Do you think SEO is a con?

[Brian Turner]

Touring the conversations around various webmaster and business forums, it's pretty apparent that a lot of people think SEO=snake oil, and that it's mostly a big con.

While there are definitely a lot of bad apples in the cart - sharks will jump in wherever they can to make money - as someone whose business livelihood has depended on SEO success for the past few years, I find it an odd attitude.

This is especially when people start trying to understand SEO and talk about focusing only on content, and not really trying for links.

Does anyone here have any particularly negative ideas about SEO that they would like to share, and allow me to defuse?

[Solicitors Mortgages]

I have a question for you Brian,

Is it better to remain honest or spam the SE's using SEO?

[monaghan]

I think a lot of people don't really understand the value of links and how to go about getting them.

You see suggestions about submitting articles, so many of the articles I've seen are just pure rubbish with a link at the bottom.

I guess the main problem is that there's no published info about the algorythms the engines use and how to build your own pages. I know the search engines would then be inviting spam, but at least the man in the street would be able to read fact about SEO rather than 100 different interpretations of the results of SEO's experimentations.

Also as Brian suggests, there's a lot of sharks that will take your money and "tweak" your site so it looks good to the engines, then continually tweak again and again as the loop holes used are closed by the engines.

I don't think SEO has to be SPAM, however from what I see, a lot of SEO is spam.

I've got a site for a local charity from nowhere to position 6 on Google's global search and position 3 for UK search for a search on their name (which is how most people currently looking for them will search) just by a simple site change that removed clutter and put some basic structure into the site (I now just need them to add some other content so they will start to show up in searches for their work, but that's another story)

[TWD-Tony]

A lot of SEO is common sense... But having said that quite a lot of it is hard work too.

Gaining backlinks (quality ones) is probably the hardest part - you can "tweak" your own website's code using online guides and just asking about in forums - as long as you have a decent level on knowledge.

Going back to the "common sense" part - the SE's are getting more and more advanced on how they filter, categorise and minipulate the data they collect from their "spiders" - I would love to lay a bet somewhere that Googleplex will be the home of the first Artificial Intelligent (A.I.) system.

At the end of the day - if your website content is rubbish then the SE's will filter it as such and you won't be able to do much in the way of SEO magic to change that.

[Brian Turner]

Originally Posted by Solicitors Mortgages

Is it better to remain honest or spam the SE's using SEO?

SEO isn't dishonest or spammy - but some people take it to extremes.

[Globalart4u]

i think in the beginning it was a con but in the last few years you can work out who is good or not and also by talking to others who use seo. I do not as i cannot afford it at the moment but maybe in the future.

[Brian Turner]

SEO is really an extension of accessibility IMO.

People put up websites which are clearly understandable for human users, but don't actually put the information in key places.

Even now, I see brand new sites that don't even have unique page titles, and leave alt tags blank. Neither should be accessible under basica accessibility issues.

Of course, SEO now involves more than just making a site search friendly...

[monaghan]

Without giving away your trade secrets, how would a site go about gaining quality links?

A couple of examples relating to my sites, however I guess they would apply to many other situations.

My main site detailing IT consultancy, hosting and so on - I could submit to directories, however current suggestion is that paying for links is or will be penalised by Google, most free directories seem to be just link farms. I know the site design is old and needs reviewing and there is a Joomla based site sitting on my development server waiting to be finished (honest!)

A local charity site, we don't have much content yet so can't really optimise for key words yet, but do rank very well for a search on the charity name. We have links to and from many related sites in the area.

What would you do with these?

How would you go about getting a staged increase up the rankings? I presume most new business would have problems if they suddenly started getting lots of hits if these hits resulted in conversions to sales. Many things can be automated, however a small manufacturer may not cope if they suddenly got lots of orders.

[Brian Turner]

So long as a domain is 12-18+ months old, link development really isn't a problem - though better to grow a campaign if possible.

As for gaining links - my strategy so far has been centred on building sites for link development purposes, but these days I also use two private brokers as well, to help get the most with themed links.

So, in other words, the best way to get decent links in the first place is to control the sources.

If not, use a mixture of varying link sources and quality. Enough quantity works with lower quality.

Also, for directories I'd go for quality not quanity, and not make it your main strategy.

[monaghan]

Hence Brian's multiple forum empire