SEO Tycoon

**rustam** · 06-18-2007, 11:49 AM

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

**GeorgeB** · 06-18-2007, 11:57 AM

I used to...

I used to think it was all crap and as long as you do good buzz marketing the SEO will happen on it's own. For example getting dugg, or getting a banner ad on a high traffic site will get plenty of buzz and backlinks for you. You'll rank no matter how bad your on site SEO is. To an extent that is still sort of true but with Google and the gang getting more and more complex the good old days when an innocent newbie webmaster could start a site on an already established niche and explode onto the scene by accident (due to great content) are gone.

So to REALLY take advantage of the search traffic out there (which the vast majority of web suers will find your site through search not word of mouth) you'll need to rank for long tail keywords as well as popular ones.

I still don't see the point in hiring an SEO to show you what can easily be discovered by researching it on forums like this one and DP. But that's me, an established webmaster with years of experience. Also SEO's are evolving and doing more than just on-site SEO consults. They provide link building services and brand SEM on top of all that.

It all comes down to how valuable your time is at this stage in your site development career. If you don't have time to link build and research SEO techniques on forums then hiring an SEO is probably a good idea... IF.... you have the money and the cost isn't more than you value your time at presently.

**handsome rob** · 06-18-2007, 01:08 PM

I think people outsource SEO for the same reason they outsource anything else: convenience and exposure.

An in-house guy is never going to get the kind of exposure to different methods and strategies that a freelance consultant who works with clients in all different industries will have. I'll take the guy whose entire living is SEO over the dabbling SEO hobbyist any day.

And, in many cases, it's also cheaper and more time-saving to get an outsider. Sure you could learn it yourself, but are you going to experiment with your newbie SEO skills on the site that is paying your mortgage and feeding your employees' kids? Hell no. Not to mention the time it would take you to both learn it inside and out, and then deploy what you've learned. Chances are if you're in the position to sign the checks for the SEO consultant, you've got better things to do with your time than link building. Same reason anybody outsources anything.

**caseyturner** · 06-19-2007, 01:47 AM

i do not get SEO sometimes and defently googles pagerank. mine goes up and down to 0 one day then back up to 4. so not sure

**BamaStangGuy** · 06-19-2007, 03:09 AM

I don't. I think you can get too carried away with it but it's not a "con"

**Mike** · 06-21-2007, 12:31 AM

SEO itself isn't a con, but there are plenty of "seo experts" who are cons.

**ssomaxp** · 06-21-2007, 03:07 AM

I think SEO something hard to understand and yes sometime you may get nothnig from SEO. BUt many people still doing it for their site. Sorry for my poor English

somchai Naamphai

**the_host** · 06-21-2007, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike

SEO itself isn't a con, but there are plenty of "seo experts" who are cons.

Exactly.

The same could be said about any profession.

Is real estate a con? No, but there are some con artist real estate agents.

Are used car sales a con? No but some car salesman are.

You get the point :1eye:

**handsome rob** · 06-21-2007, 10:48 AM

Yeah there are plenty of con artist SEOs, a lot of them are nothing more than spin-master bloggers (a big part of the reason why I rarely update my blog anymore)

This thread on SEW is a great example:
Ethical Dilemma, Need Opinions

**richrf** · 06-21-2007, 11:05 AM

I have had very positive experiences with my SEO consultant. He has been knowledgeable, creative, and good to work with. He shares his information with me and vice-versa, so it feels more like a team as opposed to one-way consultation. Due to his efforts, I was able to double the traffic to my site in a few weeks.

There is still plenty to do. I asked him to blog some of his ideas, because I think there are some great, straightforward ideas that he could share with without jeopardizing his own living. Of course, the real meat and potatoes remains proprietary, since that is specialized knowledge that he needs to sell in order to make a living. There are plenty of good ideas on forums such as this one, but there are lots of ideas that are found via very hard SEO work, that does help increase the visibility of a web site.

Rich

**imported_beatsuite.com** · 06-21-2007, 11:26 AM

I've started SEO within our business, purely from self-learning and the change has been very recognisable. It has improved our rankings.

**naveenkapur** · 06-23-2007, 02:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

I used to...

I used to think it was all crap and as long as you do good buzz marketing the SEO will happen on it's own. For example getting dugg, or getting a banner ad on a high traffic site will get plenty of buzz and backlinks for you. You'll rank no matter how bad your on site SEO is. To an extent that is still sort of true but with Google and the gang getting more and more complex the good old days when an innocent newbie webmaster could start a site on an already established niche and explode onto the scene by accident (due to great content) are gone.

So to REALLY take advantage of the search traffic out there (which the vast majority of web suers will find your site through search not word of mouth) you'll need to rank for long tail keywords as well as popular ones.

I still don't see the point in hiring an SEO to show you what can easily be discovered by researching it on forums like this one and DP. But that's me, an established webmaster with years of experience. Also SEO's are evolving and doing more than just on-site SEO consults. They provide link building services and brand SEM on top of all that.

It all comes down to how valuable your time is at this stage in your site development career. If you don't have time to link build and research SEO techniques on forums then hiring an SEO is probably a good idea... IF.... you have the money and the cost isn't more than you value your time at presently.

Search Engine Optimization has become extremely important tool for increasing website traffic. Why should we opt for search engine optimization? This can be explained with the help of an example. If I have a shop, my aim would be maximize my sales.

This can be achieved only if more and more customers visit my shop and there are more footfalls. More footfalls are possible if my shop is strategically located in front of a city mall or a commercial centre where thousands of people walk by in minutes. More the footfalls in my shop, more will be the number of visitors to my shop and the number of potential customers. In the same way, all owners of websites both commercial and personal would want to have the maximum possible visitors to their site. Therefore, all website owners would like to be placed on the top ranking of a Search Engine Result page where it is more likely that the internet users will click on their site thus increasing their website traffic.

The process of Search Engine Optimization involves the identification of those keywords that relate to your website and are placed strategically on your WebPages. When a user types those keywords on search engines, your website through Search Engine Optimization is placed high on the Search Engine Results Page where it is more probable to be visited by the users thus increasing your website traffic. It is common practice that users do not click through the millions of sites on Search Engine Results pages but rather on the top listings.

At the same time, website owners must consider to make their products, services or information to be relevant to the point, and attractive to the end user. Search Engine Optimization has become important because if you are not better placed at the point your consumer is, you can lose him to your competitor, therefore reducing your chance for increasing web site traffic. In the world of Search Engine Optimization, search engines are the market makers and the website’s position in the SERP is therefore directly proportional to an increase in website traffic. Thus Search Engine Optimization helps in achieving this objective of increasing web traffic to your site.

To put it simply, no one knows you exist, but they do know when you worker harder and smarter to beat the race. The requirements for Search Engine Optimization to increase website traffic are not very simple, but of applied strategically can they can work wonders.

You can get ahead in this rat race for Search Engine Result Page with the help of a Search Engine Optimizer or specific software that will help you to increase web traffic. If you are a do- it – yourself, you have to remember that Search Engine Optimization involves time, patience and lots of strategical planning. If you feel you not have the time Search Engine Optimization requires, and you cannot spare much of it, you need professional Search Engine Optimizers who can accomplish such projects quickly and with expertise. Search Engine Optimization Projects which they handle efficiently and with expertise will help you to understand and gain confidence in their projects and work experience. It would be extremely helpful if you could read my last article, “Do Search Engine Optimizers attract or distract traffic” if you skeptical of handing your projects to someone you do not know of.

posted by Naveen kapur

**nwingate** · 06-23-2007, 01:13 PM

Not sure where I read this but I saw a quote one time from someone who said...
"SEO is the equivalent to putting AAA in front of your company name so you show up first in the phone book."

So in other words... it works, but good companies just focus on building the best business they can and know that success will come. Then again a good company would probably buy a big ad in the yellow pages so who knows LOL.

**richrf** · 06-23-2007, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan

Not sure where I read this but I saw a quote one time from someone who said...
"SEO is the equivalent to putting AAA in front of your company name so you show up first in the phone book."

So in other words... it works, but good companies just focus on building the best business they can and know that success will come. Then again a good company would probably buy a big ad in the yellow pages so who knows LOL.

I agree, however it is important to balance the costs with the return on investment (ROI). There are certain companies that can afford paying thousands of dollars each year to gain high search engine position, because they can convert a large percentage of their visitors to profitable sales dollars. For others, when conversion is more problematic, it may be a more iffy proposition.

For example, I was able to achieve much higher SERPs for links dot com for certain keywords. However, my ROI is actually negative, since I was getting a better ROI on other keywords (at lower rankings), since advertisers were more willing to pay for those type of visitors. So higher SERP does not always translated into a better ROI. It all depends.

Rich

**handsome rob** · 06-25-2007, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richrf

I agree, however it is important to balance the costs with the return on investment (ROI). There are certain companies that can afford paying thousands of dollars each year to gain high search engine position, because they can convert a large percentage of their visitors to profitable sales dollars. For others, when conversion is more problematic, it may be a more iffy proposition.

For example, I was able to achieve much higher SERPs for links dot com for certain keywords. However, my ROI is actually negative, since I was getting a better ROI on other keywords (at lower rankings), since advertisers were more willing to pay for those type of visitors. So higher SERP does not always translated into a better ROI. It all depends.

Rich

ROI without consideration of volume is a useless metric.

I have a keyword that brings me a maximum of 20 visits a day, with a 50% conversion rate, and I make $10 per conversion. That's a total of $100/day.

I have another keyword that brings me 200 visits a day, only has a 10% conversion rate, and I'm still making $10 per conversion, only now I'm making $200/day.

So the only question left is "What is the extra cost of ranking for the second keyword instead of, or better yet in addition to, the first?"

If a business owner does not know what keywords are (or should be) most valuable to them, this is a failure to understand your customers and you need to rethink your business.

If a business owner can not figure out what the additional traffic, exposure, mindshare, etc of better rankings for various terms are worth to them (even just a ballpark figure), this is a problem of foresight and you need to rethink your business.

If a business owner is converting at such a low rate that they can not afford to spend money to grow their business, this could be caused by a number of different problems, all of which mean you need to rethink your business.

SEO, like any marketing initiative, is not meant to INVENT your business or your market. If you don't have a solid idea, product, service, etc... would you go buy a superbowl ad for it anyway? Doubtful.

I can set up a stand on the busiest street in New York. On one side of the stand I can sell bellybutton lint. On the other side, I can wash cars for $500 each. Which side makes more money?

Well even though there are enough people in Manhattan dumb enough to pay $500 for a car wash (just look at what they pay for their tiny apartments), they're both terrible ideas and would make terrible business models.

Everyone says the 3 most important things in business are location, location, location. But the best, most highly-trafficked location in the world is not going to save a drowning man.

**Ronald Marva** · 06-26-2007, 12:35 AM

It depends on what forum you are looking at. If you are looking at non-SEO forums, those who are misinformed would air negative comments on the industry as spammy, con-like, etc.

If you go to SEO friendly forums, then you will see professionals sharing valuable information on the industry and you will have a positive outlook and understanding of what they are doing.

So it depends on who you are talking to. The bottom line is information. Those who have limited information would certainly pass poor judgment.

**imported_SeanIM** · 06-28-2007, 02:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rustam

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

...

If an SEO consultant isn't advising their client to produce really good content they're simply making link acquisition more difficult. From another angle, any SEO that doesn't focus on getting their client get the "best quality" links is doing them a great disservice...and having the best content makes this more easily attainable.

Even with a large budget to purchase high quality links (Matt Cutts please don't read this) it'll still be rather difficult if a client's website is merely a shallow online business card. And back onto the looping discussion of links and content, content and links...

**imported_Tekime** · 07-02-2007, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rustam

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.

These people have no idea what SEO is, and should be smacked with a fish.

**GeorgeB** · 07-02-2007, 09:38 AM

SEO really is ruining the SERPs though.

Just wrote about this: GeorgeBoone.com » Blog Archive » SEO - Ruining the Search Rankings Since 1999

**ebuystore** · 07-15-2007, 11:47 AM

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