Morning Folks!!
SEO is a fools game. If you have been online 3 seconds that makes you qualified to be an seo guru. Not. There are more SEO Experts than any species on the net. But I stand by something I have said for years. Nothing can compete with 'Relevance'. If you want 'Google Love', don't worry about seo, worry about being good. Being relevant.
Google looks for 'Relevance' more than anything else.
Nothing will trump that even tho they all try.
I get #1 rankings on Google all the time.
I have NEVER EVER done SEO.
Now I am not saying SEO can't help, but it is the smaller piece of the puzzle.
Do a search for 'Rick Schwartz'
Do a search for 'Domain King'
Do a search for Márcio Mello Chaves
Do a search for Marcio Mello Chaves
Do a search for Mello Chaves
Do a search for poster boy hijackers
I could go on and on. Key is all relevance and I have never lifted a finger for seo. NEVER! HOWEVER, I did spend my time and energy on BRANDING. Say what you like, but proof is proof.
Relevance and everything else.
Search cowboys gay
Cowboys.com starts coming up with all this weeks articles about half way down.
Nothing can compete with relevance. Nothing! So unless folks talk about relevance, they are talking out of their ASS!
SEO hurts domains and sometimes for a very long time.
So instead of worrying about spamming search engines, worry about being relevant.
Relevance and everything else. That becomes branding when you do it right and repeatedly.
Now I do know there is seo traffic. But there are problems. The major one being after all the gyrations of SEO, you are lucky to get 5-10 extra visitors a day. So a lot of expense and effort without a lot of result. You would be better off working on your site.
1. You may or may not have the ranking very long. Especially on hotly contested keywords.
2. You may or may not get much traffic as I stated above. Lots of energy and time without much in results.
3. You are never in control. You are a t the mercy of others. Namely Google.
4. It's a fools game. It really is. No person advertising SEO services can compete with REAL seo folks.
5. Better to build a mousetrap and pay for the traffic because it is profitable to do so.
6. Long term damage to a domain name when folks over seo it. And that is always.
7. You are always competing with other seo guys in their underwear in a cave somewhere.
8. Does it sound like I am not a fan of seo?
9. For every one REAL seo guy there are 1 MILLION fakers. Maybe 2 million.
10. Relevance is the key to Google love. I have proved it above. Proof.
I could go on and on.
That said I have known real seo guys and I can tell you that you could not get within 100 feet of them. LITERALLY! They are a protected species. Nobody knows that either. A REAL SEO guy can make unlimited money on the Internet. Problem is most are stuck working for others and don't understand that part.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Adrijus
“SEO hurts domains and sometimes for a very long time. So instead of worrying about spamming search engines, worry about being relevant.”
If you think SEO is all about spamming google, then for sure it’s not worth your time to do that. But I think white SEO is nothing bad, and it helps to brand yourself better. It’s a puzzle in marketing process, but you need to know it.
woot
@rick
Great post, I do think there are points that you stated above are valid but i do think we should be soft on seo guys after all they are also the one who helps to promote domain names for theirs client.
Bib Fontaine
I think it should be noted that it is considerably easier to be found in the results for words or terms that are rare or unique.
If I register the url uglytwinmooses.com today, And place variations of that my website title, description, keywords and content, then in a week or so a search for those terms will likely find me on page 1.
Max
Holy words. You have hit the point.
Domaining is a battle for freedom…
Joao
It’s just like that. A lot of work for a private company they don’t own, instead of making an user oriented website.
The amount of work is almost the same, but the results aren’t…but people don’t get the long term concept.
Joe
Ricks, unfortunately SEO will be having a more and more important place in the future of the”art of ranking well”, while it seems the weight of EMD will be decreasing. Not sure if you’re already aware of this, but here’s what Matt Cutts had to say about it.
http://www.elite-strategies.com/matt-cutts-announces-emd-updatepenalty/
Joao
Hi, could you tell me when was the last update to the algo, before this one?
John
Some of these SEO people do a real number on the small business owner. They create an endless stream of monthly revenue for themselves (think annuity) brainwashing the business owner of their importance. Some even try creating a protected mote around the business by handling all email inquiries, putting the domain name in there names (are you kidding me!) and fielding off any opportunity that they don’t agree with. SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS ARE YOU LISTENING ..
Owen
Seo is more about copywriting than techies… that said
“That said I have known real seo guys and I can tell you that you could not get within 100 feet of them. LITERALLY! They are a protected species. Nobody knows that either. A REAL SEO guy can make unlimited money on the Internet. Problem is most are stuck working for others and don’t understand that part.”
You had both speak at TRAFFIC and they changed my whole perspective and sharpened my copy skills.
Another example of how TRFFIC can pay for itself with one introduction!
I am lucky enough to work with one of them regularly and there are things like should your personal [age and brand page be separated on Facebook, and which gets ranked- should you have comments log in on Facebook- that science of extending your reach and brand value, is how you take businesses to the next level once you write for Google success.
Rick Schwartz
“SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS ARE YOU LISTENING”
No they are not. They are in a coma. Brain dead. Not all. Most. Have passed it on to somebody else to take care of as if that part of their business is like a 3rd warehouse where they keep all the junk. They have a store, a website and know nothing of the online sector. So I am sure they can’t wait for .whatever to come by either.
Rick Schwartz
How many carcasses from failed companies litter the landscape of those folks that decided to go online and DEPENDED on search for their business model? I am just saying seo and is the last thing to focus on not the first. The last. Relevant content is the key to the kingdom.
Yes, when you are going for the keyword”sex”, you will be competing with every one and their brother. But when you offer something specific and or unique, you deal with an entirely different set of circumstances.
SEO was/is a gimmick used for short term gains by mini sites and all types of other quick ways to make a few cents without investing the time and energy to build something unique and in demand.
Some businesses are built around seo. That’s fine. But know the difference. So few really do. They just want something fir nothing and usually end up with nothing and a bill for it.
Anunt
I usually disagree or have something opposite to say about Rick’s posts…BUT today with this post, I agree 100% with Rick.
It’s not about SEO, it’s about relevance…this is just common sense but still most geeks and nerds spend countless of hours on SEO when they should be spending that time on their site just being relevant.
Thats ALL Google wants…and it’s just common sense, but people still don’t get it.
steve
It is about the gun, not the bullet.
SEO is one part of the puzzle and it is constantly changing. Those of us who have figured out the 1 key piece of SEO you must have are still alive. The rest have died or are so small they are irrelevant. The great part is you can do what ever you want in this great country.
Acro
SEO = Search Engine Optimization. In other words, adjusting the content, copy and keywords to reach out to your desired audience.
When you use a CMS such as WordPress or even this very Typepad you’re blogging through, a lot of the SEO work is done automatically: titles, keywords, meta info, summaries etc. There are also plugins that allow you to custom-tweak each post (or page, if you use the CMS to manage content other than blogs) and seed it with the appropriate or desired keywords.
In other words, SEO is far from dead.
Now, what is dead, is the questionable techniques applied by self-professed ‘specialists’, promising you Google visibility. Because Google’s methodology has been evolving (Google just announced that exact match domains will drop in relevancy) there is always a reason to follow the ‘rules’. That’s what SEO does for you.
But let’s debate that at TRAFFIC :-)
Rick Schwartz
I should have been clearer.
My issue is not with making your site keyword rich and optimizing it for a search engine.
My issue is the way they spam Google. Try and fool Google.
Try and fool the consumer. They do anything to get a click.
Anything to get a visitor instead of something specific that they are looking for.
David Pelligrinelli
“For every one REAL seo guy there are 1 MILLION fakers. **Maybe 2 million.**”
hahahahahaha. 2M still might be an understatement.
blah
fuck seo. during these google changes, my direct navigation continues to hold. quality traffic.
seo blah, blah, blah. these seo experts hate domainers. there intimated by direct navigation. opps, did i say this. yes i did.
ScottM
As President Clinton said (paraphrasing it) depends on the meaning of the word [SEX] is. In the case of the meaning of SEO, just doing the simplest things on you main page, like putting in a good short title (meta title) with separator bars between words, put in a short meta description, put relevant keywords on your main page, and optimizing image filenames on the main and some of your key sub-pages are easy, fast, and pretty much free and can be done in-house without going to”SEO experts” and paying a king’s ransom. None of these steps will spam search engines but instead make your site friendly to crawlers and the rankings usually improve within a few weeks.
Sean
Any SEO that knows his ass from his elbow already stopped doing client work and leveraged the skills they learned to make money for themselves. I use to run an agency and now, we have no clients and make 50x more money than before (with less employees).
I should also add, if it wasn’t for SEO many people would not be buying direct match domains. Granted low quality ones like this-keyword-rocks-all-day.info have been filtered out (see: http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-just-announced-a-google-algorithm-change-2012-09) but a quality direct match that isn’t necessarily best for branding (i.e. SmallBusinessLoans.com) will still be bought for SEO reasons. So, you can’t really hate on SEO – it comes with the game and actually promotes domain sales IMO.
Another thing is, Rick, you ARE doing SEO. You just don’t realize it. Writing relevant content and targeting an audience is SEO..just because your not manually link building to rank those articles doesn’t mean you’re not attracting links by writing to your audience and being an AUTHORITY on the subject. Whether you rank for brand queries, like you do, or fat heads like”domain investing” is all the same.
The thing that you have going for you that small businesses everyone don’t have is that you are an AUTHORITY. So, while some things may work for you because of your brand and your audience (generally tech savvy people) they won’t work for a Mom & Pop shop selling used refrigerator.
This is all my opinion and I rarely leave comments but I think that you, like many people, always put the low quality snake-oil Indians in the same class a white hat making boat loads of money from their own websites.
Sean
*The thing that you have going for you that small businesses don’t have – you are an AUTHORITY. So, while some things may work for you because of your brand and your audience (generally tech savvy people) they won’t work for a Mom & Pop shop selling used refrigerators.
Rick Schwartz
“Rick, you ARE doing SEO. You just don’t realize it. Writing relevant content and targeting an audience is SEO..just because your not manually link building to rank those articles doesn’t mean you’re not attracting links by writing to your audience and being an AUTHORITY on the subject.”
Sean, thanks. That is the entire point of the blog post. You do SEO invisibly not by paying somebody. Relevance is the key and when you are relevant, you are automatically optimized.
Sean
Exactly.
I also want to point out one more thing for anyone who does, for whatever reason, have to hire an SEO agency. Don’t let them work on your main site – have them build a new site on an aged domain (2+ years old…brand new domains take too long to rank IMO). That way, even if they do mess something up, you’re protected.
It’s the old”money site” method. If you have 500 sites that get 500-1,000 unique a month and funnel all that traffic to your money site (main site) – you’re golden. If one gets knocked off, who cares – you have 499 more. Not everyone can do this, but if you can – do it. It hedges your risk big time…even more so if you do”questionable” SEO. While every blackhat in the world lives by this system, it applies to white hats too IMO.
John
Interesting & informative article in today’s NY Times on AdWords & SEO
Social Bullets
I would have to agree. SEOs will have to become content marketers in order to provide a valuable service to their clients in the future. This will improve the user experience for people using Google and other search engines.
AJ - Fantastic Travels
Some excellent points and I’ve learned enough recently to agree with many. I learnt relevance and try to do that, but also some SEO techniques. But like Rick says, if you’re doing keywords, H-Tags etc on your site, it is SEO. Least that’s what I learned.