You will find nothing of value in this post, just my thoughts about SEO. So if you are a business-focused person, feel free to hit your Back button right now... I have registered my first domain and started building a website some 6 months ago and did a lot of mistakes during the process. I still consider myself a newbie webmaster, but I believe I have maintained an unbiased view on the SEO industry. During the 6 months, I have discovered a lot of things about SEO and I would like to share my views with you and hear your opinions. First of all, there is a striking similarity between SEO companies and lawyers. Neither of them produces anything of real value, but they are an evil neccessity. (It kind of frightens me, that I am becomimg something like a lawyer. ;-) Any SEO jokes anyone? I hope to hear some good ones soon... Knock, knock...) In a utopic world, there would be no need for neither lawyers nor SEOptimizers. An all-knowing authority would settle disputes, or determine SERPs for each key phrase, based on 'real value' of a web site. But Google is far from all-knowing (how far actually?) and SEO is here to stay. At this point in time, the webmasters have the power and the responsibility to shape the SEO rules. We should not listen to SEO "experts" who have just reverse-engineered Google's latest algo and who would tell us what to do to climb one more step if we pay them $. That is a stupid game and it will only make the situation better for pure SEO "experts" and worse for honest webmasters and for all internet users. (I am not telling SEO is useless, no. There are actually a lot of really usefull rules, that help visitors of a web site and a good SEO company is worth the money. But there is also a lot of trash.) I always ask myself if a particular change is good for visitors or if it is just for a search engine. Some examples: - Would I buy a link from a high-PR website? No, no point doing it, visitors would leave instantly anyway. - Would I sell a link to unrelated website? No, there is no benefit for my visitors, and they would hate me for pointing them to trash. - Would I sumbit to hundrets of small generic directories (using the same template and visited only by other webmasters)? No, they would hardly deliver a single relevant visitor. - Would I exchange links with sites with unrelated content? Why should I bother... + Would I submit to a small niche directory? Yes, visitors of that directory are highly targeted and would be interested in my site. I was scared when I first heard, that links are for sale. 'What a nonsense?' was my first thought. But I changed my opinion and although exchanging/buying/selling relevant links is not as good as creating links naturally, it still helps visitors by delivering relevant content and allows good sites without real product or service to make money. That's fine with me. So, fellow webmasters, I hope I have not bored you to death. Let's live in the world we create. Sorry for my English. Regards, Vlasta And a personal message to Google: your current algorithm is really hurting honest web-sites which are new... The fact that someone is 5 years in bussiness and has connections does not mean, they are automatically better.
This post tells me one thing.... You have no idea what seo is, means or does for a website. That is why you should hire one. btw, the things that you mentioned are what any SEO worth his salt does. I am an SEO, I do it for a living, I dont have one site that I own which is my main source of income and seo it. I optomize people websites. and I charge for it. I do it honestly and straightforward. I am not "like a lawyer" I know the business and no matter what there will always be an algorithm to chase that the average business owner has no time to do himself.
Yep, the 'SEO' you are speaking of was what it was about 3-5 years ago. Web positioning is certainly NOT what SEO is about, and this is the problem with the name SEO. I prefer Web Site Optimisation, as the job of a decent SEO is just this, to make sure that a website is optimised for the users to ensure maximum conversion, and also for the search engines. Holistic web marketing is what it is all about, and I almost stopped reading when I read this line . I will welcome you to the forum, suggest you hang around here for a while, read a lot, then in a month or so come back and review this post
I think I now what it is, means, and does. And I also think some people take it too seriously, only focusing on SEO, not on visitors or site's value. And therefore SEO becomes an overgrown monstrosity...just my opinion.
Maybe I should explain that line. I knew nothing about search engines, when I started my site. And I had to learn a lot about stuff absolutely irrelevant to the site's content. The things I learned did not help to improve my product or site. The value is the same, but I had to do it to get better ranking. For the site's content it was almost useless - an evil neccessity.
Did you actually read my post at all? I don't think so. Let me repeat it in a different way. Modern SEO is ALL about conversions, it is ALL about improving the user experience, it is ALL about maximising conversions, and it is also about getting your site in front of those visitors. Again I say to you that what you are calling SEO is out and out web positioning which is something that was called SEO in 2000.
Without harping on, a decent SEO will look at your site structure your navigation structure, your usability, technical workability, cross browser suitability, increase your pages focus, improve page copy to name a few . ALL of these improve your site as a whole and the users experience. So with the greatest of respect to you, it looks like you have been reading in the wrong places, or the right places, but the wrong subject, as what you have read about is search engine positioning.
Now this statement makes sense. SEO has always been about ROI, I could get your website ranked in one day to #1 for the term "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" but would you pay me for it? I hope not but if you will here I am When I optomize a site I am sure to explain this to the client, the words that are relevant to their industry will take time to be placed for. It will take excellent content, superb off page optomization and that there is no overnight solution. I could rank someone for a keyword, and if they dont have a good product, then their business will still reflect that. My bias is that I try and get people who deserve the top to the top. I dont work on sites that I don't believe in and I dont use black hat techniques. BTW check google in a few days for "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" 10-1 this post comes up
What you say is making sense, and I really might have read wrong threads and articles. But look at the posts on these forums, most of them is about tricks, buying backlinks from high-PR sites, fooling the SE etc. The most common answer when someone asks for advice is 'get more backlinks'... that does not seems like a healthy environment to me.
However, it is the reality of the SEO industry "get more backlinks" is a very standard response and there is a lot of truth to it. people ask all the time" blah blah blah m y site sucks". and you look them up and they have three links from pr1 sites. no wonder they are doing crappy in the organic results. Or, why is my site not #1 for the term "casino" I have a three page site all about casinos, don't I deserve #1? Please. Listen, backlinks are key to effective SEO, one of the things that separates a good SEO from a crummy one is having the necessary experience and contacts to get a few awesome links to a website. In addition to building quality content and target the right niches. There are also a lot of people ot there who dont know WTF they are talking about.
I am glad you have your principles. That helps the industry. But a lot of people don't and they just want to be first for certain keyword. And they don't care about anything else... So, I guess it will now cost me more if I wanted you to optimize my site for "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows"? Since this thread is a serious competition for that keyphrase...
Vlasta, one of the reasons that we often see 'get more backlinks' on the pages is that it is in answer to the question,'how can I get my site to rank higher'. If I was asked that simple question, then I would probably say 'sort your page titles out, and get more backlinks'. I guess some people are asking the wrong questions lol.
I can imagine the owner of the "casino" asking that question... ;-) But the result of the backlink madness is that sites with few backlinks do not rank at all. They are outranked by completely irrelevant sites. Heavy SEO-ing is responsible for this situation I think.
But what if I start a new thread with the title of "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" . I am gonna outrank your thread then and I will only charge $4000 Then again, he doesn't sell "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" so there is no point. oh damn, I just mentioned "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" again so have helped your content. Maybe I will add "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" more times as mentioning "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" time after time will ensure the page is stuffed with "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" after "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" after "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" .
put a link on your site to this thread with "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" in the title and your site will come up in the results as well when you search the term "red eared fuzzy slippers with pretty blue bows" thats another $1,000 please