Music selection to enjoy with this post: The Unforgiven (Metallica)
In October of 2007 I was standing in front of a full house at the Yahoo Sunnyvale headquarters. I was on a mission to try to explain, with very little actual evidence, that SEO is more than just site “optimization”. I could see what was coming down the pipeline loud and clear. SEO isn’t SEO anymore, it’s different. SEO (especially for enterprise-level sites) equals a damn good product.
Here’s a slide from the presentation:
See the point here? It’s the epic frenemy battle of SEOs vs. Search Engines that whittles the SEO techniques down to what eminently points to no other option but to have a great product. What is a great product? It’s a site that people want to go to, return to, share with their networks, email their friends, etc., (aka building natural links and “buzz”). Get it? Great content and natural links and buzz = the new SEO. But it’s not actually new, it just hasn’t always been adopted very well.
Until now. Remember what it’s like when an algorithm shift changes the rules of SEO? Of course you do.
Since this timeline I threw out there in 2007, not a lot has changed on the “spammy methods” side of things (and doesn’t that just tickle the “SEO is dead” funny bone). But wait, do you know what popular widely-preached tactics since 2007 are missing since this chart? C’mon, think Panda/Farmer update. In the current days of black-hats-gone-grey, what’s the spam tactic to be battled at this point?
If you’ve ever bothered to follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines or anything that Matt Cutts has ever said anytime in the last x years, you’ll see that you, my build-content-for-search-engines friends (I still love you, you tried), have had warnings sitting out there as clear as day. Might I show you a select few?
And I quote: “Great content has to be the foundation of any good site, because mediocre content tends not to attract exceptional links by itself. And if you’re trying to get exceptional links on really really crappy content, you’re going to be pushing uphill.” “You want to have a well-rounded site, and one of the best ways to do that is to have fantastic, interesting, useful content, great resources, great information, and then that naturally attracts the links. And then search engines want to reflect the fact that the web thinks that you are interesting or important or helpful.”
But I build exactly what people are looking for in search, how can that be bad?
There’s a difference between building content to attract your audiences and building content to attract search engines. But, your audiences are doing the searches in the search engines, right? So what is the difference? Someone asked me recently why ‘content-rich’ Suite101.com was on the Farmer update loser list. Here’s exactly what I sent back to him in an email:
- Its obviously created for *search traffic*, meaning the company goal isn’t to invest everything into creating something rich and meaningful for their audiences, but instead the primary goal is to create content for search traffic, THEN maybe throw a little investment into the rest of the site experience. That's a Google no-no.
- When there's "shallow content", the site likely isn’t the best resource for anyone researching something through search. Do you want your search results for how to cope with your depression to be this article plastered with ads from Shauntee Jackson (mother of two rambunctious toddlers in Ft. Worth, TX) who even says in the article "I'm no expert in depression" or would you rather have a site that not only has experts dedicated to helping you learn about and cope with your depression issues, but also provides hotlines, medical information, community support and resources, maybe even tools for diagnosis or self-treatment options.
Get what I mean? Suite101, like every client that says their number one company goal is to get search traffic, is doing it wrong. Their number one goal needs to be providing value to audiences. Which in turn provides valuable content for search results. And on top of that, it provides a cleaner, less spammy and more useful web overall. Leave it to Google.
Learn from past mistakes
You’ve heard about the “quality content” mantra, right? If you’ve been in SEO for ten minutes you’re preaching it. So where did we all go so wrong? How can an entire innovative, on-the-ball SEO industry have let this go right over our heads? How can the warnings of the Do No Evil Silicon Valley giant have been so blatantly ignored as if nothing would ever come of them?
If you sit back and think about it (and if you’re old enough), you might get an eerie sense of those dotcom bubble burst days when millions of investor dollars were thrown into internet companies with no staff, no experience, no plan, and only existed as an overblown trend-following idea on paper. Some people had some new ideas and made some money online and all of a sudden everyone’s building online businesses, with dreams of (being) sugardaddies dancing in their heads, forgetting a very basic, fundamental core of a good long-term business model – providing actual value to their audiences. Shallow much?
The 2011 spin on quality content
This is the deal. We know that search engines want to provide sites that people (aka audiences) find valuable. We know that they use signals like social mentions and influence, and clickthroughs from search, and potentially dozens of other buzz-measuring indicators that go into determining if a site is something that people are really into or just some shallow content hanging around the web trying to feign legitimacy like Snooki at a Mensa convention. How to be one of those sites that people are into, that seeps of naturally linkable, sharable, emailable, tell all your friends, come hither, and come hither again content is fodder for another article. But as you create any content online ask yourself this question: “Self? How will this be more valuable to my audiences than what my competitors are doing?” If you are lucky enough to not have any competitors, then just take that part off the sentence.
But I don’t have to tell you that, because if you’re listening…
…Google already told you so.
Stay tuned for my next post on how this update doesn't just change an algorithm, it changes the web.
xo, Laura
Really? Again with the "content is king" stuff? First of all, search spans so many subjects, some are not worth or demand quality content. Having a cool iPhone app that attracts loads of natural links is not the same as having an insurance leads site – who is going to link to your boring insurance tips? This is not 2002 anymore…
Secondly, try searching Google (US) for phrase such as "computer crashes for no reason" – not a single relevant or well written result unless you count 9 year old forum post as well written and informative. And yes, eHow is there too, and I bet they spend extra for quality well written content L
I think you are on the right track here. Content is King.... if you are searching for content. But what if you're searching for something else?
That's the weird thing about SEO (and web marketing in every facet). Even if people aren't searching for content, it's still (mostly) king.
Well... I think we could go deeper into what content is... many times we just think of written text as "content", but what about images, infographics, tools, what if I create a killer app to calculate insurance quotes and put it on my website (linked to the app store of of course)? if its good enought people will link to my boring insurance tips.
The lead gen page is the content, and the whole sales process is the product. It goes from completing the form, to reviewing instant quotes, to customer service throughout the buying process.
If you've actually got a suprerior product, it's reasonable to think that you can invest in some marketing and get long term SEO benefits. If you don't have a superior product, you're going to have a hard time. But then again, do you deserve to be ranked high if you've got an inferior product? Obviously not, so you shouldn't be surprised when you get hit by algorithm changes.
We all know a blender site that has over 23,000 links.
I (also mentioned below) have linked to toilets several times. I also might recommend my plumber via Twitter to someone, or post a link to a charter bus service on my Facebook page. Boring stuff indeed. But 1) These boring sites exist in their boring verticals online where all of their other boring competitors are also getting little to no link or social love - because who loves stuff like blenders or toilets online right? Maybe.
There's a relativity factor to bring into play here. Search engines arent comparing my local plumber's site with an iPhone app site (unless maybe that iPhone app has to do with local plumbers then maybe there's some connection - maybe). Also, (I'm sure you know) search engines arent just looking at links. As you mentioned, this isnt 2002 anymore. ;)
Also sentence #2 & 3: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-writing-useful-articles-that-readers-will-love/
No content no matter how good can get lot of high quality links on its own. What get you links is your authority in your niche. So say if a great article on keyword research is published on some anonymous blog instead of sites like 'search engine land' then its possibility of acquiring links decreases by several folds as it doesn't get the level of exposure and authority required to qualify for such links. I need my own network of target audience and potential linking partners to demonstrate my authority in the first place.Network can be industry events (conferences, seminars, workshops, trade shows, training sessions), industry forums, industry blogs, meet-up groups, social networks and other online/offline communities. So if i don't have that network then i can't demonstrate my authority and without authority my great content wont'get viral and get the links I desire. To develop my own network I need to develop relationship with my target audience and potential linking partners. So everything boils down to relationship building.
Useful unique contents + Good relations (with linking partners) = High quality links.
Many marketers put lot of stress on developing good contents but miss the 'relationship' part of the equation and then wonder why their Good contents are not acquiring the links they deserve and then declare white hat seo doesn't work.
"No content no matter how good can get lot of high quality links on its own. What get you links is your authority in your niche. So say if a great article on keyword research is published on some anonymous blog instead of sites like 'search engine land' then its possibility of acquiring links decreases by several folds as it doesn't get the level of exposure and authority required to qualify for such links. I need my own network of target audience and potential linking partners to demonstrate my authority in the first place"
I sort of agree with this statement, but there are exceptions. If you submit your post to sites like Sphinn, on a regular basis (if you are churing out quality content on a regular basis), you will eventually start to become noticed and people will be more likely to share/reshare your original blog posts/articles. It takes time to get established but the people you meet along the way and the connections you make, will make you stronger online than if you found a way to bypass the early stages of developing your online identity.
You have just reinforced what i said. 'sphinn' is one of the platform where you can demonstrate your expertise to build authority among your target audience and potential linking partners. So you admit that you need a network/paltform to build authority in the first place.
What you are overlooking in your article is that Google doesn't actually have the ability to evaluate the quality of content.
This is why there is so much collateral damage in the Panda update. And it's a rather weighty penalty for something that is based purely on correlation. Scrapers can literally go and target Panda update casualty sites that are making unique content, scrape that content and outrank the content creator. And then they tell people "Just make good content" as if that is the cure.
Sorry, I have to disagree here.
If the scraper sites where actually going in and changing the time stamp of the content to something earlier than the original, then this would be problem. The "Panda Update" targeted these scraper sites (content farms) as well to somewhat solve this problem.
Regardless, if you keep a close eye on the search results for your content, you should be able to find those who have "scraped" your content and re-posted it without permission and are outranking you as the original content writer. Simple fix, report this to Google. This is a DMCA violation. See link to video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LsB19wTt0Q
Scraper sites and content farms are different. There are actually plenty of scraper sites doing really well right now. Timestamps don't do anything to prevent scrapers outranking authors either. All you have to do to copy and outrank someone is to give your copy more weight.
My apologies, but I probably should have used the word "and" between scraper sites and content farms to differentiate a little better. That is besides the point though.
The point is that there should be no reason for a crappy "scraper site" outranking your original content because "it has more weight to the copy." If it does and you find out (which if your content is that important and easily searchable you should notice), that is a direct violation of your online media copyright. Report it. Solve it. Issue closed.
Btw, yes, timestamps do work (if they aren't already removed at time of post) in distinguishing who the original website is between duplicate content instances. Once again, refer to the above. If a site really is outranking you for your own content, you should be noticing this immediately and take care of it.
I loved it when Google implied linking to quality pages might improve your own ranking. Sure enough, a lot of the spam & chaff on the web now links to Wikipedia pages. Guess what spammers: it didn't help you rank at all, you simply helped Google work out what quality is by linking to it. Priceless.
Oh dear opticsplanet. You've brought out the *sigh* in me.
A search engine with some of the smartest geeks on the planet working all day and night for 13+ years on providing quality results and that even has a internal group called Search Quality certainly has the ability to evaluate the quality of a site and a page. As far as the actual content - it's not that Googlebot is reading that article about depression and going "Shauntee who? What does she know about depression anyway?". But think about all of the other potential signals. Have you read The Wisdom of Crowds? Cutts has. And I know you know that all those search geeks are using any quality measures they can to determine the quality (and originality, original author, etc) of the content, even if they can't actually "read" the content in the way we do.
/sigh :)
There's no crowd if you don't rank, which means no wisdom of the crowd, which means Google has no idea if your content is good or not. Which would mean even if somehow Google does employ "wisdom of the crowds" (I think they've done a poor job up to now, but not entirely their fault. +1 should change that) 99% of the content on the web has no crowd, and therefore no wisdom.
Links will help you rank, not your content. And if some other site scrapes your content and gets those links, guess who ranks?
I'm very torn on this. First off, this blog feels like a clip show - I was all excited for a brand new episode, and instead I found out that it was just a rehash of previous content with a slight spin to it. The "content is king because Google says so" stuff has been played out for me. I don't feel entirely comfortable taking Google's word, because Google's goal is to influence the web to be how they want it to be - not that I disagree with them. Ultimately it's a lot easier to say "you don't rank as well because your content isn't as good!" than it is to say "your content doesn't rank as well because your SEO sucks."
Of course, if your content isn't as good, Google's got just the solution for you. Bid on the keyword you want to rank for and you'll pay on a per click basis for that traffic - and if you bid high enough, you'll show up even higher than you would if you "had the best content."
The real problem with this theory that content is what matters is that content only matters if the linkerati actually linked any and all good content. The truth? No, that doesn't happen. I could write the "best" content about how to buy a hot tub on my commercial site selling hot tubs, and nobody will link to it. You get links by being part of a clique or by offering something of value in return for them.
I'm not saying that anyone should post drivel, I think that anything you want to rank for you should try and write the best content you can. With that said, if the best content always rose to the top, there would be no need for SEO and English majors would be among the highest paid people in the world.
Alas, the average English major can't find a job and many SEOs collect over six figures in salary without any real ability to write.
I don't buy it, and I especially don't buy that you should listen to Google for ways to rank. There are good reasons to listen to what Google says not to do, but I don't think Google is in our court when it comes to what to do. If they were, they'd stop spamming the SERPs with their products, like Google Places and Google Books.
It sounds like you missed the point. If you're selling hot tubs, is your site the best option for the user? Lowest prices, best service, warrantees, etc?
You can't make up for a lack of reputation in any of these areas by publishing text content related to hot tubs. If you have the reputation and write the content, it will be easier to link to. On the other hand, if you don't have the reputation, the content will be seen as questionable.
This isn't a bad thing AT ALL. This is the way it should be.
How does a newcomer gain that reputation if their content is automatically viewed as questionable? How do people find that content if it doesn't rank?
The obvious answer is to build a good backlink profile, but then your success or failure is in the hands of established players in your niche and has little to do with the actual quality of your content. That's not a pleasant position to be in and would seem to go against Google's suggestion to "write for your users".
I don't think I missed the point. How does Google know if I'm the best source for hot tubs? How does Google know if any site is the best source for hot tubs? How are they scoring them? You mentioned some but... toll-free phone support? Return policy? Live chat? Selection? Product reviews? Product images? Store reviews? How does Google even score that such to give someone a #1 ranking?
It doesn't (maybe it does on GShopping, but that thing makes no sense to me.) It just counts backlinks and analyzes some on-site factors which are not your price, service, warranty, or return policy.
"It will be easier to link to" by whom? Who is linking to the hot tub site? The hot tub blog? Guess what - the hot tub blog sells links, they don't link out for free. If you want to be "white hat" they'll entertain an agreement where you send them some cleaning products, or heck a hot tub, and they'll "review" it for you and add some links to your site.
Google's advice on SEO works for fashionable industries and for established players. If you are new to the scene, dig further. Don't go black hat, but content is not king.
I have been hearing this moaning for years now: this nich is boring, that nich is boring so there is no scope of getting links. The bottomline is that there is no such nich which is boring or intellectually primitive. It's all about your perception. Thing which may look boring to you, might be of great interest for someone. Here is a link to a thread on seochat forum i wrote back in March of 2010 about how to develop links for a plumbing site. You are only limited by your creativity when it comes to link building.
I checked out World Toilet Organization and Sustainable Sanitation, and am not finding any do-follow links to commercial sites, and very few external links at all on high PageRank pages.
I'm hoping to be proven wrong. What blog post are you writing to get a high value link from these organizations? Obviously you can "support them" via donations, be it cash, products, service, but what content are you going to have on DanthePlumber.com so that you get a link from the World Toilet Organization?
I must agree with SEOHimanshu... everything, also toilet can have their ideas for link baiting / social sharing
https://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4390000/newsid_4394200/4394226.stm
https://www.oddee.com/item_96908.aspx
https://www.karawynn.net/mishacat/toilet.html
https://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/09/art
Just few examples :)
I can say with all honesty, I have linked to a toilet before - ther's one I've been wanting for some time now and I've been ogling it and telling people about it in one of my old Yahoo 360 blog posts, in social networks, and I've even had discussions about the toilets at Google online, all with links.
We all know a blender site with over 23,000 links...
"I checked out World Toilet Organization and Sustainable Sanitation, and am not finding any do-follow links to commercial sites, and very few external links at all on high PageRank pages."
This is becuase no plumbing site has thought of getting links from them.
"I'm hoping to be proven wrong. What blog post are you writing to get a high value link from these organizations? Obviously you can "support them" via donations, be it cash, products, service, but what content are you going to have on DanthePlumber.com so that you get a link from the World Toilet Organization?"
Publish a research paper on sanitation in your area with the help of subject matter expert or market research agency.(Gianluca has already given you some examples). Send a press release to the relevant organizations and local news paper agencies and get links. Sounds like a lot of work for a local plumbing business. But then link building has never been easy and cheap. You can cut corners and buy some cheap links from dodgy sites with the perfect anchor text. But then your site is always just one click away (report paid links) from being doomed.
Are we all forgetting that time comes into play here as well? Developing a good brand and a quality product/service is like an child developing over its life. By creating a good solid brand, quality product and targeting your content towards your target demographic takes time. Over that time, if you REALLY do have have all of those qualities the rest should fall into place.
Sorry I don't elaborate more as I am a bit of a time crunch... :-)
I created seveal landing pages with as much relevant content for the user. I looked at it from the users point of view. Yes I did SEO it. I also looked at all the comptitors who did not put the smae information as did. After creating these landing pages, I submitted an updated XML sitemap in GWT. Within 2 weeks I was ranking. Matt Cutts says great content should be the foundation of a website because it will attract natural link building. I know my home page has links to it, but not my new landing pages. I optimized for my best perfroming keywords in Adwords.
100% Agreed!!! When you built landing pages you have many option to link it , and also this will make sure that your site never treat as a sapmmy site, more links with more content as well as more URl, it gives you great results.
Purity does work on straight content, and Google only became the poster child for that concept. Back in the late 1980s and early 90s when we were charging users for connection time by the minute (at rates of up to $48/hr on business sites and $5/hr on consumer sites), content encouraged users to stay online. That content took the shape of MIDI music, forum threads where staff took contrary positions to the hot button topics of the day (call it forumbait) or even text features that are widgitized today like sports scores or astrology.
We have a number of sites that are essentially fallow. We don't maintain them. We paid quality writers some years ago and optimized the sites with the basics that existed then. And we crushed the long tail, but also would run big hits sometimes--an early review of Netflix drawing tens of thousands or being one of 2 dozen cites on Wikipedia for Michael Jackson's Thriller.
It's a process, but the effects are extraordinarily long-lasting. Even though we killed off 90% our content network, we kept the pages that still generate hundreds of dollars each year and have for years with deprecated code and no maintenance.
My last work task of today was preparing a monthly report for a client that is a church. They look at bounce and exit rates and know the difference. They also shift content as necessary, engage in social media and have been trained to understand segmentation so that a StumbleUpon or Facebook visitor is examined separately. Yep, Stumble visitors still bounce. :D
The bottom line is that even this relatively modest parish scores huge and internationally by publishing its sermons. Is the minister a quality source? Debating that is irrelevant. I know that they consistently get visitors from far outside their "service area". And I know that those sermons have been posted to social media, emailed and treated by the readers as quality content.
It's not ecommerce, but this church is certainly fulfilling its mission statement, no pun intended. And they're doing that on the backs of a WordPress install with custom graphics, organic SEO on the first level pages and actively maintaining a blog and sermons.
Content does win. I'm with Laura 100%,. I can shortcut building a new house too, but you don't want to be sitting inside that house during a horrible storm.
Sounds great in theory but they boosted eHow and not suite101? suite101 had way more original content meant for the user. I think it's funny how everyone try's to decipher Matt Cutts every word, a lot of it is just fluff for the PR.
Yap Google told us so… I live the time lines and the fact that there is no Spam pr alternate to a great product… a great product is a great product you cannot beat that.
I actually learn how to write the content that people love and like to share/pass the link juice so I think I really know how much time taking this whole process is… and as compare to this its hell easy to get a link through any black hat technique but questions remains the same so what if you are on the top of the Google listing for all your desired key phrases? you will stay a shit if you didn’t have what people want so In order to win search engine one have to win users and users are real they want content for themselves that give value to them and make them feel good.
Great write-up!
Good post straight o the point...
My feedback for people who still are confused... focus on:
1. Making QUALITY OPTIMIZED content.
2. Making QUALITY links.
3. Making you site social.
4. Making your Site usaer friendly architecture/onsite wise.
Most other SEO building blocks will form around it, you can spend all day reading SEO posts about Panda or what ever other update they are pumping out each month but in reality if you focus on making your own site full of quality links and quality content you will be fine how can Google peanalize you ever for that?
Laura, really liked your post, when I was starting in SEO I used to focused too much only on the technical aspects, I even forgot that there were people behind every website online. The roll of an SEO these days is quite different than before, our involvement in content creation, social media, CRO, analytics, etc., takes us much farther than just the tech stuff, which I think gives our profession more value and makes our jobs a lot more enjoyable. Thanks Laura! PS. Loved the music selection.
#like
Hi Laura,
Very interesting read about SEO. It starts off a little confusing but you make some valid points about the white hat way. I like the video and quote from Matt Cutts, who all SEO enthusiasts should follow,
“Great content has to be the foundation of any good site, because mediocre content tends not to attract exceptional links by itself. And if you’re trying to get exceptional links on really really crappy content, you’re going to be pushing uphill.” “You want to have a well-rounded site, and one of the best ways to do that is to have fantastic, interesting, useful content, great resources, great information, and then that naturally attracts the links. And then search engines want to reflect the fact that the web thinks that you are interesting or important or helpful.”
Many spammers are taking advantage and exploiting SEO. In doing so, they are making quite a bit of money in an unethical way. For now it’s quick money and eventually the Google’s algorithms will be able to stop these spammers from making money, hopefully.
One point you made that I want to emphasize is regarding the 2011 spin on quality content. Search engines want to provide sites that people valuable not sites that have spam all over it. If you plan on starting a company that cares about it’s brand, white hat is the way to go. The content must be quality made for people and not take advantage of search engines.
In doing so, you will not only provide the service you need for your customers, but also an ethical example for any online business building their brand.
-Marcus
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Very well put, you touch on a lot of great points. I have always interpreted it like this: In the whole scheme of things you can only control so much as an SEO, the rest is up to Google and how your site will index. Being able to utilize those controlled variables starts with good quality content. SEO is about longevity, establishing your site for the long run. The only way to accomplish this is to provide your viewers with resourceful content.
SEO is something of a game of course. The players are all people, so understanding and predicting their behavior is key to strategy.
The search companies are there to serve their customers so their strategy is to play to consumer demands, both searchers and advertisers to get the best balance that leads to utility and profit.
Web site owners are looking for both traffic and turning traffic into customer action.
Customers are looking for products and services to meet their needs. SEO can take up many strategies.
There is simply the technical level which operates at the current truth of ranking and the behavior connected to ranking. Whatever it takes to get rank is what you do. The truth of this will change drastically whenever the tech changes and if the technical means are not in line with search objectives, its likely they will change. The cost of changing your tactics is the risk here.
There is the approach that tries to second guess the search engines by working on their motives rather than their technical truth. You are looking to create the kind of site search engines thing people want to find. Since human nature changes more slowly than computer code its a safer bet... if you can guess correctly and if the search engines manage to achieve their goals as well as you do. There is less risk in the strategy changing but perhaps more in getting your tactics to be effective.
Finally there is the organic, build it and they will come type strategy. Here you don't sweat so much what the search engine is doing but assume that if you have what people want, and if the engines do their job helping people find what people want, then they will find you. Your only real risk here is that the engines aren't good at their job or you have misjudged the customers badly or you have made it artificially hard for anyone to find your content.
Clearly SEO, white hat or otherwise is going to want to employ any and all techniques that have the best measure of success. The debate is over which is most effective and worth the time invested. Logic says the better the engines get at their job, the more likely the latter strategies pay off. Of course SEO agents don't have control over site content so agenda #3 falls both in and out of a consultants domain. Companies think they know what they want to sell and how to sell it already, what they usually want is technical help, not domain help. Is product really the domain of SEO? If so then does SEO simply become good marketing plus the technical know how not to make it hard for engines to find you?
Totally agreed Google keeps on informing us about the SEO guidelines, they upload the webmaster videos where Matt Cutts keeps on informing us about the algo changes, etc. and as SEOs we have to keep an eye for detail and read in between the lines. SEO is beyond rankings and is about quality content and quality web presence.
As SEOs we understand that but what is important is that we have an additional duty to educate and inform the client about the same because as a layman the website owners sometimes have a very different notion about SEO and that is where the problem lies. Google does its bit by informing us, we as SEOs have to spread that word among website owners and bring them at the same thought frequency level.
I think what I wrote on
https://www.seomoz.org/blog/white-hat-seo-it-fing-works-12421#jtc138303 and
https://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-question-about-the-reputation-of-the-seo-industry-12060
is applicable here too.
While I wholeheartedly back the long term trend in favour of the best products, Google has been saying such things for years. Probably about a decade! If you were to have focussed only on the 'long-term game' of creating the best possible product (admirable as that is) and resisted the urge to get your hands dirty with cheap SEO tactics, you'd have a great product, but you'd have lost out heavily in profits and cash flow for years.
At the end of the day, you have to make hay while the sun shines. SEOs would have done well to begin moving more of their efforts into the development of one or two core, high quality brands over the last couple of years, and they'll reap the benefits as Google makes further updates. But until the grey-hat 'tricks' stop working altogether, there's little wrong with devoting some of your time to them.
Agreed! Although, as you know, all your eggs in one grayish basket without a strong content strategy behind it is just not a good plan.
I was on a panel last year where everyone on the stage with me went over link building tactics. I was the only one who didnt talk about creating links. When I mentioned in the Q&A that artificial link building is not a great long term tactic (we already had reputation management companies coming to us saying their link building methods are losing ground) - when I said that I got a good laugh and a hug. A hug! They said "Laura, that's sweet. But link building works." Touche. That made sense. But anyone who's had all their eggs in the link-building-for-SEO-results basket without regard to the content-building-for-audiences basket may be singing a little different tune this year (Metallica?). :D
I'm not sure how anyone could have not seen this coming, let alone the entire SEO community. Now, granted, I am new to the community, but I've been doing web content and design for a long, long time, and this update has been obvious from a decade back. I think the only thing those of us on the content side have been wondering is when Google would feel comfortable enough with their new algorithm to sort the semantic web mechanically.
But really, this has always been part of Google's guidelines. From the begining they told webmasters to build good, quality content aimed at people. Anyone who didn't see this coming has either not been paying attention or wilfuly ignoring the warnings.
LOL I guess I have an un-believer or 2 amongst you all. Have a look at this techcrunch article.
https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/google-inadvertently-classifies-google-places-as-a-content-farm-and-removes-from-search-index/
Well as far a I remember from the early days of SEO, it's always been about content. Content is king (remember?) So not sure why people think there is such drama about having quality content on sites. Deal with it, make your site quality, not rubbish, and all should be fine.
Nice Post Laura. Thanks for information and examples - you guy are awesome.
SEO has definitely evolved over the years, and we have had to adapt to Google algorythms accordingly reflecting Users' journey or need of information. It is key for anyone dealing with the maintenance of a website or the creation of a new website to stress on SEO but balance with the internal needs and expectations of your commercial needs and business resources. After all the acronym itself by stating Optimization means something will have to give. But, paying attention to content should be the business standard in order to have a fair and valuable/unique presentation of your products or services --as long as the list of keywords are incorporated from your data analysis for most current keyword search volumes.
Im currently ongoing through the process of reviewing/revamping the content on our eCommerce and its a step in an ongoing process, but also we had to allocate first the time to invest internally in the resources to rewrite content --which not only needs Marketing but potentially a copywriter, people to update the website etc, but we know results are guaranteed.
In conclusion is SEO dead? Maybe dormant at times ...
u guys seems very expert,
view my blog and plz suggest me what should be done 4 more traffic.
blog here, www.infoheaps.com
Thank God you wrote this article! I used to do sales for a tech company that had a website development division -- and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. That's because I instinctively knew what you were saying here -- that essentially "content is king" and a well-developed website that actually creates value for the user should be the primary focus, and nothing else.
But anyone who has spent time trying to sell services like these knows that this is a marketplace filled with noise, skullduggery, smoke and mirrors and dubious claims. Many companies I've seen are in it for the quick buck, and care not a whit about a client's long-term marketing and success. And this seemingly simple notion of understanding a client's unique needs and building the most appropriate site to help them is often lost.
I spent all my time spinning my wheels, thanks to a management team that couldn't define our product offering, and a staff that was more worried about being "artists" and making cute looking sites. And anytime they did try to talk SEO, two of the guys in the department were always fighting over what it meant, and what the best tactics were. We were too understaffed to even do meaningful SEO work, and often times our guys dropped back and punted back to the clients, because they didn't know the clients' subject matter, and left it to them to write their own content. And that hardly worked, because we dealt with lots of small businesses whose owners didn't have the time to write copy, and if they did - it sucked.
Meantime, I was under pressure to sell, make my sales quota and reel in clients. I was up against dozens upon dozens of companies that were selling all kinds of notions of SEO, at all different price points, with all kinds of promises. It was a crowded, congested, confusing marketplace, rife with con artists, smooth talkers and promise-makers of all stripes. Not easy when you're trying to make a living selling web services.
I also suspect that there are just some clients who simply will not benefit from an SEO campaign, no matter how hard you try. For example, how do you do anything meaningful for a local Realtor in a city where there are some 5,000-plus Realtors, and many of them have websites? Page One only takes so many entries, and the lucky few might get some attention. The rest of those Realtors are pretty much screwed.
For others, SEO may not even be relevant. Is it more important to launch the website of a specialty wood/lumber company to the top of Google results for mesquite, Ipe and cherry wood, or should you focus on a site that showcases the product with lots of imagery? Or split it down the middle?
My experience trying to sell SEO has made me a hardened cynic, and I am skeptical that this mad race to try to top search engine results is even worthy of the effort. You'd better be in it for the long haul if you're going to do it at all, and you'd better be focused on creating a site that is user-friendly and informative, otherwise forget it. And frankly, a strong and informational website should be but one component of a more sophisticated and multi-pronged marketing effort anyway.
Always have followed the white hat methods. Thanks for your post.
If people had kept in mind what the ultimate goal of search engines was from the very beginning, to return the highest quality and most relevant information possible, no good writers would be in trouble right now. However, creating the most thoughtful and interesting content in the world means nothing if nobody ever finds it. Google's still a robot, and as long as googlebot can't tell a good website at a glance like we can, gray hat methods like link spamming will continue to be a problem. If it truly didn't work anymore, people wouldn't be doing it.
I look forward to the day when the best writers, the most well thought-out content, and the coolest web pages dominate the top of the search results regardless of how many backlinks, Twitter followers, or SEO dollars you have.
It starts off a little confusing but you make some valid points about the white hat way.
Interesting and useful post. I was however somewhat disappointed that there were no hints about how Google detects low-quality or shallow content. Now, here's one tip: Grammar and spelling. I suddenly experienced a sudden surge in the number of customers after Panda (My line of work is website localization and multinational SEO). In this case, these are non-English companies whose English pages suddenly had dropped like rocks, even though the original site (in German, french, etc.) staid stable. Almost all had resorted to machine translation or low-quality translators, and their pages were plagued with doubtful grammar and many spelling mistakes. The results were close to miraculous, after cleaning up the translation mess in just a few days they recovered their lost rankings...
I hope Google farms out Panda soon to the rest of the word, it will keep me busy for quite a while.... ;)
In the meantime, if somebody want to check out how Panda impacts your localization efforts, check out the post I wrote on that subject at https://www.seo-translator.com/website-localization-impacted-by-new-google-algorithms/
Nice Post Laura. Thanks for the valuable information with good examples. I am eager to see your next post. :)
Unique content is king in SEO. I think all SEOs have ever heard this sentence during work experience. I have that much experience to make it 200% true. I have developed too many landing pages on my service related website. I never Google or take help of related articles to create content. I open word & create content what I know. I know that, I am not 100% expert with my current English writing skills but, with 100% unique style of writing & derived from my mind. I get high page rank of specific landing page. I have made one exp. on my 4 landing pages. I developed very unique content [in terms I write for it what I know...Right or wrong?? I don't know] & derived content with help of various ref. articles. I observed great ranking jump with unique one as well as 2 to 4 page rank with very less link building. Other side, content with derived from ref. site not getting that much exposure in search engine.
I have very clear logic & thinking: Google or any search engine must in house that kind of tool which is comparing content across web. If you are unique so, you will get rewards in any sector. SEO have same rules. Why forum post index very fast compare to our websites. On forum post there is not observation of content. We are not focusing to create content with defined logic. We will post our content or suggestion what we think...So, now you are posting very unique one...Because, you are not taking help of any articles to give answer of question.
I may be wrong but, this is my strong experience & observation.
The key here is content, more specifically high quality interesting content on a well constructed site that has been designed with both userability and accessibility in mind. Ok, sometimes it is hard to get links but this can be overcome in so many ways (user generated content e.g. product forums, reviews, galleries or whatever). Spam is and has always been a short term strategy which is fine if you want short term business with the possible losses in the long term.
To say Google warned of this is stating the obvious, to quote Google:
Focus on the user and all else will follow. (https://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html)
Oh yes all the focus has to be on the user
"Content Is king But The User Is The Emperor"
https://blog.webpro.in/2010/12/power-lies-in-hands-of-people-user-in.html
Good post for those new to SEO/confused about the update. But on a practical level, Google has been saying a lot of things for a long time and it's impossible to keep ahead of all of them. We also know that some of what they say simply isn't true, and in my opinion is designed to shape users into interacting with the web in particular ways. - Jenni
Great post, thanks for sharing.
These days, advices on writing great content that audiences will find useful have risen sharply, but i toured great posts from great sources around the web, and i didn't find one that explains what is great content for users (in google eyes).
Someone has the answer?
Glad you asked seyah25!
After another post or two here I'm going to get into creating content for audiences instead of for search engines. You could also check out Vanessa Fox's book Marketing in the Age of Google - it might be of interest.
From what I have seen with seo's that i have collaborated with, been aquantances of, or know just via the internet. The best combination seems to be a lot of WHITE HAT mixed in with grey & black. The results of that kool-aid seem to work very well. I wouldn't recommend it for certain clients but some it would work (pending genre). Would love to get Rand's opinion on this.....
Tony
Rand is a "purist" white hat. He doesn't advocate any gray/black at all.
I agree that Rand is a purist, but I would like his opinion on it. I think Rand is a SEO VISIONARY that is brilliant and benevolent all in one ;~) But my point is that I see SEO's (reputable SEO's) doing grey & black as an a la' carte to the main course of WHITE and it is working.
Problem is, how long is that going to work? I've seen so many SEO's try and do that in the past and it has caught up with them at one point or another. I am all about long-term success and if something is considered a "black" or "grey" area I stay away as much as I can.
Rand has no hat (poor Rand). Remember he runs a SEO tools company, he's not doing SEO.
There is little business benefit to him using his platform to advocate grey or black hat. Being an advocate of white hat gives him and SEOmoz much more status and connectedness in the high level Search community:
The guys from Bing and Google don't stop by if you advocate grey or black hat...
Big Brands like to know they are in safe clean hands...
Investors don't like anything with a sheen of grey...
What works for Rand and SEOmoz is now not exactly the same as what works for an individual SEO
Fair statements, and I agree. But I also think it applies to many more people than me. Google is a HUGE acquirer in the startup space (and many other acquirers look long + hard at spam, too). If you play there, you shouldn't touch black/gray hat as it will hurt your acquisition odds. Black/gray hat also builds no value outside of search - if your customers or the web as a whole becomes more socially driven or evolves to a new platform, it's like you've just spammed everyone on MySpace - good luck with that.
I won't argue that black hat works; I'll just argue again and again that it doesn't work as well, long term (and sometimes even short term) as white hat inbound marketing. More than anything else, I think it's a lack of creativity that leads folks to black hat, but if there's one thing life's taught me, it's that nothing worth having comes easy. The hard work that takes time, brainpower, resources and grit is how you win the trophies worth fighting for. Web marketing is no different.
Well said Rand !
I see this fairly frequently. Companies that have been using white hat SEO tactics get incredibly frustrated when they see their competitors using black hat tactics and winning the SEO battle because of it. It's very disheartening to see the spammers succeed. But you have to stick to white hat all the way. In the long run (and the long run could be a year or more), the site that stayed the white hat course is going to come out on top. All the black hat spammers eventually fall away.
Couldn't agree more with that comment. I've seen a lot of people panic when they see competitor's climbing the ranks and want to get their results just as quick.
Glad to see this kind of update, hope they keep them coming. I haven't seen much discussion on how this may affect googles own bottom line. After all, many of these sites are made for adsense. I wonder if this is why G seems slow in reacting to these content farming sites.
I think the point is that there is a difference in philosophy.
Either you think that individual pieces of the puzzle, like SEO or PPC etc, will make you money on a mediocre product (and they certainly can) or you think that your whole product should be optimised
The last few hundred years of marketing certainly show that you can polish crap and sell it to people but I think that a) thats slowly becoming more difficult as people use social to form opinions of brands and b) some marketers are getting tired of selling rubbish when we have educated ourselves to see how much better it could be
Snooki is not going to like this post
It's alarming just how simple the principal is: it's been the core of on-the-ground marketing for almost two decades (after they stopped advertising the housing benefits of asbestos) and each one of us had this feeling in the back of our heads that this would happen. Product is King and the virtual is finally becoming the mirror of the physical whereby standard marketing techniques are jumping into virtual best practices. It's true SEO is a now quaint term, what we do is vast and gathering speed.
Thanks for gathering everything at one place.
According to you what will be the pattern a new website owner should follow. Can you please tell us in step by step or if there is any such post here than kindly tell us link of that,
Enjoyed your article and looking forward for next as well.
Thanks Lalit. I'm going to do some posts on creating content for audiences soon. Hopefully its helpful :)
Glad to get back your reply (as that was my first comment here)
Looking forward for your posts.
The future is Business Optimizer (but that anacronym sucks ><)
Personally Im getting sick of being drafted in to do SEO on sites when SEO is the last on the long list of things they need done, but I don't really know how to break the cycle at the moment
don't you mean that acronym smells? ;)
stinks?
Yes a product is great but in reality, some content no matter how good it is, is not linkable.An SEO/internet marketer job is to promote the product/service/website and not to create the content.
Mmm... sorry but I have to disagree.
What you are describing is - honestly - the unique real true "SEO is Dead" fact.
An SEO cannot think to himself anymore just as a technical SEO. Yes, it is the basis, but it is not enough anymore... and it is so since the concept of 2.0 started to be really mainstream and the web started to get more and more user centric.
That means that to simply influence the Bots is not enough on the long term. You can be ranking first but if you are not giving what people need... or - better - if you have not created something that people want to need, then that 1st position is probably not giving you all it could give in terms of ROI.
SEO, IMO, is more and more a discipline blurred into others, influencing and influenced by others. To tell you the truth, I think that SEO is so changing that somehow it would be needed a real new definition and name for it.
I absolutely agree - and this has been something to focus on over the past years as "SEO" requires integration with almost all of the business departments. I call it "User Experience Optimization."
Cheers,
Kris
Yes but UEO just doesn't look as cool as SEO.
How about: Website Improvements For Users (WIFU)
:-)
So, what do you do for a living? I'm a WIFU Consultant
Right - so it's different. "An internet marketer's job" is whatever that internet marketer's job is. For example I, as an internet marketer, focus on content strategy for visibility (in the search & social channels), where my internet marketer friends might focus on creating search-friendly architecture and contextually relevant pages (aka some of the stuff that most people think of as traditional SEO).
Here's how I described it in the comments of one of those SEO is dead posts out there - it's appropriate here too:
Todays SEO: Is two things: 1) Content strategy based on knowing who your audiences are, what their needs are, how that translates to searches that they do, and how your site can meet it's goals and satisfy those audiences (therefore making it a site *built for audiences*, and if successful, will be *valuable to audiences* who will link to it, share it, visit and revisit it - signals to a search engine that this might be a quality site. 2) Tactical optimization: A site (startup or not) still needs to be search-friendly. A search engine needs to be able to find the site, index the content, and determine the context of the pages, the site, and the sites and pages connected to it. This type of tactical optimization has changed over the years and at this point is much more closely aligned with W3C standards for accessibility than it is aligned with old school SEO manipulation tactics.
great post, thanks for info
I love how you mention sites like suit101 (that I agree do deserve to have been handed their ass on a silver platter), but neglect spammy, rubbish ridden, blackholes like ehow? Oh wait that will probably be in your next post. Title it "Google SOLD you so". This is the SEO that requires you to lend your 50million dollar yacht to google execs so they can get a tan on their lilly white asses. Someone needs to shine a very bright light into that dark corner of googles business practice.
The post is great, but I could have stopped by the music selection thing. You ROCK. :)