Posted on: October 15, 2009 by Syzlak
It’s been a busy week in the world of SEO. First, some ass-hat writes a piece on his blog calling all SEOs “Spammers, Evildoers and Opportunists,” and he refers to anyone that claims to be a clean “do-good” SEO as a web developer. Then, Danny at Search Engine Land offers a retort, highlighting some examples of proper SEO and the benefits, etc. Surprise, after a bunch of lame SEOs jump on the ass-hat’s post, he does another post and adds more fuel to the fire. Surprise, surprise, Danny offers another retort.
So, what did we learn?
I think that friend of the blog, Melanie Phung, put it best in a tweet yesterday:
Someone who’s clueless rants about SEOs, SEOs rise to take the bait, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam. *yawn*
Yes, that’s about right…most of the time.
The thing that made this little debate so much more interesting to me is that both sides are actually saying some truthful, albeit misguided things. Let’s start with the salvo from Mr. P
owazek. Some truthful elements in his post:
- Make sure to use keywords in the headline, use proper formatting, provide summaries of the content, include links to relevant information. All of this is a good idea, and none of it is a secret.
- It’s not your job to create content for Google. it’s their job to find the best of the web for their results. Your audience is your readers, not Google’s algorithm.
- Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again. Then tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog. (Don’t have those things? Start them.) Tell people who give a shit – not strangers.
All of these strategies are essential to being successful online, and should be heeded by anyone trying to increase traffic to their site. While this may seem obvious to Mr. Powazek, sometimes it’s hard to remember that this isn’t obvious to everyone. There are plenty of businesses out there that have no knowledge of how to be successful online. In Danny’s response, he highlights a few of these situations:
- A real estate agent selling real estate in one of the most competitive areas of the country, Newport Beach, California. Her friends aren’t all going to buy homes she’s listing. Her “community” congregates on Google and does things like type in “newport beach homes for sale.”
- She probably needs to kick [her individual listings] out into Google Base, in order to fully be listed in Google.
- Where’s her web site now? Is she running it off Blogger? Using her own domain? These have impacts on how both the search engines may see her as well as how she’s perceived.
- Does she have a local office? If so, has she claimed her listing in Google Local?
- Has she considered some unusual, creative ways to create content around real estate in her area, perhaps some catchy link bait, which may pull in the links she needs to rank better.
Danny offers a couple other examples, and then hints at some web developers being slightly shady too. However, these sets of arguments from both men are all we need to look at today. (I’m completely ignoring the mudslinging as it was frankly woefully out of date and misguided, the heart of the argument lies within these points – not in the bullshit).
*****
I think the problem with both of these gentlemens’ posts is that they aren’t seeing the whole picture. Danny does stress that this “It’s not your father’s (or mother’s) SEO that you rant about, … But make no mistake, it’s SEO.”
OK
Is it?
Aside from the first, third, and fifth suggestions that Danny offers, would we really consider the rest to be SEO? While it’s true that leveraging Google Base and Google Local (Bing Local, Yahoo Local, etc) for a small business is great advice and could be seen as “optimizing” said company’s presence on Google, does it qualify as SEO. Technically, sure – as it’s helping to improve the site’s presence on Google. However, this is really more online advertising than SEO. There’s no code adjustments or link building or content massaging here. Nothing on site. Nothing that a web developer should be doing.
Frankly, Mr. Powazek’s SEOs shouldn’t be doing this either. In his eyes, they should be manipulating the site, creating drastically outdated spamming systems, and causing all sorts of irreversible grief for him. However, in his model, I don’t believe the web developer shouldn’t be held responsible for this either.
The truth of the matter is, both Danny and Mr. Powazek are wrong. Powazek is wrong because he believes that SEOs haven’t evolved past the shady tactics used in 2000, whereas Danny is wrong by using the ever expanding blanket term of SEO.
We are not SEOs. We are Search Engine Marketers, Online Marketers, Online Advertisers, Online Strategists, et cetera.
We do not spam sites.
We do not hide links.
We help create good content. We build a brand strategy. We understand how to achieve higher ranking on search engines without manipulating them.
This isn’t the first time I’ve stressed that the term SEO is out of date, and until that term is changed or updated, it surely won’t be the last.
Posted on: August 27, 2009 by Syzlak
Hello Reader
I know that posting once a month is not ideal, but as I’ve said before, I’m busy. My SEM duties were diminished 3 months ago as I transitioned into a User Experience and Info Architecture role. I kept an eye on the industry, but in the end, it has been hard to pay too close attention to something I was rarely doing.
Search Master Steve was on leave for a family related issue, or else we would’ve had a big MSFT/Yahoo post.
I write today to let you know that tomorrow I’m having surgery for a rare heart disease called arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, or ARVD. You can read about it here – www.arvd.com
Basically, I have inherited a nasty disease that has given me a heart infused with fat, making my right ventricle friggin’ huge (medical term) and beat irregularly. As the only known symptom is death and there is no real cure, I have to have an ICD put into my body to keep me from dropping dead tomorrow or 40 years from now.
I’m told the episodes are relatively minor ordeals, but one did bring my dad to his knees, so I’m not really sure how minor I would consider that. In all likelihood, the ICD will not kick in until I’m 50 or older and with any luck it will never need to be used. That being said, you can bet your ass it’s going to freak me out. In the end, a robot is in charge of me now, and I’m sure it will do its job just fine.
I am advised to avoid magnets as they will turn off my ICD until I’m far enough away from said magnets for the ICD to determine that it’s safe to turn back on. I also have been discouraged from taking up welding and I’m pretty sure I have to give up my black tar heroin habit. 
In the end, both my brother and my dad have the same disease and the same type of little robot ensuring their hearts do not stop. I’m not worried about the procedure.
Thanks for listening, I’ll try to write more often.
Posted on: July 16, 2009 by Syzlak
This is one of the best slideshows I’ve ever seen.
Also, sorry I haven’t been around much, but life’s been changing in so many ways. I no longer work in search engine marketing full time, and I’m swamped with trying to learn my new job. I’ll be back around when I have time to breathe.
Posted on: May 5, 2009 by Syzlak
So for the past 2 months or so Google has been inserting their map based local listings (affectionately referred to as the 10 Pack) into broad search results. Thus, when a non-geographically targeted search was used or even when a user was not logged in, Google would show local results regardless (irregardless for you Steph). While this was certainly helpful for the user, it has become a bit of a headache for the SEO, the business owner and the online marketing director. Today, a top 5 listing does not hold the weight it once did, because for the average user positions 4-10 are now below the fold. While this is a great opportunity for local businesses to thrive, (and in today’s horrendous economic climate, I’m actually a fan of this) it makes it that much harder for the nationwide business to succeed.
Unfortunately, it would appear that Google may have gone one step further.
This morning I checked in on my allergy doctor’s website. He’d recently asked me for a few tips to increase his search rank. I was pleased to see his site in the #2 position on Google for the very broad term: allergy clinic. I was so pleased that I asked the good Hack to perform the search and bask in my pride and glory. His response?
i see some sketchy looking allergy doc at number 5
What the hell?
Undaunted, I ask my old friend Luke to give me a third set of eyes on the situation. He too saw the listing in the 5th position. So, what was going on?
Luke lives in Bend, Hack lives in the nether regions of my mind, neither of them live in Portland. Where does Google draw the “local dividing line?” Is it DMA restricted? If I lived 10 miles away, would it be the same? Was Google honestly giving an organic boost to a local listing based on my location? Yes. In fact, Luke’s company had been noticing this of late as well and even had a rather serious sounding meeting to discuss it. He’d pointed out that because of this, “running reports geographic locations in the U.S. is no longer accurate” and that it even applies “when using google.kr, google.fr, etc.”
Fantastic.
Google has just pushed down organic rankings for even more nationwide companies. It’s one thing to have the 10 Pack show up in the 4th position, but giving local companies organic precedence means that many nationwide companies will fall even further below the fold…perhaps even to the dreaded second page of results.
While this isn’t bad for the local business that wants local customers, it does pose an interesting problem for the semi-local business – the local business that wants outside customers. At the web development agency where I work, one of our clients is Legend Homes, they’re a Portland home builder that focuses on green-built homes. So, naturally we try to target Portland and Oregon keywords, but also “green” keywords. In addition, they are looking at selling homes to people who are moving to the area, not necessarily living in the area. With the vast amount of competition in the housing market (real estate, home builders, private sellers, etc), it’s already a challenge to establish solid footing with a lot of these keywords. Now, throw in the fact that listings will appear differently outside of any given location, and you’ll see the problem with Google’s new approach to local search.
Posted on: April 10, 2009 by Syzlak
So, while I still have a couple SearchFest recaps to post, and a ton of links to hand out to everyone that drank with me afterward – I’d like to take a moment to gripe.
Twitter “users” are beginning to annoy me. Bots are one thing, but the amount of real people that sign up and then fail to use Twitter is driving me nuts. Twitter is not a difficult product, and if you don’t feel like sharing, kindly leave.
If you are feeling like taking the plunge, here’s 5 tips to make it worth your and my time
- Find tons of people
The most daunting thing about Twitter when you first sign up is wrapping your mind around why all your friends have told you to sign up. When it’s just you and 2 of your friends that use Twitter it can be hard to have any other conclusion than all of your friends are mental. This is not the case (for the most part), in reality, we just have a lot of people that interact with us. More people mean more conversations, more opinions, more links, more thoughts and a more interesting tool. Go to Twitter Searchand find people that are talking about things you’re interested in.
- Follow people that interest you even if you don’t know them
What the hell? Really? Yes. This isn’t Facebook or myriad other high school reunion networks, this is a live conversation. Following people you don’t know can be the gateway to finding people that either you do know, or that are uncannily similar to you. All of a sudden you have more people to talk to on Twitter and more people that want to talk to you.
- For God’s sake, stop following the Twitter prompt
While it’s cool once in awhile, do not feel that you must be doing something. The most useless updates to Twitter are the “is brushing his teeth. Gonna get ‘em clean!” Oh? Well, good for you. I don’t give a shit. The problem when I don’t give a shit is that you’ve Tweeted yourself into a corner. If you do this sparingly, that’s fine. Doing it all the bloody time means you’re boring and are going to lose some followers – namely me. Give us something to work with, show us a cool site, tell us what you’re listening to, ask a question, say something witty, funny or depressing.
- Do not use Twitter.com
Twitter’s beauty and strength comes from the countless applications and plugins that allow you to post and read posts how you like. Get Twitterfox if you are on FireFox all day long, get TweetDeck if you want to be really organized, Twitterrific for a simple and functional app, there are hundreds of apps out there – find one and use it, you won’t be avoiding or forgetting about Twitter ever again.
- Make use of the @
You know what made Twitter take off for me? Replying to other users. All of a sudden the quirky thought bubble that Twitter had been turned into a constant conversation. I was no longer in my corner posting about how clean my teeth were going to be, but instead arguing back and forth with new acquaintences about topics that I’d not thought anyone else was interested in.
Oh and above all else, start using the damn thing and you’ll probably see people start following and interacting with you too. Which, in the end, is the point after all.
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