A friend of mine, Craig Nakamoto at Claero Systems, sent a link to me late last year. We have been so busy that it has taken me until now to respond.
The link pointed to an article called “Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists” by Derek Powazek. In a nutshell it is tirade against Search Engine Optimization and companies offering SEO which includes our company, Anduro Marketing. I couldn’t resist reading the post and responding.
First Derek gives a quick history of the search engine industry:
“First came the web, and it was a mess.” “Then came the search engines. First primitive indexes of dumb keywords, then Google…” “The ascendancy of Google has meant that, if your goal is to get the most eyeballs possible (as any ad-supported media business’ goal is), then prominent placement in the search engine results became a top priority.”
Not a bad history actually. He should post that to Twitter. But then Derek loads up the page with name calling and loaded language to emphasize his point. His labels for Search Engine Optimizers include: “goat sacrificers”, “snake oil salesmen” and “a new breed of con man”. He then makes 3 points and elaborates on each.
1. The good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work.
2. SEO is poisoning the web.
3. The One True Way.
Actually, Derek is right on each point but beyond the basic point Derek seems tarnished, tainted and terribly mislead or misinformed.
1. SEO is Obvious.
In many ways Derek is correct – much of SEO is obvious. Picking keywords, adding them to web pages and getting any type of link back to the website is free and relatively easy. But so is cooking a burger or changing oil in a car. I can do both but I don’t except occasionally. Why? Lots of reasons. I don’t have time. I’m too lazy. And the chef at BrokenCity does a much better job. Besides, I don’t have buns, burgers, condiments, fries and a stove at the office. Why should I cook a burger at lunch time when I can pay someone to do it and talk with customers, colleagues and friends instead? Sheesh.
So what are customers buying when they hire a firm to optimize their website? Where is the value in hiring a company like ours to optimize their website and boost the home page on search engines? The answer is simple. Our customers don’t want to spend time doing tasks that would take them a month of Sundays. We can do SEO faster, better and often cheaper. We have the tools, processes, and know-how to get the job done quickly and effectively.
One of the basic principles of running a successful business is to do what you do well and focus on that. People buy value. If you focus on providing value then customers will buy. But if you spend all your time learning and doing things you don’t have the aptitude, training and skills for then you won’t be able to provide quality products on time at a reasonable price. Trying to do everything sounds like failure to me.
Let me give you an example. Let’s take Dell – a large company with a large budget for brochures and online ads. One would assume that their website would automatically work well with the search engines. Not so. A couple years ago we got an email from a business manager for the business unit focusing on small and medium business. He thought there was untapped opportunities for Dell to rank well on search engines. His rationale was that paid ads on Google cost money and high listings on the organic side of Google are free. Good point. We “messed around” with the URLs, source code, anchor text, internal links, external links and strange things started to happened. Pages on the Dell site start ranking at the top of the SERPs. Dell.com is still in top spot for “business laptops”, beating out 25 million other pages. It’s in 3rd spot, out performing 109 million other pages, for “servers”. The end result – our contact at Dell got promoted. Nice.
But what about small companies? What value do they get from SEO? About 5 years ago Wayne Thomas came to us. He runs a small company called CleanSuite Software Inc. His company produces software for dry cleaning businesses. He wanted to have more visitors come to his website. He had some ideas of how to do that but wasn’t confident and simply didn’t have enough hours in the week to optimize his site and pursue inbound links. We talked. He hired us to help him out and he is a very happy customer. CleanSuite is a small company that is building its reputation and success on our talents. If you go to Google.com and search for “dry cleaning software” his site is listed in 2nd spot beating out 1.3 million other pages. He was in first spot until recently. Wayne, give us a call.
In summary, yes, SEO is obvious to some people but not everyone. For companies that want to reduce their marketing risks, an SEO firm is a good bet.
2. SEO is poisoning the web.
Derek’s complaint is that Google’s search algorithm is based primary on building links back to a site. Then he goes on a rant about “SEO cockroaches” and “SEO bastards” doing all kinds of devious techniques to get links which have temporary value. He is right. If you use black hat tactics and try to trick Google you will get caught and the website will likely be tossed out. But who uses black hat techniques? Any SEO who has been in business for more than 3 years and can prove results never tries to trick Google. What we use are best practices.
- Picking keyword phrases that will drive qualified visitors to a site – people looking for what companies are offering.
- Optimizing a web page by adding the keywords in the right spots so that the search engine crawlers can find the phrase. This isn’t secret or hard but it has to be done correctly.
- Building a web of reputable industry related links back to the site. Not really hard but time consuming so we can’t waste time going after useless links. No one is going to pay us for work that doesn’t produce results.
Derek, what’s wrong with using best practices?
3. The One True Way – Good Products and Good Content.
Derek’s point that many writers create “dumbed down content” is valid. It is sooooo true. I see tons of crappy content on the Internet every day. But I read fast and I can spot dumb content very quickly. Here’s the rub. I doubt that I’m the only one with a critical eye. The folks at Google aren’t stupid either. They know what good content looks like.
Thanks Derek for a stimulating article and your point of view. Ultimately, you and I can agree on something. Create good products. Create good content to let people know about it. Repeat.