I‘ve been wanting for a long time to say I have a bad tooth for SEO Companies and generally everybody who promises to optimize for search engines as an only occupation. I think these are the rotten apples of the web. They are the detour signs when you are in a hurry. They are the bad diagnostics when you are in pain. They are nothing more than the spammers of search.
When an expert promises “extraordinary results” with SEO, you should be really careful at the signs. He is a prick when he first tells you you must have 20 words in the title and not a sentence. He is despicable when he fills your content with hidden words like “Santa”, “Presents” or “Paris Hilton”. He is a bastard if he tells you that this is a good compromise and, if you believe him, you are too.
You might be tempted to make those compromises by the above mentioned experts when you need a boost in traffic. But why would you need that? Traffic is not a purpose in itself.
If you produce something, your purpose is to sell it. And you can do that by creating a credible experience and credible products. Assuming that your product isn’t rubbish and you have problems with the website, you should speak with an information architect or a designer. They will be of real help.
If you offer information and your purpose is to produce better content, the Digg crowd and a lot others are eager to consume it. On the other hand, monetizing your small effort with CPM banners and dirty SEO techniques makes me wish you really, really bad things.
“Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content” — Google
Understand that a well designed and coded website is by default optimized and ready for search engines crawlers. Tell the search engine that a paragraph is a paragraph and a list is a list and the header is… you get the point. It can do the rest: parse your content, understand it and rank it. We are not in 1998 anymore. And if you have a problem with your copy, how about a copywriter? And you should speak with an information architect. Oh, and if you are asked about user testing say: yes!
And I know that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask— everybody who is in the search business thinks just like me. That’s because they want to deliver the best results, hint: the algorithms are secret. Don’t believe me? Here is Google’s position.
SEO is not a purpose, information is.
Comments on “SEO is not a purpose”
on March 1st, 2008 at 9:58 am