Aaron had a brilliant post yesterday on on Bad Advice that Sounds Good. He noted a few "white lies" of the SEO world that we continue to perpetuate. I agree with some of them wholeheartedly:
Create quality content. Why do I hate it? If you don't have much brand recognition higher quallity content will lose out to average content. Most people never talk about the social aspects of the web when saying to create quality content.
Create your website for users, not for search engines. Why do I hate it? Search is marginalizing many publishing business models. To pay for the costs of creating linkworthy content it makes sense to add a significant amount of lower cost highly monetized filler to a website.
I also want to add a few that I've found:
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Anybody can be a blogger
It's just not true - you have to be able to connect with an audience, write consistently interesting material, dedicate time in the beginning to the craft, despite the fact that no one's reading and find ways to make yourself stand out from the hundreds or thousands of other bloggers in your field. -
Don't plagiarize
Obviously, I wouldn't recommend that you steal content, but being succesful on the web is often about re-purposing ideas for content, technology, value, capitalization, branding, advertising and everything else that falls under the umbrella of web marketing. Steal an idea, improve it and make it appeal to an audience likely to link to it - you don't have to work hard, just smart. -
Making money in SEO is easy
Yeah, the salaries are fairly good in the established tech hubs of the US, and the consulting gigs can be very lucrative provided you have a reputation. For basement-SEO-types, affiliate revenue is still strong and MFA sites can earn a return, but all of this requires deep knowledge, insight and the will to work through the ugly times to get ahead. It seems like a cakewalk because there are some very smart, somewhat lazy folks making a great living, but to compete with them, you need the years of experience + trial and error to know where to expend the minimum effort for maximum return.
I have little doubt that SEOmoz has given out some bad advice over the years, either directly or through unclear references and it will always be something we have to work on.
I think the title of Aaron's post is a little off. I mean, "Create Quality Content" is not bad advice. It is probably better described as "incomplete advice." People who have good brand recognition should create quality content because all eyes are on them. The bad advice would be "Brand Recognition is Secondary to Quality Content." Maybe it's just a grammer / comprehension thing.
Okay -- I agree whole-heartedly that not everyone can be a blogger. It's frankly too much commitment for most people to do it effectively.
But -- "Don't Plagarize." That is good advice. There is a HUGE difference between stealing someone's content and taking an idea an running with it or sparking off of it. Too many people don't seem to know the difference.
I also disagree that creating your website for users is bad advice. If you aren't writing that "filler" for someone what good is it. Great -- it brings someone who doesn't care about your site to your site. Nope. you're dead wrong on this one. In the end it's about people. SEO just helps connect the people with the information.
Snippets like this are like sound bites that can be taken out of context in many ways and basically serve as nothing more than contrarian linkbait.
I think we sorely need to make a distinction between what I call "linkbait" and what others seem to think it is...
That said, I do believe that Aaron's entire point was right along the same lines, Lee. He's saying that sound bites like "create sites for users, not search engines" is a very, very poor idea, yet many of us (and many at the engines) continue to preach it.
"Create sites for users and not for search engines" does sound a bit like "If you (just) build it, they will come" or at least it could imply that if you just take it at face value.
Rand, I agree; it's absurd to advise people to build something for a technical environment while counseling them to wear blinders with respect to a major force in that environment.
I suspect, however, that what the search engines are saying ("create sites for users, not search engines") may be a partial statement; it certainly is not a clarified statement. What are they talking about? Auto-generated gibberish text? Auto-generated scraped text? Or pages someone built for an audience while -gasp!- casting an eye at optimization? To be honest, I've found it odd that an SEO would support the idea of creating sites for users, not search engines, because that is precisely at least part of what they do.
Again, it's absurd to advise people to build something for a technical environment while counseling them to wear blinders with respect to a major force in that environment. Unless, I guess, your entire service is about PPC.
(fixed typo)
The "make sites for users not search engines" is a fundamentally flawed statement, because users find sites through search engines, so by definition if you make a site for users you have to take in consideration how they're most likely to find it. You can't look at it in an independent vacuum, it's connected.
I commented in Aaron's blog about the importance of using keywords in titles, especially for new sites that only have a few keyword rich text links and want to start targeting some niche keyword phrases. In a vacuum users might enjoy more creative titles, but you'll make your site a lot harder to find if you use them. It's still very important to use targeted keywords in your both your title and header tags.
I think it's easy for SEO professionals to put too much stock in "tried and true" memes and not consider the changing face of the internet. You can launch a new blog and get it read. Maybe not get an absolute ton of traffic, but you can definitely get it noticed, read, and ranked even without brand recognition. You just have to be able to create what the aggregators and content syndicates are looking for.
This isn't the best example, but one that will sufficiently work. I launched a new blog called Stir Crazy Search Engine Marketing and Website Design ( https://www.acclivitymarketing.com/blog )on November 18, 2006 (ah scary stuff not ultra niche). It's been less then 15 days and It's already a WebProNews blog partner (ientry blog list https://www.ientry.com/bloggers.html ) with posts being syndicated on sites like: https://www.searchnewz.com/ (top story). The blog already ranks in the top 5 for a whole bunch of niche words (meta search engine industry, search engine industry competition, competition search engine industry, surfwax) and more importantly (this is not great, but it is considering the blog is less then 15 days old) ranks in the top 25 for "seo advice" and in the top 85 for "internet marketing blog", "search engine optimization blog", search engine marketing blog". So I believe you can get a new blog read, get it syndicated, and get it ranked without brand recognition with a lot of work and quality content.
Make sure you check out the comments on aaron's article. Things have been hot out of the gate, and yesterday Adam Lasnik threw his hat in the ring.
I think one of the points Aaron mistook is when he criticised people for making "ideal" comments.
More properly I think it's the case that oftentimes it's easier to discuss things in generic terms.
Partly because it's easier for people to try and relate to what's being said regarding their individual requirements - but also because few people are going to give exact and detailed information to an anonymous audience, without risking loss of competitive advantage.
2c.
"you don't have to work hard, just smart" that would have been a great tagline for this blog.
I'll say the same thing I wrote to Aaron: 'create quality content' is a good advice, if you explain what good content is and tell the person, seeking advice, which exactly content to create (tutorials, videos, tools, etc) for the particular website.
In essense, I think Aaron just didn't like everyone giving out advice to 'get links' and 'more content' without providing specifics. This is annoying as hell, but it doesn't make these tiny blops of information white lies or bad advice. Just incomplete advice.
On the other hand, you have noted some true bad advice. Blogging is hard work, requiring lots of effort, time and energy. It is same as another kind of work: put a lot of time into, little short-term output. Have to wait for a while before you start getting visitors, links, etc.
Taking an idea and shaping it your way is just a way to make content. Especially, if the source didn't make good of the idea. "Don't plagiarize" refers to blatantly copying content and you know that.
"SEO is easy money" is a myth, alright. It seems easy, when a guy comes out and Shoes you a Money check for 130k from AdSense. But it took years to learn the trade and create websites.
But when you have been here for 10 years, it sure is easy to make money :)
In essense, every job requires hard work. To get money, you need to work hard. The only way to cut the corner is to cheat and you'll be getting in trouble here.
So, I'd say that all your (and Aaron's) white lies and bad advice are about incomplete advice. Detailed advice helps, while just well-cut phrases stupefy and puzzle (though giving a chance to think about quality content and seek more info about it, of course).
Making money in SEO really is easy, but only after you have put in the time to learn. The same can be said of almost any profession though.
These are not White Lies, but these are the Facts which run parallel to all efforts made in Optimization. SEO is smart work rather than hard work, as you need not to do much, but you have to research much to do some thing productive.
Creating quality content is a phrase that needs a few details filled in. It has to have a purpose, and be matched up with a promotional plan. The two things need to work hand in hand.
Where this gets tricky is when you need to exploit the long tail. How do you create good content (or good enough content) for thousands of pages? This is a really tough question to answer.