At Cre8asite forums, one of the more amusing threads today comes from new member severeidaho. His state is infamous for government coverups and FBI goings-on, so why not some secretive SEO:
"Altogether you will find the JOB of SEO to be very Secretive. And since Search engines dont want you to know how to get Noticed, Top of the list, whos to know what works and what doesnt. TOP PR ratings in my theory were paid for "obviously". Top websites and webmasters these days Have The money to Pay for the Best search results. Where does that Leave the Average , minimum wage Webmaster when He/She wants to finally get noticed."
As fun as that is, there's more:
"Now I have found certain things to work. BUT question whether its worth the extra 20 visitors a day. One thing such as Hidden Keywords in your webpage. For example, if you have a Black Background, you would use a Black Text font for keywords you use for site and they would not be visible Unless you highlight the text. How Efficient is this method?"
Why is that so many people think of SEO as secretive? Once you take a step inside the online communities, it's easy to see how open, friendly and abiding the people really are. With so much free information available, there's really no need to view things this way.
BTW - Boneheaded move of the week... I forgot to tell our new employee (Kat) what PageRank was. She was doing some SEO reading and got a bit confused. I started to explain, but gave up and just sent her this link (an oldie, but a goodie). She's a smart cookie, though - I'm not worried.
Hi there, Thanks for Noticing my Topic. In my history of being a webmaster and Searching for the answer of How to truly Get OPtomized for search engines, I ran into many Bumps. "LoveTheCoat" is very right about Little being on forums and The Pro's hiding secrets. My understanding on this Type of Problem is that You either Pay the Money to have a Pro do it, Or you spend Soo many years figuring stuff out that eventually you get sick of the Process and give up. My solution, and I say Mine cause I really Believe in this. If you have a website, Use the Keywords, Description Meta Tags and Be sure Your Content Relates to Your website. I have found that Search Engines rely alot on Your content. The More I talk, Post about Storm Chasing, Weather Photography and everything else related to weather the more Visitors I find. I do want to stress the Importance of Having a Valid W3C Website. It took Months,Years,Days to Finally Get a Validated Website. There is alot of Interesting topics about line breaks, Alt tags, etc. If you dont know what validation means or even W3C, then the possibility is that Your website is not valid, especially if you designed your website from copy and paste code. I want to help all the people looking for Traffic. The only true advice I have is, Submit your Website to the Top 7 search Engines, Dont waste money submitting to Thousands, or FFa's. Your traffic will mostly come from Yahoo, Google, Entireweb, Aol, and various other engines. After you have submitted, Wait months and see what happens. Do a Link Popularity Test after every month, see how popular your getting. The good thing is there is always room to improve your website. I have not payed a dime for Traffic. Neither should you. Go out there and Win the traffic you deserve.
Sincerely: Gerrit aka SevereIdaho
https://www.severeidaho.com
No argument that it takes skills and dedication to get there, but it's not "secretive" or hidden. It just takes hard work and brains (and time - experience is a biggie in this field).
Why is that so many people think of SEO as secretive? Once you take a step inside the online communities, it's easy to see how open, friendly and abiding the people really are. With so much free information available, there's really no need to view things this way.
I dunno Rand... the best stuff is never posted on the forums and there certainly is a lot that the "pros" know that they do not share. Furthermore, the "pros" certainly have more tools available to them than the "minimum wage" webmasters.
But then again... that's just like everything else in life, and IMO, it shows the web is maturing. What once took a weekend of learning HTML to get you a 6 digit salary now requires a pedigree -- just like most other 6+ digit jobs...
There will always be new "pros" joining the field, but like the NBA, there's only so many slots open each year.