovitch said on 02.02.10 @ 8:28 pm :
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the reply. I wish you had elaborated in this way at the convention. Given what you actually said when you spoke, I really don’t think my criticism reaches straw man status.
Setting that aside for the moment, I find your explanation of what is considered SEO very interesting, and I think I understand where you’re coming from.
First, from my perspective, anything that improves rankings is SEO, and I don’t think I’m wrong, on a very literal level. If most people that call themselves SEOs don’t do the wide range of tactics that do help rankings, that doesn’t mean those tactics aren’t SEO; it just means a lot of people don’t know how to actually optimize, in the true sense of the term.
For any good SEO, content is an extremely important area of focus, and producing engaging, quality writing can help tremendously. It’s sometimes not easy for an SEO to charge for directly, sure, but a good SEO will at minimum point out the issue, and the client can then hire a writer (much cheaper than SEO!) if they need to, possibly freelance. And still, as I say in the article, even if the SEO isn’t writing the content themselves or even subcontracting, there is still work to be done in helping choose how much to write, what to write (largely to do with keyword considerations), and how place it on the site. What to do is not always obvious, and a fair amount of creativity and site structure awareness is involved, and makes a difference.
I also think you underrate the technical side of SEO, and I do take some responsibility there in how I presented and glossed over the issue in the article. You’re right that making sure your Robots.txt file doesn’t unintentionally de-index your site isn’t rocket science. But knowing when and exactly how to implement more complex affairs like URL rewrites, redirections, canonical link elements, and other changes can benefit from experience, insight, and skill. Some sites don’t need that kind of depth, but a lot do. This is especially the case on e-commerce sites that are, for the most part, plagued with duplicate content/canonical URL issues that can severely affect indexation and rankings. Most e-commerce sites I’ve come across tend to need a lot of work, and end up faring much better once it’s done.
I think we both hate the SEO fakes, even if for slightly different reasons. No one likes to see someone left high and dry after empty, outdated, quick-fix tactics, but on top of that it makes my industry (and me personally) look bad.
My main point here is that I think there is a range of quality of service offered from SEOs, and I think there’s a lot more involved in good SEO (that I think really counts as SEO) that I hope you will give credit for in the future. By all means, warn about the dangers of weak work - I tried to in that article about knowing if your SEO company is BS - but please couple those warnings with assurances that there are good optimizers out there who can and do help people, even if you are convinced that most can’t and don’t.
-Simon
Posted by jdblue said on 02.02.10 @ 10:04 pm :
Thanks for this blog, it’s so interesting..
Posted by Richeale said on 02.02.10 @ 10:42 pm :
Nice Article,thanks for posting..
Posted by Ke said on 03.02.10 @ 10:04 am :
Here Here! Great post Simon.
Posted by Gerald Weber said on 03.02.10 @ 6:55 pm :
Good call out. It especially annoys me to hear people that have no understanding of SEO in the first place make “SEO snake oil” references.
Posted by Gerald Weber said on 03.02.10 @ 7:04 pm :
@David Sifry,
I’m still hearing an general tone of “All SEO’s are using black hat or tactics against Google’s quality guidelines.
This is a terrible over generalization to assume that every SEO is black hat.
It is possible to ethically improve search rankings. You are be over judgmental about an entire industry.
Not all police are corrupt, not all lawyers are crooks, and not all SEO’s are selling snake oil.
Posted by seofanatic said on 03.02.10 @ 10:19 pm :
“Now that’s not to say that you can’t optimize your site for getting good search engine placement! The reality is, though, that it isn’t really rocket science.”
- it may not be rocket science but the fact is most website owners don’t have the time or the knowledge to do this effectively on their own
“having valid HTML on your page is very simple advice, and it will definitely lead to you getting your information indexed better”
- I have yet to see any actual evidence that valid html code makes any difference in getting indexed faster or ranked better
“Making sure that you write interesting and original information is another way to get great natural rankings in search engines. But that’s hard to charge for!”
- uh… it’s actually really easy to charge for because most people don’t know what content to write, don’t know how to research keywords and simply just don’t know where to begin… since this is an integral part of any SEO campaign I would say that it’s one of the easiest things to charge for when it comes to SEO. Content makes your job as an SEO more tangible and transparent to the client.
“If what you’re doing is helping businesses and individuals think strategically about the web, understanding how those systemic changes (along with a bit of technical skill on things like robots.txt, etc) bring about a shift in search engine rankings because you’ve figured out a way to create great information, engage your users, and get them to link to you and talk about you, then you’re really providing value to a business.”
- I totally agree, but again, most business owners simply don’t have the time, patience or skill to follow all of this advice or put it into action… which is why they hire an SEO company in the first place
Posted by Australia SEO Consultant said on 07.02.10 @ 11:09 am :
I can’t understand why some people compared SEO with snake oil seller? That reminds me of Fox’s list of top marketing jobs that will leave you friendless where SEO is in the top 10 list
http://searchenginesemseo.net/story.php?title=top-online-marketing-jobs-to-leave-you-friendless
Posted by seo packages said on 17.02.10 @ 4:41 am :
Properly optimizing your pages to make them “search engine friendly” can greatly increase your search engine rankings, traffic levels, and potential earnings from your website.