SEO vs Snake Oil
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- MrAbominable
Has SEO improved that its roi is a valid expense or is it still snake oil for people too lazy to create a vibrant site, rich with content?
I thought i read an interesting thread on Search Engine Optimization here a few years back but my search for it turned up nothing (ha!) and because it's ancient now anyway... i thought i'd ask anew.
thoughts?
- renderedred0
SEO is more-less like Scientology in "offline" life. :)
I love when people ask me about SEO, like it's something real. Also, people love to say it, like it means something. It never was and never will be. But, people peddling it are.
- MrAbominable0
^ this is what i was looking for.
- mg330
Ensure SEO basics are covered on the site.
Create good content often.The rest is snake oil.
- well saidmonkeyshine
- < this is typical developer BS. just cuz you have great content does not mean you will get high serps. i see this all of the time.trooperbill
- It isn't BS. A good content strategy will encompass SEO considerations.monkeyshine
- cannonball19780
"Ensure another business that I have no contact with does their job according to how I want them to."
Ridiculous.
- _niko0
snake oil.
take these ass clowns, they claim they are the #1 SEO company and even have seo.com as their url, yet if you do a search in google for seo, they don't come up, lol.
- good point but a falsehood. ranking for seo is going to be difficult due to the amount of spam thats out theretrooperbill
- crillix0
I worked for a company that used SEO to generate revenue thru their own sites. I wouldn't say it was completely snake oil. It really depends on what you want to achieve. They spent a lot of time monitoring things, creating content, etc... Was it an exact science, hell no, seemed like a lot of educated guesswork based on previous experience but at the same time they had tangible results.
It is definitely not a fire and forget kind of thing, they spent a lot of time constantly working on things. Would the amount of time and work they put in benefit a small business web site like a salon or restaurant, probably not.
- MrAbominable0
great feedback. thanks all.
- fate0
Used to be snakeoil, it's now become a semi-respectable strategy.
- mg330
The development team building a website should know how to implement SEO technical basics. The people working on the content and managing the site should consistently be working on the content specific SEO aspects: relevant title tags, relevant heading tags, well organized content, content with the right keyword density, right content length, sharing and promoting content socially.
SEO companies IMO should not be doing the first part, because YOU should already be doing that. They should maybe be helping with the second part if the team needs a content strategy or needs to just generally understand what they should be doing.
But where I think many are trying to make their money is that snake oil part that comes after the first two parts. And, information is readily available to show what Google places priority on (approx 84% search market share) and from my experience that info shows that all the magic trick stuff isn't valuable because they're not even ranking sites based on it.
I love this chart because it pretty clearly breaks down the technical aspects that I think most would agree should be implemented on any website from the beginning by good developers.
- fate0
"how so?" MrAbominable
The methodology and process is becoming clearer. It's pretty simple:
•Architecture
•Content
•Links
•SocialAnd those all flow from a good strategy and relevant keywords. It's not rocket science, but it's also not snakeoil.
- < this is what a quality SEO person would be doinghereswhatidid
- fate0
"how so?" MrAbominable
The methodology and process is becoming clearer. It's pretty simple:
•Architecture
•Content
•Links
•SocialAnd those all flow from a good strategy and relevant keywords. It's not rocket science, but it's also not snakeoil.
- google only monitors soogle+ for social signals. anyone telling you otherwise = snakeoiltrooperbill
- fate0
mg33, love that graph!
- MrAbominable0
thank you, gents. always a pleasure getting totally schooled by you. i love qbn.
- monNom0
Is there some validity to it? probably.
Is it worth the resources to hire an SEO company to move your raking from #5 to #3, not likely.Just like a heavy, 1000% cotton cardstock business cards with special-order custom 3D watermark, letter-pressed with ink made from the charred bones of the astronauts from the failed Challenger space-shuttle launch, mixed with gold-dust and carbon-fibre nanotubes, has roughtly the same utility as a vistaprint $9.99 special.
Most small businesses with a normal/html website a won't realize any tangible financial benefit for an all-out SEO campaign. For the cost, traditional/paid advertising and marketing is probably going to get you a lot further to you goal.Snake oil on the other hand, that stuff is like magic.
- the roi moving 5 to 3 is massive depending on the potential of the phrases being targetedtrooperbill
- the cost is potentially massive too. hence Return On Investment.monNom
- animatedgif0
- +1renderedred
- That's like all my favourite webby books. Where's the php/mysql O'Reilly one ? Best investment ever, that. 10000%mikotondria3
- Beeswax0
My "magic" recipe
"Go get a 8+ year domain from godaddy auctions for less than $10
Put it on 401 Permanent Redirect to your actual domain.
Google now thinks your domain is an old one and shows respect"I actually did that and believe it or not it didn't work :)
You learn some things by experience.
- trooperbill0
YES. since googles PANDA update which started in 2011 focusing on getting your content great and PENGUIN which started april 2012 which meant that shoving quick and easy crappy links to a site doesnt work any more, most SEO agencies have rebranded themselves either inbound marketing or content marketing agencies.
You can easily tie SEO to ROI its super measureable
[disclosure: i am head of search at blue logic]
- raf0
^^
I just started using a domain I bought back in 2006, it used be an empty page for most of the time and a holding page with a logo and two sentences for the last year. It has been getting first or second page results in google from the first week I launched the site.
- trooperbill0
ah an aged domain... like a fine wine! they have some serious power
- raf0
I also have a bunch of other (net, org, eu, info, a few countries) domains of that keyword with 301 redirects to the main site, I wonder if that has an effect.
I was going to do a landing page in each respective country's language with a link to main site — not sure if it's going to help or could possibly have an adverse effect.
- make sure to geo target them in google webmaster toolstrooperbill