that could also be called good webmastering. A person that sets up a website with title tags, links that are keyword based and puts in the appropriate meta is just following the W3C guidelines. SEO does work but aside from the link building and keyword research, it's nothing that a good programmer shouldn't already be doing. Oh. And the writing of course.
Anyone who says SEO is BS, is basically saying that a deeper understanding of what the search engines want to see(and giving it to them), has no affect. Which is BS. Let's stop saying BS though? It's getting kind of BS. Just BS'ing ya! You can BS all the BS you want. I'll stop now, promise.
SEO is extremely important as far as I'm concerned. I do think however that people don't need to put as much work into it anymore, as most blog/cms system come seo'd out of the box
That is one of the most rediculas comments any speaker could make on the subject. If you break down SEO it falls under a ton of items. Lets use title tags for example. This is definetly part of basic SEO. You put in a title describing your content in the title tags using your main targetted keywords. So homeboy is saying that putting "www.site.com" for his title tag is ok to do? Now I am probably taking that a little too far, but I think he took it too far by saying its BS.
I think there's a lot of SEO that starts off as some rumour, gains popularity amongst ppl, and before you know it it becomes religion. And a lot of it that just makes sense. Wouldn't be suprised if over time SEO is losing its importance as SE's become more and more intelligently constructed though. I think that in the end what's going to stand the test of time is really well-constructed and interesting content. JM2C.
Actually this is just basic and proper website construction. If people built sites right and had unique, quality content, then the concept of SEO does lose its importance. When I build a site, I build it right. I don't call it "SEO".
LOL @ submit to search engines That won't get you indexed and ranked page 1 on Google in less than 72 hours - just an example of the 'niche' site a client made and I launched for them a few weeks ago.
If your website targets an obscure, non-competitive market then you don't need SEO to obtain a decent position (assuming good construction & content). In competitive markets though, the only non-SEOed sites that I've come across in top positions are .edu's .gov's and authority sites. I suspect that most people who would say "SEO is BS" are those who have tried and failed at it. (It can't be that I suck at it. It must be that SEO just does not work.) /tom/
ShoeMoney was there and he said that Jason never said this. http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/12/06/jason-calacanis-keynote-at-ses-chicago/ What he actually said was "people should concentrate on making better sites and less on seo".
Good content = good webmaster Good content & good SEO = great webmaster Good SEO & shitty content = BS
seo should be the guideline when developing or improving a site. There is a lot you can do to increase sales online by making your site easier to navigate etc. Keep seo in mind when you do so and you will be in business for a long time to come.
SEO certainly isn't dead, but now that most scripts are search engine friendly out of the box (good navigation, page titles, heading tags, etc.) it's becoming less of a necessity and more of a luxury. It won't be the difference between ranking #1 vs #100, however certainly a few places.
Not all websites are about 'articles' too. If you sell 1000 different kinds of widgets then you won't have articles on each widget page. What really is there to say about widgets anyway?
I see we just got a lot more "yes" votes but no one backing up why they said yes, at least tell us why seo is BS
I'm with nicknick, the 3-legged stool is what you must consider. It all starts with content, without it your site sucks, it has no value. But if you are selling something and only have content, by the time you rank well, you'll be out of business. SEO efforts get you the traffic, the leads, and the sales.
I would change that to: These are the things I think count: 1. Great content 2. Clean code with spiderable menu. 3. getting the word out: that means submitting to directories/links-pages, being active on forums, alerting relevant media, newsletters, payed advertising etc. Whatever is relevant to your niche and fits your budget.