Why I don’t get SEO
Posted in Marketing on: Monday, March 22, 2010 by Paul Boag
I don’t get why people invest in SEO. I am not trying to start an argument. I just want to explain my doubts so somebody can correct me.
I like to think of myself as an intelligent guy. I have worked on the web since 1994 and like to stay informed. However, over that time I have never understood website owners’ obsession with SEO.
Many organisations invest vast sums of money in SEO companies that promise to improve their rankings. Although SEO can make a difference, I am far from convinced it is the best way to spend your marketing budget.
Below are five reasons why I have my doubts. My hope is that people can convince me I am wrong in the comments. We shall see.
A continual investment with no guarantees
The thing with SEO is that it is not a one-off cost like many believe. It is not just a matter of getting to be number one for your chosen keywords, its about staying there too. This involves an ongoing investment.
Also unlike pay-per-click (PPC) advertising there are no guarantees. There are SEO companies who guarantee you the top spot, but they are lying. You pay your SEO company in the hope they can improve your placement, but a good SEO company will not commit to how much.
It is a bit like buying a newspaper ad, but being given no guarantee as to what page it will appear on or how big the ad will be.
At least with PPC you know how much you will pay and what you get in return.
You’re manipulating the system
My second concern is that essentially SEO is about playing the system. Google exists to connect its users with the information they require. They have a sophisticated algorithm to do that. It is also an algorithm that is getting better all of the time.
SEO on the other hand is about creating as much exposure for your website as possible. They do this by guessing what the Google algorithm does and using that in your site’s favour.
The problem is that the algorithm is unknown to anybody other than Google and it changes all of the time.
To me it seems more sensible to work with Google’s known goal – to provide great content to its users, rather than trying to manipulate a system we do not fully understand.
Instead of spending money on SEO, spend it on producing better content that provides Google’s users with more value.
It can damage the user experience
I am not saying that SEO does not work. I am saying that it is not worth the cost. That cost is not just in terms of money spent on SEO. It is also in user experience.
I have worked with a number of SEO companies over the years (at the request of our clients) and it has always ended up damaging the user experience.
For example, SEO often leads to an excessive amount of copy, changes to the code order (that creates problems for screen readers) and keyword heavy navigation (which reduces scanability).
SEO may increase the level of traffic to your site. However, it often undermines the conversion rate.
It is a passive form of marketing
It is not just SEO I have a problem with, it is the emphasis on search engines.
Website owners seem obsessed with being ‘number one’ on Google. However, it is not a particularly effective method of marketing.
Search engines are passive because they require the searcher to have a pre-existing need for your product or service. On one hand this makes search more targeted because it only reaches people who are interested in your product. On the other, it does not allow you as a marketeer to create a need or raise the profile of a new brand or product.
When compared to social media or other forms of advertising, investing in SEO seems very passive.
It carries no weight
My final problem with SEO is that it lacks the weight of personal recommendation. By focusing on SEO you are merely shaping your site to cater for an algorithm. You are not making your website appeal to people.
Instead, I would invest in making your site better for users and encouraging them to recommend it through social networks and linking. This puts the weight of personal recommendation behind your site and we all know that word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising.
Conclusions
Let me say it one more time – I am not questioning whether SEO works. However, it is my belief there are better ways of spending your money.
I believe investing in your users brings a substantially better return. It increases conversion, encourages word of mouth recommendation and ultimately improves your ranking through links back to your site.
My recommendation to clients is that we build their websites to be accessible to search engines but tailored towards users not search engines.
The question is – am I wrong in that advice, and if so why? Enlighten me in the comments.
109 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
I think the biggest benefit is on competitor positioning in search results.
If people search for “I want an amazing web development company” you want to make sure you come up before your competitors :-) It doesnt matter if it’s on page 6 of google, as long as your competitors are on page 7 onwards.
Re: Andy,
Good point about being above your competitors, but Paul wasn’t saying that Search Engine Ranking wasn’t important, just the method of getting there.
Content is king.
seo is a combination of good work and luck…
Whilst I do get the idea of SEO, I pretty much agree with what you say. I always try and build sites so they are ‘SEF’ – or Search Engine Friendly. I.e. proper mark-up, decent headings, browser titles, and structure. Apart from that, I think decent content will do just a good a job, if not better, than an SEO chap can do.
Decent content will get you up the rankings automatically, and also enhance your users experience.
So, do the basics, and spend the rest on proper marketing.
‘SEO’ is marketing. It’s not all keyword stuffing and black hat trickery. That’s the image we have of the industry and after last weekend I’ve changed my opinion.
@Alex Ball: I really like that term: SEF! I think that’s a great way of looking at it. “My sites search-engine-friendly but user-optimized.”
Perhaps this is the way we should all be building sites.
I get what you both are saying. I look at this a different way. I always keep “Accessibility” in the forefront when im designing or coding. All the things your saying about markup and titles alt tags headings and just good clean code are all things everyone should be doing 100% of the time.
The cool thing is if you do this google likes you. and if your content is good and not just stuffed with keywords, google will like you even more.
I agree, working on clean markup, accessible content and keeping your copy accessible and topical, naturally gives you a good grounding for any SEM strategy.
Paul,
I’m with you here, not to be a suck-up or anything but I’ve never really understood the whole SEO thing. When I build a website I make sure my pages are titled appropriately and that the website has content that gives a strong understanding of what the client’s company does and where they are geographically based. This has produced fairly good results with hardly any effort and I’d never spend more time on it than that to be honest.
Dave
I agree with you that SEO is not worth the cost, however it doesn’t hurt to educate yourself and invest in your own personal SEO tweaks. Social media is a better option, but google rankings dont hurt either. Outsourcing SEO seems like it should be in a package deal not on its own. Just my thoughts…
I agree with your skepticism when it comes to the “technique”-driven SEO. Guaranteeing a position in the rankings for any useful keyword combination is utter bollocks.
Trying to game the system is a dangerous activity and doomed to be short-term (eg keyword stuffing hasn’t worked for a long time). However, following the general principles of organising your content into focused blocks (ie for blogs, each post should be on a single topic), getting titles right, naming pictures properly, using ALT tags sensibly – all of these things help both Google and the human readership.
The rule I follow is that if a particular SEO technique makes my posts/pages more accessible to real human beings then I’ll do it. Anything else is a waste of time or, worse, counterproductive.
Kev
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Completely agree with you. SEO is fine for getting you above your competitors, but if it ruins the user experience it’s not worth it.
You’re best off spending the money on a search engine friendly website to start with (valid code, proper heading usage, etc) and great content rather than force your way up the rankings for what might be irrelevant keywords. Then spend the money you would have spent on an SEO company into PPC or proper marketing!
I’m not an SEO expert but that’s probably why I agree with you, Paul.
In my eyes SEO is just a bunch of web-voodoo. I like that comparison because the thing about Voodoo is it’s only supposed to work if you believe it works. Sound familiar?
I don’t bother going SEO-heavy on my sites anymore. Instead I focus on making sites that are well-coded, accessible and full of useful content for my users. If the client wants more hits from search engines I recommend they start using AdSense or something similar.
Besides, the more I read about the changes Google is looking to implement (custom-tailored search results, personal rankings, ect.) it seems less and less like “traditional” SEO is going to make any difference at all. Because of this I’m focusing on things that are a bit more future-proof.
Google may fix the way it indexes so that SEO isn’t a big contributor but it’ll never penalize me for a good site with good content. If anything, that’s likely to make more of a difference in the future.
Up until a few weeks ago I’d have agreed with you wholeheartedly placing SEO experts somewhere between snake oil vendors and just plain fraudsters. But I was given the opportunity to speak at an SEO conference called ThinkVisibility (http://www.thinkvisibility.com/) last weekend and to be honest I was amazed at the quality of information I received from the day.
Yes, there are those who attempt to game the systems and those that spam but there are those who play fairly and get good results for people.
Good SEO is as much about writing the content that matters as it is about ‘getting it out there’. Crap content == crap seo. Good Content == good foundation for SEO.
I think the main thing I took from ThinkVisibility is that the SEO world like our Web design/development is unfortunately full of charlatans BUT like our industry there are a group of people who ‘do it right’ and add value. The ‘Number 1 on Google’ for £500 is the equivalent of our ‘my mate down the pub does websites for £150′.
There is some real talent out there and I believe SEO has a real value that perhaps ‘our’ side of the industry has ignored up until now.
Alun,
I totally agree – and I’m interested you changed your mind after Think Visibility.
I’m interested The Hodge asked you to speak at the conference.
I think people in web design often forget that plenty of people think of US as a bunch of cowboys too.
You have extremely valid points Paul and your advice is the best one that can be given out to clients. The main problem remains that clients want results now! This is what induces them in getting SEO services. On the basis of your points a lot of clients come round saying: “I don’t care about user experience, I want the ROI and make it such that I don’t have to act more than necessary. I’m paying you and it’s your job to make me get the money.” The perfect client who understands the various elements like UX, accessibility, standards and all is rare these days.
I think you’re spot on with this Paul. The basic SEO guidelines like Google’s ‘Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide’ should be more than enough SEO for anyone. Instead there’s industry that as you say, manipulates the system for huge cost and little return. Concentrating on pleasing and interacting with users is a far better use of budget with the social tools now available to us.
I agree with every word, however we should distinguish between SEO manipulation and making your site Search Engine-friendly.
Once you’ve made sure that search engines are able to access all of your content, your only concern should be to create the best content possible.
Faking it is a 20th century trend; it doesn’t hold up in a 21st century world. People have too many authentic options to choose from, why on earth would they choose your inauthentic one.
Hi Paul,
I’m not going to convince you but SEO, if done right, is an integrated part of Online Marketing, including user experience. But there’re many snake-oil salespearsons selling this stuff and making other people think that this is all about toolbar Page Rank or top ranking.
Hope this helps.
Alex
I believe the issue is that there are so many websites that were never constructed to be Search Engine Friendly that the need for an SEO consultant grows.
I see three key reasons why SEO is in demand.
1. Local companies identify with the need
–Because small local businesses (in my experience) build their websites on the cheap, the the likelyhood of their site being Search Engine Friendly is probably pretty low, and the chances of them making real money through their site is even lower.
Local business then hears about how SEO can make you more money, and alas they buy a consultant – who just does what they should of done through a good agency from the beginning.
2. SEO has an educated demand behind it
SEO is actually one of the few “trendy marketing terms” that most businesses small and large believe they are familar with. If I am a higher ranked on google, I will make more money. There are many, many, many, many, business owners (and website owners) who approach their website with a “Set-it-and-forget-it” attitude. It is alot easier to sell manipulation of the system then to sell them your site needs great content and will not have to worry about said manipulations.
3. SEO vs King Content
In this online world we all live in, this is the real battle. It will take much time for “King Content” to spread and educate its usefulness to business / website owners, primarily the ones who are investing in SEO right now. A paradigm shift is happening online and it is exciting to see the king invade the entrenched battlefields of (rich) high-performing SEO companies.
I believe there is an appreciable difference between “optimizing a site for search” and the SEO abbreviation. The former is about good copy, valid markup, etc. and the latter seems to be synonymous with snake oil sales and voodoo, as others have mentioned.
With more people turning to social networks for product and service recommendations, I think more marketing money should be placed into real-time customer service and great copy.
The basis of your article – SEO is not worth paying for – is spot on, very well hit points. I’m not an SEO expert, nor do I put too much thought into SEO in general. I (try to) code pages properly and generate content the audience I want is interested. And honestly, that has worked.
Being #1 on Google’s hit list isn’t really a priority of mine, but through luck (and probably some math), there have been numerous cases where even poor SEO got me on Google’s first page. It wasn’t about the SEO, it was about the interest in the article…and then the sharing of the article.
Investing in user engagement is a MUCH better way to get results. Whether that be social media, messages boards, apps…whatever…get involved with your audience and you’ll get what you want, regardless where you show up on Google.
For all the money places dump into SEO, they could probably hire one or two people who’s job it is to foster engagement and QA content, and they’d get more return.
What you describe as SEO in the above article seems to me to be the shady methods I’ve seen. SEO services really should be about consulting and should focus on improving the site experience as a part of the strategy.
As part of any good SEO project, you should improve keyword usage in your content – not litter it with keywords, but use them appropriately. Consider this: If you use keywords appropriately and in context with your text, then that will improve your ranking for those words not just on Google, but also with your own site search (which some people state is the #1 site navigation tool). Moreover, these are and should be the words people with have in mind when skimming the body of the text.
More parts of a real SEO strategy might include URL aliasing for readable URLs. Not only do search engines parse these URLs more effectively, but it can also provide context information to the visitor. When I’m looking at a blog post, I sometimes will check the URL for a date if it’s not posted on the site.
Finally, I’ve seen many, many sites not use page titles correctly. Either it only has the company name or it only has the page name. For improved SE rankings, it’s typically recommended to use both the page name and the company name in the title, and in that order. This is obviously a user issue as well. Tell the user which company site and which content they are viewing.
I agree with most of what you had to say about the practices you described above. But these seemingly simple changes that I mentioned can have a profound effect on your ranking, traffic, and most importantly, conversions.
eG
I think that if you replace the title of the post with something like “I don’t get black-hat/shady SEO”, I would whole heartedly agree. As it stands now however, it seems like you don’t get why SEO is relevant because you get what SEO is (or can be).
One common, and perhaps the most effective, search engine optimisation is to provide a title-tag describing the content of the page. I’m sure you do this all the time, and also recommend it to all your clients :) I’m also fairly sure you quite often run across web sites that use the same title tag for all their pages.
And do not think you’re manipulating the system by helping Google understand what your web site is all about. And to be honest, 90% (ish) of the most effective SEO-techniques are all about helping Google better understand your web site.
Thus, creating a CMS with pretty urls and custom title tags is a one time investment with long term benefits.
It can damage the user experience, sure, but what can’t? If your obsession with accessibilty leads to only black text on white background with 18px font-size and no images, you’re also damaging the user experience. As before, the 90% will have no negative impact on the user experience, and will most likely be a benefit (by making the content of the site clear and obvious).
Being #1 on Google may not be an effective form of marketing (although I find this claim a bit far fetched), but it most certainly is an effective way of getting traffic. Isn’t almost all marketing about reaching out to someone with an existing need? When creating needs, you obivously need something else.
SEO carries a lot of weight in my opinion. People tend to trust to Google, so whoever Google has decided to put on top, people will go to. Sure, it’s not the same as a recommendation from a good friend, but it is far from worthless.
So to sum up, bad SEO is bad, good SEO is good.
I’m far from an SEO expert but I think you point out a valuable reason as to why companies buy into it: most companies don’t understand how important their content is unless pitched from an SEO perspective. They’d much rather invest in marketing, via SEO, which should in turn improve their content (if the SEO is worth their salt).
Also, if the SEO is worth their salt, they’d never recommend a page like the one you’ve highlighted in your user experience example. Five or six years ago, sure, but today that type of keyword stuffing is frowned upon. As you said, the algorithm changes frequently, and good SEOs are aware of that.
Your concluding remark, “build websites to be accessible to search engines but tailored towards users” is pretty much spot on.
Your use of “invest in SEO” seems to imply a financial transaction with an outside consultant? I think that “invest in SEO” in the sense of “understand how the content on your own website interacts with other significant components on the web like search engines (i.e. Google!)” is still a valuable and useful investment (though it may require time rather than money).
Very valid points, it seems to me that SEO and WebDesign work hand in hand. The better the designer the less SEO Magic he talks and vise versa.
A solid reputable Web Designer has an equilibrium of UX and basic SEO friendly website,
One more thing you should mention. Is that people look at SEO as FREE traffic when in fact they are paying someone to achieve it, perhaps it would be more productive to pay for adwords,
Hi Paul,
Now there’s a post which will get lots of responses!
Here’s mine :-)
http://www.scotiasystems.com/blog/seo/my-response-to-paul-boags-why-i-dont-get-seo/
Let me reply to all those points, it’s gonna be a long answer
A continual investment with no guarantees
Yes it’s a fact, no serious SEO companies or consultants will commit for guaranted results except if they are part of a bonus or something. We are all dependants of the algorithm and this is something that is beyong our control as the weather for a fishing charter. Also, if i don’t control 100% of the conversion funnel, there is no way i’m gonna commits to a certain amount of conversions. And yes SEO works way better with a continual investment. But this is the same for all form of marketing.
You’re manipulating the system
This is the biggest myth about SEO, good SEOs are not manipulating the system, they are using their knowledge of it to improves accessibilty, crawlability and choosing the right keywords for the right business. If you’re putting a website that don’t deserve it on top ranking for an unrealted keyword, it’s not gonna convert anyway so this is not what good SEO is about. You’ve to push great content if you want your SEO strategy to work. There is no amount of SEO that will save mediocre content on competitive terms.
It can damage the user experience
This one is absolutly false. You don’t know what help conversion and what is not affecting it except if you test it. A/B and multi-variates testing have to be part of a good SEO strategy. There is no point to get large amount of trafic from search engines if you cannot convert it properly. And if your text are too much keywords heavy, you’re not doing a proper SEO job. On-site factors for SEO are not a big part of the equation (at the exception of the Title Tag).
It is a passive form of marketing
Except the mail traffic (from newsletters) and direct/branded trafic, search engine trafic is the best converting one. Search Engine convert well because you solve a problem or answer an question the searcher has. Social Media are an awesome way to market a new product. But the fact is, the volume and quality still on the search engine trafic because most of the social media are not a way to sales stuff (try to convert Digg trafic for fun). When doing SEO, you usually go after the “prospect” market, people who don’t know your company but are looking for your products or services. After, it’s to convert them into customer and be sure that they have an awesome experience buying your produts/using your services. This is not the SEO fault if the company is offering a medium service, all the company have to push in the same direction to make their customers experience a thing they will remember for the good reasons.
It carries no weight
Improving word of mouth throught social networks and linking IS exactly what a part of SEO is. Your website have to appeal to people and convert well, SEO and conversion rates and not exclusive to each other, you can do a really good SEO job on a site that convert like crazy. But the cold fact is that even if you have the best converting website in the world, you’re not gonna make a lot of money if you don’t have a load of visitors from the search engines. The build and they will comes approach DOESN’T work really well, all the process can be speeded with an intelligent use of SEO.
I agreed with this point “invest in making your site better for users and encouraging them to recommend it through social networks and linking” but I think all of these works should go along with SEO process.
If we just do one thing of these, we will miss a large number of customers who do not use search engines for seeking information, or those who do not use social networks for making friends, or find information.
In short, in order to improve ranking in SERs, or reputation of website…we should use all the tools and mix them smoothly and reasonably.
Hi Paul,
OK the first thing is you need to separate out SEO from “bad SEO”.
Let me explain. I could say the same thing about Christianity.
“I don’t get Christianity,” I could say.
“Christians claim to be good but just look around you, they’re happy to start wars in Iraq and kill Afghani kids .. but they are against abortion. Priests molest choirboys. The Catholic church was the most over represented group in the Nazi party, along with teachers.”
Christians suck. Paul Boag’s a Christian. Therefore he must suck too. Anything associated with Christianity sucks.
The point is that there ARE some Christians who suck (for want of a more subtle analysis). But that doesn’t mean CHRISTIANITY sucks.
Now, I’d argue the same about SEO.
There are some SEO consultants that suck. In fact I’d even go further than that .. I think MOST SEO consultants suck.
There’s a lot of bad advice and bad practice out there.
But that doesn’t mean SEO sucks per-say .. only that bad SEO sucks.
Here’s how I look at SEO.
1) The point of a website is NOT to look great it the web designer’s portfolio. It’s to achieve the business owner’s goals.
2) If nobody visits your website, it’s very hard for it to achieve your goals.
3) SEO is defined by me as “anything you do to help your site do well on Google”
Now, can we write off .. for a second .. those shoddy idiots that call themselves SEO consultants or companies that recommend bad practice like stuffing pages with keywords, paying for links etc.
They are no more “good SEO consultants” than someone who creates a website in Dreamweaver with Tables is a “goo web designer”.
As you know, I do charge clients for SEO. It’s not (anymore) something I offer as a separate service, but it is something I offer to clients.
Do you know the first piece of SEO advice I give to every client? Make sure your site’s good. Make sure it’s got good content that people will want to link to.
When I used to offer stand-alone SEO most of my work was fixing basic mistakes made by web designers. This didn’t hurt the users and it wasn’t trying to game the system.
I’m never trying to game the system .. but what I am trying to do is understand how Google works and ensure that my clients sites have a good chance of meeting their goals .. and therefore of doing well on Google.
The kind of thing I do for clients is:
1) Make sure the site’s coded semantically
2) Make sure we’ve done keyword research, so we know what users are looking for on Google .. so we can make sure we give it to them (this is a usability gain)
3) Make sure we use keywords in headings and titles. Again, this is a usability gain.
Remember, people don’t use “websites” they use the web. They go on Google looking for a Bed and Breakfast in St. Andrews or information on how to insulate their home.
If I’ve just searched for “B&B St. Andrews” what is a more helpful heading for me to see when I land on your website – “Welcome” or “Thornbury B&B, St Andrews”?
4) Make sure we’ve got good content on the site that contains keywords and people are likely to want to link to.
After all, how useful or interesting is your “about us” page to someone else? They probably don’t care about how long you’ve been running the hotel. However, if you have a “Things to do on a rainy day in St. Andrews” guide then that actually would be interesting to people .. so they’re more likely to link to it.
5) Make sure you use friendly URLs .. this is a usability gain
Also, I make it clear to clients that having a site that does well in Google is no good if once they visit it, it’s rubbish.
The ONLY sure-fire way to do SEO which works is to create a good site that taps into a demand people have.
To go through your points one by one…
A Continual Investment With No Guarantees
No investment has guarantees.
You’re right that SEO should be done on an ongoing basis .. but actually the hard part is getting up .. not staying up .. the rankings.
You’re Manipulating The System
Bad SEOs try to game the system.
It can be done for short term gain, just like scamming someone rather than building a real business.
However, there’s nothing inherent in SEO that means you’re gaming the system. A good SEO understand the system and uses that knowledge to their advantage.
I understand how interviews work. If I turn up on time and wear a smart suit I’ve got a better chance of getting a job. If I have experience and qualifications I’ve got an even better chance.
Some people lie on their CVs and bullshit their way into a job .. they’re gaiming the system. It can lead to a short term gain .. but eventually they’ll be found out.
But if I get a good degree, have a good career history, turn up on time and wear a smart suit am I cheating?
That’s all good SEO is .. understanding the rules and playing by them.
Google wants good sites to come top. So the best SEO involves creating good sites.
It Can Damage The User Experience
No. If done badly it can damage the user experience.
There’s nothing inherent in SEO that needs to damage the user experience.
In fact, it should improve it.
From the sounds of it, you’ve worked with some crap SEO companies, that’s all.
One point re: source order. Good source order should benefit accessibility, not damage it.
It Is A Passive Form Of Marketing
You’re confusing marketing and advertising.
Advertisers say “hey, buy my product”.
Marketing is a step before that. Marketers say “What do we think people want .. let’s make a product that fulfils that need, so they’ll buy it.”
Apples iPhone commercials are advertising. The marketing started when someone at Apple said “hey .. I reckon people would like a better phone”.
If people are searching for something, you’re tapping in to a market. That’s not passive, any more than Apple we when creating the iPhone.
There has to be an existing demand there .. but that’s true of any product or service.
It carries no weight
As I said earlier, what a good SEO should be doing is understanding how Google works and then using that knowledge. Google likes links.
Bad SEOs cheat and pay for links. This works (a bit) but it’s ineffective and expensive and unsustainable.
Good SEOs go .. “great, how can we create content people will want to link to?” Good SEO sits hand in hand with good usability.
If you’re creating content people want to link to, to tweet about and to blog about then you’re doing good SEO .. and you’re creating a good site.
One final thought…
The fact people CAN charge for SEO demonstrates a weakness among web designers…
I’ve done A LOT of SEO work over the years.
Often, people had sites that were doing badly in Google and came to me for help. These were often sites that were badly coded, didn’t have friendly URLS, had no interesting content and people didn’t want to link to them.
Rather than blaming SEOs (even the bad kind) why don’t web designers actually MAKE good sites that do well on Google .. then there wouldn’t be a market for SEOs (both the good kind and the cowboys) to exploit.
many many companies leach off the idea of SEO. They provide another checkbox for senior management to tick off when launching a site.
SEO should be considered from the start and a well coded website should already have good SEO.
SEO should always be invisible to the user/client and should not impact the design.
The ONLY rule to remember when thinking about SEO is “Content is KING”.
If you do not have content then you will never achieve good ranking. That is probably when the multitude of SEO marketing companies actually come in!
I personally hate them and it’s purely because all the sites i make don’t need them. It’s one of my favourite rant subjects ha! ; )
Great post – sadly for clients SEO isn’t all that easy and there are so many companies that make it out to be a guarantee by using their (usually pricey) services.
From my experience there are a few things that do help:
Time (of being online)
Best practice coding and content
Site actually being good!
Past these points I came to the conclusion that PPC is the only way…Google must be happy :)
Okay. Let me see if I have this straight. It sounds to me like ‘Good SEO’ is essentially ‘Good Web Design’. Web designers should be doing all of the things a good SEO company is doing.
I need to stop saying we don’t do SEO :)
Paul – yes.
You DO do SEO!!!
The Boagword site has:
- > Good content that people will want to link to
- > Good semantics
- > Keywords in title and heading tags
In my opinion things like great content, semantic html and other good practice in web design is not SEO and I will tell you why. It is not anything to do with ‘optimising’ for search engines. OK, these things may help my search engine placement but i am ‘optimising’ for my users. It may seem like a semantic difference but it makes all the difference in the world.
By saying with optimise for search engines it puts the search engines first. OK, it may benefit users too but that is secondary. If we do it the other way around as I do, we focus on users and that has benefits to search engine rankings too because that is what search engines want to achieve too.
Using the word SEO leads to the possibility of bad “SEO practices”. However, focusing on the user experience only leads to good search engine practice because that is what search engines want – a great user experience.
In addition optimising the ‘user experience’ also provides additional benefits above and beyond SEO which gives it a better ROI than SEO alone.
In short we should be optimising for users and not search engines.
It’s not the name that leads to bad SEO practices, Paul.
It’s that – in any industry – there are people who are looking to make a quick buck without putting in the work.
These people won’t just go away if everyone decided to call SEO something different.
All they’ll do is hijack the term.
If web designers REALLY want to get rid of dodgy SEO companies, then they should be making sure they speak to their clients and tell them what they do for them with regards to SEO.
If you tell clients that “there’s no need for you to get a separate SEO consultant, because we make sure you’re site’s so good it will naturally do well in Google, because users will love it” then they’re less likely to get fooled by some snake oil salesman afterwards.
I’d argue you can do both. Raising your online presence does not need to degrade the experience for users. A lot of SEO is common sense which is why you find the parallels so easily between semantic code, well written content etc.
Is having a strategy to get the well written content you have spent hours over in order to get more visitors a bad thing?
Is making sure that you have all the right code in place to make sure that you get found by a price comparison site a bad thing?
Making things search friendly does not have to damage the user experience I’d suggest that your perception of search maybe clouds your vision with regards to this. I too had EXACTLY the same feelings re the SEO industry until I attended ThinkVisibility and I strongly urge you to review some of the presentations and perhaps talk to Dom again (as I know you have in the past).
I do SEO and this is correct – build for the user.
I have attended my fair share of search engine conferences and the main feedback is build for the user, the engines will follow.
How? Start with analysis, how are people arriving at your site? What terms are my competitors targeting, am I ranking for this?
Use those popular phrases and place them on the page in key areas, typically, browser titles, meta description, headings, content and contextual links.
This isn’t spamming, this is speaking your customers language and providing reassurance when they land on your page, they have come to the right place.
Again, ideal for the user and ideal for the engines.
Good site architecture, using keyword rich anchor text to get people clicking through your site, making content easy to get to. This is all good web design, but their are lots of sites out there failing to do so.
Keyword research, link building, engaging in discussions online is all time consuming and an SEO can be used to do this.
Who does the SEO? You can hire in-house SEO’s to support the web development team, front end developers, marketing and project management.
Or use an external agency. In this case, these guys have dealt with multi-million pound companies and deal with what happens if you change your brand and your URL changes, how will this effect my position in the organic listings? At no point can a developer or front end developer answer this. You need experts in this field, people who work on this all the time to aid the process. This is one example but I am sure most web people won’t know the best practices to support a move like this.
Forget usability also, you need to get you found first. SEO does this, SEO is good content and engaging in discussion and promoting GENUINE links to your site. Then the users will arrive, then we can consider usability.
Usability is not SEO. SEO is getting eyes on page, being found. Usability to me, works with conversion. What do I want my customer to do when they arrive and what is the best way of doing this. This is where conversion rate optimisation comes in. A/B testing. In some cases, some SEO’s support this arena too.
I don’t practice any dark art SEO, spamming, hidden text all that kind of rubbish as that makes me fake. SEO to me is about being genuine, supporting a product, brand that is not fake either.
We all want to make money and if putting ‘some’ cash towards SEO is going to give me a great ROI, why the hell haven’t I done it already? SEO is only part of the marketing strategy, you still need offline and paid search. They all support each other.
“By saying with optimise for search engines it puts the search engines first.”
Again, a bit of confusion. SEO is not optimising for the robots/spiders, whatever you want to call them, it is optimising for people. You don’t optimise for the Search Engine, you optimise to rank higher than your competitors.
Feel free to call it whatever you’d like. Whether it’s called good web design or SEO, we’re still trying to accomplish the same goal at the end of the day. Rich has been saying this pretty well, so I’ll just recap with what we tell clients are the four simple steps of an SEO campaign:
1) Research – figure out what people need
2) Content/Design – give people a great resource that’s easy to use
3) Code – make sure the page is semantically correct
4) Publicize – tell others about what you’ve done.
I struggle to understand why any one of these goals would be controversial. Calling it SEO just means that you realize that your web presence doesn’t begin on the homepage; it begins on that link to your site (whether it’s from a social network, search engine, blog, newspaper, or any other link).
The reality is that the web will continue to need, and benefit from, these kinds of services. SEO will go away on the day when every web designer starts making beautifully semantic and accessible code, every IYP lists businesses correctly and without favoritism, every site owner develops outstanding content for his/her users, and every other website knows about and links to the best companion sites.
In the meantime, if I approach a site owner as a “web designer,” they expect I’ll want to throw away the site and start from scratch. It’s much easier for them to understand the need for an “SEO” than that they need a “UI specialist,” “social media consultant,” “online publicist,” or “code fixer-upper.”
Thanks Jeremy that is an excellent explanation that I
can accept 100%. I think my only objection is a semantic one. I hate that we call it SEO because it isn’t. As you said it’s about publicising your website through any means including but not limited SEO.
I’ve said this before on many occasions. I think the actual term, SEO, some of the practices it entails, and much of the bad press it has had that is causing the problem here. Many people search for SEO companies, when in actual fact, what they want is someone to market their company online, of which “SEO” could form a part.
It sounds to me like ‘Good SEO’ is essentially ‘Good Web Design’.
This statement in itself throws up some issues. What is web design? I’m not trying to be smart. Lets think about Paul’s statement. If we assume he means the design of the site also incorporates, Usability Testing, UX Design, Writing Good Copy on a regular basis, Constant Monitoring of web traffic, then yes, ‘Good SEO’ is ‘Goog Web Design’. But just like the term SEO is thrown about and people thinking it serves only to cheat the system and all you have to do is get alot of backlinks from dodgy directories and fill your pages with keywords you want ranked for, then you are wrong.
A well-made website should be search engine friendly out of the box. If you need SEO help, then you probably didn’t do it right the first time.
That said, I agree that SEO can be effective at increasing your rankings. In some cases it may even be worth the cost; but those costs must be weighed carefully as it can be a very thin line to tread.
I agree. It seems people who are paying for SEO are basically “cheating” the system. My site comes up on the first page of Google for many terms, but I didn’t invest in any SEO. I use clean, optimized and accessible code and have lots of pertinent content on my site That’s how I believe you should rank.
Hi agree with everything Rich Quick says – but don’t have the time to write anything that detailed :).
Lots of people have a preconception with SEO, which can make it hard to “sell”, as clients think it is all about everything you have mentioned in the post, when essentially it is about understanding the way search engines work and applying that knowledge to build the best site for your users and making sure search engines understand it too.
There are lots of businesses which get SEO wrong or completely ignore it which does leave a big opportunity for small companies with smaller budgets.
“I agree with everything Rich Quick says”
That’s what I like to hear ;o)
Perhaps the problem is that the definition of “SEO” is so abstract that it’s no longer useful.
It covers everything you might do to move your page up the search engine results for a particular set of search terms. Most of these things are destructive; they damage the usability of your site, your conversion rate and your reputation. A few of these things are constructive, such as having a compelling page title, description metadata and interesting, relevant copy.
Even Google’s SEO Starter Guide – http://bit.ly/db0zH1 – states “Create content primarily for your users, not search engines”.
You say “Instead of spending money on SEO, spend it on producing better content that provides Google’s users with more value.” I would say that is the very definition of good SEO.
When a term becomes so esoteric that it is has two polar opposite definitions, there’s not much point in having it.
Hiring an SEO is more like hiring a PR firm than buying a newspaper ad. If you want to get press, you hire a good PR firm and they do what it takes to get you mentioned in the news. Likewise, if you hire a good SEO, they help tweak your site and get you the right links so that your site moves from page 9 up to the top of page 1. It’s not guaranteed, but for the guys who know their stuff, it pretty much works every time.
Content is important, good web design is PART of good SEO, but content and design are only part of the equation. Most of the effort in SEO comes with getting other sites to link to yours. Good content/design will make your site more linkable, but you will still need to put a lot of hard work into promoting your site to get enough links to push your site up to the top of Google.
If you can fix your own toilet (and don’t mind doing the work), you don’t need to hire a plumber. And if your site’s already on the first page of Google for the keywords you care about, you don’t need to hire an SEO. But for the rest of the world who is stuck down on the 5th page of results or worse, there’s a lot to be gained by getting the help of a professional SEO, who can get that site up to the first page.
Search engines shouldn’t be relied upon as your only source of traffic, but SEO is worth the investment for most businesses when it’s done right.
There is the scammy SEO, then there is responsible SEO. Most of the companies you pay only manipulate the system (or try to). If you follow Matt Cutts from Google, he believes responsible SEO is good for Google as well as site owners. It’s all a matter of which direction you choose to go. Manipulating results though doesn’t work in the long run.
@Paul You’re right, your are doing on-site SEO if you do that. The problem is (correct me if i’m wrong) that you cannot run a proper linkbuilding campaign. And links are a huge % of the ranking factors.
And what about Web Analytics ? Do you have a specialist that can not only implement an analytics solutions but only get insights from the data and suggest optimium strategies ? What about keyword research ? The real problem with SEO as an industry is that the “good” SEOs should market themselves with a different terms.
Wow. A lot has already been said in the comments but a few things to clarify.
As a web developer, designer (not a good one mind you) and SEO for more than 12 years, it’s difficult to have this discussion without context. There are bad SEOs out there. There are SEO companies structure to rip people off. It happens.
But I’d like to address each of your points below.
1. A continual investment with no guarantees
This is true. There are no guarantees in business. There’s no guarantee that your business will survive either but you work hard to make your vision come through because throwing in the towel is not an option.
Many things offer no guarantee in life. But vision, desire and moving forward with as much information as possible can take you a long way; think about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, etc.
2. You’re manipulating the system
There’s a misunderstanding that all SEOs work the same way. However, the manipulation is on the site one is trying to rank. If you have a square peg (a website) and a round hole (the system) that you’d like to introduce to each other, what do you do? You modify the square peg to match the round hole. It’s no more difficult than that. This isn’t about guessing what the search engines want or trying to work-the-system. It’s about giving the search engines what they want in order to get what I (the business owner) wants.
If you think about marketing in general, it’s all about increasing visibility, sending a message to an audience you’d like to reach and matching customers with your products. Whether by means of SEO, TV, radio or otherwise, it’s the same approach. That doesn’t make all means of advertising evil. Or is that what’s really bothering you?
3. It can damage the user experience
You’re absolutely right. It can. It often does and it’s tragic. However, when proper testing is done, the user experience proves successful through on-site conversions once the traffic arrives at your site.
The example you show is the perfect reason not to hire “that” SEO company but it shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid SEO altogether.
4. It is a passive form of marketing
It’s never recommended, by a good SEO, to rely solely on search engines. Just like I would never recommend that TV or radio advertising is enough for the local oil change facility. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a terrible way to market anything in any medium.
Keep in mind, however, that by definition when a user types a keyword/keyphrase into a search engine, they’ve “actively” participated in finding a solution to their problem (need for information, a product to solve a problem, replacing a used and broken product, etc.).
5. It carries no weight
I disagree that no weight is given to a website that consistently shows up in the search engines within a particular industry (keywords/keyphrases).
When someone is seeking to find a solution to a problem and a certain website keeps appearing, there is credibility given to that site by the searcher.
To add to your SEO efforts, it’s a great idea to include PPC, customer reviews & recommendations, banner advertising (in some cases), etc. Thus adding to the appeal of your product/brand/website.
Gotta be quick as I’m expected to pick my son up from nursery but…
Paul yes you do do seo in the same way you do accessibility, jQuery, HTML, CSS etc but there are times when you need to call in a consultant to get those things ABSOLUTELY right.
There’s a lot of SEO stuff you can do yourself and semantic markup, good content is a strong part of it BUT there’s more than just on page to think about. For example what is your strategy for dealing with online communities? That’s a part of ‘SEO’ (which is a horrible generic catch all term like ‘Web Designer’ used to be used.) in the same way of betting good back links is ‘SEO’.
Unfortunately it’s an arms race too as if you aren’t on the top 4-5 results of Google you will have substantially lower traffic than those who have employed the services of a good copywriter and SEO team to get their message out.
So yes, you do do SEO in the same way you do Accessibility but if I were you I wouldn’t go up against Derek Featherstone in an argument about Accessibility because he’s the specialist (for example).
The point about accessibility is a good one.
Headscape do accessibility.
On the other hand, they’re not hard-core accessibility experts.
If a business wanted a site to be made and that accessibility was considered, then Headscape have the skills inhouse.
But let’s say that they were doing a site for a university who demanded that every possible aspect of accessibility was considered and that detailed user testing with various disabled people was conducted?
It would be perfectly legitimate for Paul to say “OK, this part of the project’s outside our area of expertise, so let’s get some outside help in.”
That’s what a good SEO consultant should be doing.
Headscape do provide basic onsite SEO. However, sometimes more than that’s needed.
If a mortgage company came to Paul asking for a site and told them it was important for the site to rank well on Google for the term “mortgages” would Headscape have the expertise in house? Probably not.
Paul – next time you get asked to work with an SEO company, why don’t you try insisting that you get to choose the SEO?
That way, you can choose someone who you know isn’t a snake oil salesman.
I’d be happy to do this myself, or you could speak to someone like Dom Hodgson or Tim Nash.
If you still don’t get SEO after working with someone good, then so be it.
But writing off all SEO because of the bad apples in the industry is no better than writing off all Chistians because of George W Bush or all Muslims because of Osama Bin Laden .. or for that matter all Atheists because of Stalin.
I’m glad Rich wrote out a nice long explanation!
SEO isn’t just get your site #1 for ‘keyword’. For me personally it’s just a term I use when selling the service. In the same way I sell ‘web design’. Many things go into web design but the client grasps the term ‘web design’ better than they would all of the other skills included.
Paul and Headscape do ‘SEO’, yes thats right. The exact thing you are writing about in the topic title you provide, and actively promote.
Don’t really need to go in depth as a lot of things have already been touched on.
But I do see a growing ‘trend’. People seem to blindly ignore or dismiss certain aspects of the web either because they dont understand it or have never bothered to research it. The same thing has been happening with the whole Flash debate.
Gotta give you credit, you may not need SEO if you can consistently create content that is such good comment bait and link bait. To this point you’ve managed to take an article with less than 1000 words and get nearly 7000 words of free content via comments (and who knows how many links it will garner).
Well played Paul, well played.
Nail on the head.
Paul writes great articles for a living. Most people rely on other people to do this for them. Some of these people are called “SEO experts”.
Very well put!
I agree content will always be king. Sites that put all their effort on SEO and limit the quality of content might get more visitors to the site, but I can’t even imagine their bounce rate. Not a good way to create visitor loyalty.
People will not care that you came up first on google, they might click to your site but get right back out and off to result #2 just because you did not manage to keep them.
Thanks Paul.
We advocate search-first writing in our book. How do you know how to connect with the language of your target audience? Mining Google for semantic data. SEO is not an optional thing you do after creating content, it’s the bigging, middle and end of your content strategy.
On the subject of the bad side of SEO, I just got this email…
Hi Richard
I see that your not using the one thing that will give you huge success..
SPLASH PAGES
… nuff said.
;o)
I do SEO because people search for what they’re looking for 80 per cent of the time. And 80 per cent of the time they’re searching, they’re looking and using the natural results.
give me few days time and i will definitely post an detailed answer on why SEO is required.
its tough to spend time on such write ups on weekdays :)
I’m still having trouble understanding why everyone in the web design community equates semantic code to SEO. Having a findable website is only one part of the equation. Have you seen how many sites that there are with shit code actually rank for stuff? Have you done a “view source” on Google’s websites themselves?
SEO is about researching what the customers type into that search box and getting your website to appear for that subject. It’s about getting others to talk about you using that terminology. It’s powerful because it’s the language that your customers use to describe your information, products, or services. There is an element to SEO that is customer-centric if you let it be.
I’ll throw my argument into the ring (for what it’s worth):
The value of SEO
Yes, there are charlatans that give SEO the bad rep that it often deserves. But there is business value to showing up in Google too, like it or not. To quote Aaron Wall of SEO Book fame, “Hope is not a business strategy.” You need to do the research and increase your changes of being found by the people that are looking for you.
So as I see it, SEO is the same as Optimising your site for users, which makes sense, when if you look at your site stats a search engine spider will crawl your site in the same way a user would (following links, reading the content of the page, etc).
No one flinches when people say about hiring a copywriter for a project, or hiring a web designer who can code semantically, etc. I think the problem is that giving it this kind of name implies that it is only about Search Engines, when in fact, whether by design or accident, it is about improving the site as a whole.
There are so many comments already, I am doubtful you will read this one.
Here is a typical use case for SEO, and why its so valuable.
1. Person driving in a car hears an advertisement for a service they are interested on the radio, but do not write anything down, and dont think to check online later when they are at the computer.
2. Same person is surfing twitter and sees a friend recommend the same service they heard on the radio. The user visits the website and pokes around, they are not ready to buy because they have to get back to work.
3. Same person gets an email about a similar service from another company and decides to take a quick look. Again they are not ready to buy because someone calls them on the phone.
4. Same person decides to recommend the type of product/service to their boss as a possible business solution.
5. Boss emails back and says “yes lets get it, use the company card and go buy that service”
6. Person hops on Google and types in the keyword phrase for the type of service they recommended. Several results come up, and they do not immediately know the name of the companies they had seen before until.. boom their memory hits on the 3rd search result, they click the link and find the same site they were on two weeks ago. this time with Card in hand they make a purchase and send the details back to the boss.
This is a good example of how SEO often works. Notice that other marketing techniques were involved in the process, and without non-seo techniques the person may have not even been aware of the service being offered. The other thing to notice is that in many cases the branding campaign on social media and traditional advertising did not convert.. but did help the SEO convert the sale in the end.
What would have happened if the advertised website did not rank well? Possibly the person would have picked the next best option on google’s search results. If they were really a different service, and the person was set on using only them they might have asked their friend on twitter to remind them of the companies name.. but in reality how many people offer a unique product or service? How many businesses do not have competition that offers the same services and products for similar prices? Not many!
The key to SEO is knowing what phrases and terms are going to pull in traffic from buyers.. not browsers. You do not need to spend a lot of money on the long tail of SEO as good content will do that on its own. However SEO can be critical for “money” phrases that have been shown to convert. How any company could not pay to rank for terms that have a high enough RIO to justify it makes no sense to me.
The other truth is that most companies just starting out on the web may not rank at all. Especially if they are in a saturated market. SEO can be the right tool for the right job, but you must first understand what it can do, and what it should be used for.
SEO is not a replacement for other marketing or a good user experience, but the best user experience is a waste when a site has no traffic on it.
SEO has also been shown time and time again by search marketing professionals to have a higher ROI than PPC and social media over long periods of time. That’s why big companies like Disney pay for it, and will continue to.
I would also note that there are many bad companies out there selling people a bill of goods that has no real value. This happens in all areas of the publishing industry. How many bad TV commercials, social media, and radio campaigns have you seen? Someone sold those to people who were willing to pay for them. This does not in any way invalidate the industry as a whole.
SEO is also more than ranking keywords highly. It can be another form of reputation management. Without some clever SEM’s many companies would have no way to combat negative posts on other websites.
Lastly I would say that the larger and more established the company is, the less likely they are going to need to spend money on SEO. Big websites, from big companies rank well on their own because they should and google is designed to rank them highly. It is the little guy that is not likely to succeed to begin with that has the most to gain from SEO.
The true secret to SEO is that every single designer out there can offer some SEO services as a normal part of their business, and it does not have to cost the company big money. SEo is NOT rocket science. If you build search friendly sites, your 80% of the way there already.
Paul.. I think there is a semantic difference here because using clean HTML that is standards compliant and accessible with good copy is required for “optimization” I get jobs all the time from an SEO company that sends people to me so I can make their site search friendly before they get started using their other seo techniques.
Good SEO is just
-Well formed websites with good usability/standards/accessibility
-Pages with valuable content being tracked by some form of analytics
-Research to find new phrases and possible link sources
- Using the researched phrases in a natural way within good copy
-Finding links on other websites in the same niche
Paul’s post and the ensuing discussion have prompted me to write a blog post of my own.
http://randomarrows.tumblr.com/post/466384379/stop-bitching-about-seo-and-make-better-websites
Sorry about the off-the-shelf theme .. it’s the first post in a new Tumblr blog I’ll be doing .. when I’ve got time I’ll do a decent design.
I like the fact that you have been working on the internet since 1994. So after 2 years of it being created you were there like a cold sore.
Your article lacks and maybe would have been relevant 3-4 years ago when SEO guys could hack algorithms.
Now a days it is about content and making google happy.
Oh yeah I playing on Dial Up BBS from my c-64 with a PC emulator when I was a kid.
Should I put that in my BIO so people will respect my opinion.
No i would never.
Lame article and not impressed this got retweeted.
Maybe you should post your dick size.
SEO is just another form of marketing. It works when it’s done right like any form of marketing (and unlike billboard or tv advertising, it’s much more transparent and accountable).
Are there dodgy ways of gaming the search engines? Sure. Just like there are dodgy ways of misleading customers offline. Ultimately, if you market something that produces a bad customer experience you’ll pay for it.
With regards to this post, I’d challenge the following assertion:
“Website owners seem obsessed with being ‘number one’ on Google. However, it is not a particularly effective method of marketing.”
In the UK, Google is the search engine of choice. Google is used by roughly 80% of Brits searching online. Let me hammer this point home, 8 out of 10 potential customers are using Google to find what they are looking for on the Web.
If you have a business and you are not visible for the products or services you offer on Google, you are giving this business away to the competition.
On behalf of my clients I would simply say: ‘Thank You! Thank you for not believing in SEO and letting us make piles and piles of money for our clients in this channel! We’re eternally grateful and would encourage you to stay ignorant on the subject. It only makes our job easier.’
And btw, by willfully ignoring SEO, you’re essentially pissing your client’s money away. It’s not something I would advertise…
PS: I think this post should help you rank well for ‘SEO’. Congrats! :-)
I was amazed just a couple of months ago to have the (highly regarded) design agency that built the company brochure-ware site trying to sell us keyword services and SEO services… interested, I did some research and found that the site they had already put together for us was actually poorly constructed from a content perspective – no alt tags on too many images a good example.
I wonder how often the customer does that research (In Australia) – our marketing team seem on the edge of signing on before I pointed out some basic items that were missing… e.g. localised analytics software.
The web is not complicated – usual business practices and research will answer most questions and raise salient issues; why do so many people I engage with in business seem so confused and befuddled?
Hi Paul,
I started writing a response to your post and concerns about SEO and got a little carried away. I’ve posted it to my blog rather than here:
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=3619
SEO done right doesn’t put search engines first, but rather recognizes that the Web and search engines are part of the framework of a communications medium that allows site owners to meet the objectives behind their sites by making it more likely that visitors interested in what they have to offer can find them.
SEO done wrong touches upon many of the concerns that you raise, from manipulation of search engines, to creating a bad user experience, to focusing more upon search engines than searchers.
SEO should add value to a site, and to the visitors of that site. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t very good SEO.
Fantastic article. I think you’re completely right, however I don’t think it’s a silly investment. From experience, a good SEO will always put user-experience before any sort of little tricks that could get you higher rankings because SEO isn’t just about ranking highly any more – there’s a lot more to it.
The moment I see a company sacrificing user-experience for the sake of SEO I’m out of there.
SEO isn’t all about on-page elements any more, the biggest factor is far and away the quantity / quality of links pointing towards a page / domain.
Although I’m very much pro-SEO I agree that a website should never be built with SEO primarily in mind but ignoring it entirely is foolish considering how much additional revenue it can make for websites that rely entirely on visiting statistics.
I think you already do get SEO to some extent! If you are building technically sound sites full of quality content that people like (and link to or buy things from, depending on the goal) then you are practicing SEO in one form or another. SEO is as much about “investing in the user” as it is about dealing with the technical aspects.
That being said, I don’t want to oversimplify something that is complicated and constantly changing. There are legitimate sites everywhere with complex issues that are preventing them from being indexed and ranked the way they should be. Just as someone might hire a consultant to address problems in your larger business, many site owners need the help of someone who really understands how search engines work. Also, anything complicated enough to warrant a consultant usually can’t be guaranteed (think lawyers, business consultants, etc.)
As far as SEO being spammy goes, that’s an old and tired connotation. Sure, there are people out there who are using SEO to pump a lot of junk into the system. There are also designers out there using their skills to position and market unsavory products, corporations and governments – but we don’t demonize the trade; we shouldn’t. SEO isn’t inherently good or evil.
While I respect you Paul and believe you have made many good posts over the years, I simply find this post to be poorly researched. Many have made very good comments and yet you seem to be steadfast in your thoughts. I doubt my audio rebuttal will prove any more successful, but here it is » http://www.cinchcast.com/kmullett/34056 Respectfully in disagreement.
I totally understand why website owners think they need to hire professional “SEO” companies. Most people don’t understand how the web works, and just want to appear higher in Google.
As you and some others have said, in so many words, make an awesome site and the rest will come:
http://mcarthurgfx.com/blog/article/the-relevance-of-seo
As a SEO expert myself, I agree and disagree with some of Paul’s points here.
Yes, most of our SEO competitors do not offer guarantees and I personally would not like to take that risk either with my business if not knowing what they can offer me. That is why our business is built with the client’s perceptive. truthful and competitive we do offer a 100% guarantee and it’s not just any guarantee, it’s valid and true. Used by over 300 of our clients and our service is not a risk.
Another good point to add to Paul’s blog here is that if that SEO company that you hire is not found in search engines, what makes you think they will rank you in searches if they can’t even rank themselves. Type in “website marketing” into Google and make sure they rank.
SEO seems to be a service that could most tightly be associated with bad web design. If a site has been designed, built and maintained the SE should take of itself. However it could be offered as a valid service to some guy who, as a subset service to company that has generally sound design, with rough edges; here we could include poor UTL structure, or even multiple URL for different company divisions (oh yes indeed). What could we call that service?
Thinking 5 years onward, there could be 10 or 15 companies or websites that are in Boagworlds space, the same or very similar content… Each site is put together using website best practice and using similar methodology – how would you move your site from 15 to 5 on a google search? Good marketing is an option, but doesn’t that become the same sort of money pit?
Paul Paul Paul.. My Dear Friend..
I think I should Do a Video Response and Clear the Air on some of these Myths that your attributing to an SEO Service. I will need a couple of days to get it up for you, but I want to know your going to actually watch it if I go through the trouble.. Ten mins out of your life to help see that SEO Service’s not only have the darth Vadars, but the Humble, yet powerfull Good Guys as well..
Fact: SEO is Currently hands down the fastest, cheapest and MOST USER CENTRIC form of marketing.. .. NOT TWITTER.. (forgive the smugness)
~nick
Hey Paul,
In the meantime, I wanted to ask you if you may be open to having a quick skype chat with me.. I would love to have a 5min chat. What do ya say, you up for it?
Skype> nicpierson
I have to audit sites several times a week, and the majority of these have very, very poor SEO, i.e. no title tags, “click here” links with no title attribute, don’t even mention thier main service on the homepage, data strings for URLs, and so on.
And so we get in befuddled clients wandering in wondering why they don’t rank in google for thier own business name, to discover its because thier site has an all flash splash screeen that lacks a single meta-tag.
All new sites we make are “out of the box” SEO optmised, semantically and so on. But the bulk of our everyday SEO work is for people who lack either the will or the budget to do buy a new site. Especially in the last few years.
As such, SEO optmisation is a case of fixing broken sites, sometimes by adding an XML sitemap, other times undoing black hat SEO that has had them penalied by google. (such as the n00bish keyword stuffing you illustrated)
Using modern techniques, optimising for search engines is the same thing as optimising it for users. Good sites will get good search engine placements. But I’m sure you know this.
In summary Paul, obvious Troll is obvious. ;-)
I totally agree, I briefly worked with an company that did mostly SEO and never again, they were a nightmare, they were the worst kind of geeks, a way to look at it is web designers are like rock stars and SEO professionals (as they like to call themselves) are like accountants.
I am agreed with Clinton, SEO doesn’t mean optimizing websites for Search engine Spiders, rather its about optimizing for the users, for visitors. When it comes to comparing ROI by paid marketing and by SEO, I think its better to go for SEO, it can increase your Visibility, on Search Engines, where most of the people make search. SEO is key to get organic traffic for the website.
“SEO” covers a very wide range of activities.
From my perspective, I see part of the process as a form of quality control for the website: at least optimising the HTML coding, URL structure, UI, titles, snippets, and on-page content. It’s about making the content more findable, then encouraging the click from SERP to site, and encouraging the sale, and removing barriers to the sale, once the visitor is on the site. For on-site issues, there are a very large number of ways to get things badly wrong.
The SEO process also includes educating the business owner to take advantage of other venues to get their message out and to interact with their customers: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, whatever. This is combined with putting in place various measurements and checks, even if that’s just Google’s WebmasterTools and Analytics, and then making decisions based on that data.
There’s also PPC and other avenues, but I don’t class that as “SEO”. That’s marketing, just like your radio, TV and print advertising spend.
Your example of bulk keyword-stuffed footer text isn’t SEO. It’s spam. Sack anyone who is doing that stuff. Google and other searchengines have published a long list of things that web sites can do to help their indexing, rankings, and traffic, as well as lists of things to avoid. Even though that data has been freely available for most of the last decade, very many websites have ignored much of it, even those that supposedly have had ‘SEO’ work done on them.
Finally, there are some SEO people who will spend all day getting links to your site while doing nothing at all to the site itself, others that will simply spend out on PPC, as well as the others who will take the site apart and make it more searchengine friendly. With the latter there is a balance to be had. Effective SEO will improve the site for both searchengines and visitors alike.
The proof of that methodology comes in the long term results.
“A continual investment with no guarantees”
While nobody can guarantee the top spot for some specific keyword, a true SEO professional can (and should) guarantee a significant increase in targeted traffic. In fact organic traffic is often much better than what you get out of PPC marketing.
“You’re manipulating the system”
You could have said this 4- 5 years ago when webmasters stuffed their pages with keywords and increase their back links like crazy … not anymore. The system can not be manipulated anymore, a real SEO professional works in accordance with the Google’s known goal of providing great content to the users. However, Google crawlers cannot decide on their own as to which content is great, they do it by weighing the number and quality of back links some specific website has, therefore SEO is a must.
“It can damage the user experience”
Any SEO who takes out the user experience from the equation knows nothing about the SEO.
“It is a passive form of marketing”
Emphasis on search engine is a must, knowing that a big, big part of the traffic comes from Google alone. No matter how popular some social media websites get, it is always the search engine, people will turn towards when they are looking for some specific website.
I’m not with you Paul Boag, Coz SEO is not like adding keyword, Improving back links then you can get top on Search Engines, SEO is about analyzing user experience, Under standing website’s owners needs then generating Online Business. It is the better channel for website owners to get business. the website owner will get better ROI then other channels like word of mouth, email companions, PPC companions…
there is a chances of good content website will not get top on search engines without proper SEO to it…
Welcome for your comments… boonseo@gmail.com
I’ve written a post responding to some of the points in this article. You can read it here:
http://www.abccopywriting.com/blog/2010/03/25/in-defence-of-seo-copywriting/
It is called SEO because the intent is to optimize (achieve the best possible results) the traffic a Website receives from search. The name is descriptive of the process and the intent behind it.
It doesn’t require justification, and a fuller explanation goes well beyond what people have written here or elsewhere (such as Bill Slawski’s response to your post at SEO By The Sea).
There are no standards in this industry and that lack of standards has hurt our credibility by allowing “good” and “incompetent” and “ethical” and “unethical” people to apply the same principles for their own benefit and the benefit of others, or to pretend to apply those principles for other people’s benefits.
Search engine optimization is a disciplined concept in that it focuses on improving the search experience.
Technically, searchers and search engines also practice search engine optimization — however, the term is most often applied to the practices that publishers (or their service providers) perform.
You optimize for search every time you change your query or search engine.
Google optimizes for search every time it adds a new filter, changes its algorithm to favor certain types of sites (the so-called “brand value” algorithmic shift), or penalizes a site.
You cannot search and NOT optimize if you try to improve the results. Therefore, a Website operator who makes any change in order to improve his search experience cannot do so without optimizing.
It’s inherently part of the search ecosystem and really has nothing to do with which practices people prefer or reject.
I liked the one about SEO is passive :) Indeed it is. And also 80% of any other internet marketing. And even non-internet one :)
I also liked Rich Quick’s comment which seems to be as long as the post :)
Great expalanation – The SEO approch for clients
A continual investment with no guarantees
Marketing itself is a field with no guarantees, we cannot predict how many people will enjoy a tv commercial or will pay attention to an ad in wired. With SEO however at least we have a general concept of the mathematical formula that drives things behind the scenes. With art, there are no guarantees at all because it’s based on personalities, with SEO we have more assurance because it’s based on hard science.
You’re Manipulating the System
Google encourages SEO optimization – Google’s goal is to connect people with the information they need. If they cant find that information because it’s not optimized, everyone looses, Google, the searcher and the content provider.
It can damage the user experience
The first law of good SEO is not to damage the user experience. A great user experience is, in fact, a part of SEO. The more people like a page, the more they will link to it, which boosts search ratings.
It’s a passive form of marketing
That’s right, it is. Instead of bombarding the poor consumer with even MORE messaging, it actually helps people find what they need to find. It’s both a noble goal and not as abrasive as traditional advertising.
It carries no weight
The world is about connections, about networking. There is nothing unhelpful about getting your site to people who are searching for content that is on it. It’s also a symbiotic relationship, both parties benefit. The quality of a site is useless if no one knows it exists. Increasing the routes to a site carries enough weight, in my opinion, to be worth the effort.
I think SEO is a thing people should not pay for, when you make a website, it should be accessible for search enginges. That’s what you do when you build a site. Everything what uses SEO and makes the user experience worse…. its bad, well bad depending on your goal ofc.
“I’m not an SEO expert but that’s probably why I agree with you, Paul.” – this is telling everything.
Although almost everyone here is against SEO (I follow a third of this comments here but I have this strong feeling), what is amazing is that the same people are already talking about SEO techniques and they even apply these SEO tips/tricks.
What I am thinking is that you guys have something against of all those people promising millions of back-links and first place in any search engine results, in other words – scams, and not about real SEO strategists who are doing in fact the same things you guys are discussing here (aka page optimizing, good content, readability, respecting WEB 2.0 standards, etc).
Let’s don’t forget that out there are millions of people having websites, with absolute no idea about web programming and who are really need help for improving website visibility in search engines. Otherwise their small or bigger companies will never get enough attention, even if they’re producing/selling real cool stuff. You can’t disagree with this.
My personal experience has been that “all roads lead to Google”.
And while very little of what I have been doing for a signage supplies company included tweaking for Google,it all eventually ended up on increased visibility on Google, Bing, Zakta, Yahoo etc..
I would instead call what I did “visibility marketing” or “content optimisation”, however the fact that all these get indexed on search engines – where 60% of most of the company’s site visitors logs on from – brings me to a conclusion that whether I blogged, photo-blooged, video-blogged or social-networked.. it’s all SEO.
Hello. Bear over with my bad English I’m from Denmark.
To start Fantastic web vids.
I’m not any sort of programmer more a guy with some crazy idea
and not a web artist like you.
made an online Metric Geometrical Calculator non commercial
using Adsense I rank 8 in Google if you want to calculate
a “triangle chord”. I think you have to repeat specific search words since ex. “Chord” are mentioned (many many many) times on the triangles page and “Triangle” only a couple of times.
using same words but in Danish “trekant korde” ranks me No. 1
I’m not sure if you are able to have some hidden Javascript
to inject searchwords not visible when the page gets loaded.
at least half of my daily hits according to Adsense
last 0.sec and only looks a index page not the other 33.
using strange combinations of searchwords.
how ever earnings from the commercials would starve a crockroach to death.
Hi Paul,
Great post here good to hear so many peoples thoughts however I’m not going to convince anyone but SEO if done right can bring many advantages but would still make sure you research your chosen company first.
Hey Jeremy, I followed Chris’ (css-tricks.com) link to this blog. It’s really interesting to find more and more people that reinforce my opinion that SEO is a dark business to be in… I’m all for the relevant content approach! Keep it up!
Firstly we are a website design company who have started to offer SEO, mainly to protect our clients designs from SEO newbee’s who do not know what they are doing yet.
SEO is a part of a companies entire marketing process, which also includes website design. It does not need to be on going, but should be revisited.
As part of the SEO team I try to make my clients stop obsessing about ranking first and about getting more sales. This is what I am measured against. If I am bringing in the right traffic and converting them, then I’m proving my worth and justifying my bill.
To me, great design that functions well for the user than the search engine is important. But if neither are making sales for the client then the website isn’t working.
We all need to work together to get the best results for our clients. I certainly couldn’t do my job without the aid of some great website designers.
I believe that SEO is essential to it’s business, but should not be in a category all by itself. Unless the business is strictly online, I do advocate certain “key words” that a business should promote. I don’t think that numerous keywords (i.e.- six or more) should be “SEO’ed” as in the example from above. I don’t agree with black hat ways, but if you are trying to promote your online business, SEO might be a great way.
Recently I’ve been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay, on his show “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”, you might’ve seen it. Every episode of this show is pretty much exactly the same; the food is rubbish, the restaurant looks crap, and it doesn’t offer people what they want. By the end of the episode, the food is good, the restaurant looks nice, and it provides people with what they do want. The fundamentals of each of these restaurants are wrong, and that’s what causes them to fail, and this concept can so easily be applied to websites.
I can’t deny that there are some tricks behind SEO knowledge, because I, like all of the other web designers/developers/whateverers simply don’t know. It almost seems as if some advertising company was the first advertising company to say “WE KNOW THE SEO SECRETS!”, and then every other company jumped on the bandwagon. However, if the fundamentals are wrong; if you don’t provide good content and a visually appealing design, then you’re (in 99% of cases) not providing what your visitors are after.
Get the fundamentals right, before anything else.
Thanks for daring to say the emperor has no clothes! And starting a great discussion; I feel better about the state of SEO, or at least good SEO, smart SEO, after reading some good comments like Kev’s.
I started in the “SEO” industry a while back and though it was all the rage to make your website as friendly to the search engines as possible.
Now, a short time later, after stopping listening to the apparent Gurus on the web who know all about SEO, i consider SEO to be a fairly pointless venture.
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that a decently optimised website will rank well in the search engines, just not for the reason’s many SEO specialists think.
It’s funny how things work in this online marketing world – SEO at one point was just about filling in all your meta tags with what you wanted to be found for, which is also known as spamming the hell out of the search engines. Now, it’s about building links to the website whilst Meta information has become redundant.
With the recent implementation of Google’s (who uses Bing and Yahoo?) new self improving / learning algorithm what use is there for the harsh faced manipulative SEO? Reciprocal links, keywords plastered in hidden text and spammy Meta information is not SEO.
It’s about time people started to learn how to improve website functionality and focused on optimising the website so it provides a better user experience. I really believe that if we stopped trying to guess what search engines like and don’t like and actually made websites that people can use, read, navigate around, then my friends the search engines would be a nicer place to be.
I’ve found that there are three types of sites or blogs: those that inform and/or entertain, those that are used as an extended marketing tool for a businesses’ service or product line, and those that exist for the sole purpose of getting traffic so that visitors will click on ads.
For the latter, I rely on SEO techniques such as increasing keywords. While that may lead to a reduction in readability, it does bring traffic to my sites without my having to pay some company to come up with other SEO techniques. Pure and simple, for my type of sites, typically readers don’t click and clickers don’t read.
Hi all,
I am agree with few of the points here, but not agree with some of the points. SEO is really a worthy process as it is increasing day by day against web development. According to your first problem, SEO is ongoing process, so sometime your website may be on top and some other time, your competitors’ site may be on top. So, guaranteed of anything is nothing in the case of SEO.
Moreover, nobody is trying to manipulate the system. Only google does it so that people can get fresh, original and more relevant content.
Thank you.
I started in the “SEO” industry a while back and though it was all the rage to make your website as friendly to the search engines as possible.
Now, a short time later, after stopping listening to the apparent Gurus on the web who know all about SEO, i consider SEO to be a fairly pointless venture.
Since 2004, I’ve been telling anyone who would listen that SEO should not be their concern. I’d say “Make your sites valuable and usable, and everything will work out fine. If you can’t be valuable and usable, pay for advertising.” Yet, since 2004 I have been paid by these very people to do “SEO”. I worked for Google for a year as a page rater, and this experience only confirmed my vision of SEO: if you offer no value, “SEO” convulsions will not help.
For someone who doesn’t get SEO you seem to be very good at it. I found your blog from an organic search so I guess that proves SEO works.
There are aspects to SEO that I don’t like, but Google seems to be rewarding sites that offer original quality content. It can only get better.
First, I want to make it absolutely clear that I AM a SEO expert.
I have been online since ’94 and I studied search engines before Google was around. I spend most of my time online and have done so since ’94
Misconceptions abound.
Very few understand how SEO REALLY works.
Paul,
Properly done SEO does not carry a high maintenance tag.
Once you achieve your positions you basically stay there, unless someone out SEOs you. Maintenance is monthly monitoring traffic and search terms used to find your site. Both just a quick look in the stats, and perhaps some spread sheet work to document trends.
And no guarantees?
SHOOT buddy.
I have been optimizing for Google since the day it came online.
At one point early in my career I was optimizing for 12 different search engines. Results drove one site from $400 a month to over $1000 a day.
What kind of SEO expert would I be if I could not get top listings?
My last SEO job saw 100% on Google page #1
In the last 2 years I have not gone below 85% page one.
Not only do I guarantee my work but I will give a free $219.00 hosting account to anyone that uses my SEO methodology and does not get the majority of their search terms on page 1.
Good SEO is not manipulating the system.
It is as Google says it should be, pages written for the visitor.
If you understand the psychology of search and use your visual display to reinforce the relevance, while telling the search algo EXACTLY the same thing the human sees, you have it down pat.
The Google algos are a system.
From reading the patents, looking at what Google tells us, reading about trade information, reverse engineering, and experimentation the process can be documented as a whole, if not the specific factors and their weight.
It is possible to understand any system given enough time and information.
If you are doing proper SEO you are enhancing the user experience.
Amount of copy is not a factor. Code order should never change. Navigation should not be keyword heavy. That is why we have headers.
If getting to #1 is not an effective marketing factor, then why do all studies show that it has the highest ROI?
A #1 listing gets 39% of the search term traffic.
This can generate significant traffic. Not just traffic but targeted traffic.
Creating a need is up to your page’s content.
If someone is looking for “socks” your page can show brands, types, colors, materials, and if they buy something can suggest more. ‘Customers also purchased……’
Doing SEO is not catering to an algo.
What you are doing is satisfying the users’ need for their search term.
SEO is knowing how to do this, while telling the search engine EXACTLY the same thing you tell visitors in your visual presentation.
best,
Reg
http://NBS-SEO.com