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RSSThat argument has ruffled a lot of feathers. Among other things, it's led to a sea of blog responses, and a $1000 contest for the No. 1 Google organic spot on Pasternack's name. (For a great sum-up of the controversy, see Aaron Goldman's Search Insider piece from last week.)
I'm not going to jump into that argument directly. But I would like to use the new discussion around SEO as an opportunity to introduce an observation. My observation is as follows: As search engines get smarter, SEO firms have a harder time providing real value.
To explain my point, I'd like to start with the business of relevance.
Searchers want relevant results. They'll reward or punish engines according to the relevance they provide. Advertisers, meanwhile, go where the searchers are. And so in order to keep the advertisers, who make the engines money, the engines need to make sure their search results are as relevant as possible.
That's why engines hire armies of Ph.Ds to work exclusively on creating more relevant results. Tbe sole task of those Ph.Ds is figuring out how to make the engines smarter at recognizing previously unrecognized content -- and at ignoring content that looks relevant but really isn't.
And the Ph.Ds are having huge success. Thanks to them, spiders have made leaps forward in reading content on dynamic pages, and even in understanding images. They've also learned to recognize spamming tactics like cloaking and excessive keyword stuffing.
And where the engines can't create relevance through technology, they make up for it through education in SEO best practice. After all, if your site is relevant, they want it to appear in front of the searchers who are looking to find you. And so they offer pages like Google Webmaster Central or Yahoo Search Resources for Webmasters.
The endgame for all of this is a world in which SEO doesn't matter. The engines won't need you to tell them how relevant your page actually is, because they'll understand on their own. For the same reason, they won't listen if you lie to them about a page's true value. Search results may never be unmanipulatable, but they'll be nearly so, to the point that it doesn't make business sense to try.
That doesn't mean that it's curtains for SEO firms. They'll still be in high demand as experts on information architecture and site usability. They'll help clients build sites that their searchers are really looking for, and that their searchers can use. They'll cease to have value in reverse-engineering the engine algorithms, but they'll still have value in helping clients create truly relevant Web sites.
Of course, that role might not be a retainer position. It might just involve a short consultation of a few weeks or months, in which the SEO firm explains to the client how to express itself to the customer in the best way. Meaning that while SEO might not come to an end, the practice of keeping an SEO firm on retainer just might.
Obviously, that era of perfect, unmanipulated search is far away. But as I've already highlighted, the engines have smartened up to a wide array of spamming tactics. And they're getting better all the time at recognizing content that they couldn't see before. Plus, what the engines can't do through better technology, they're working to achieve through better Webmaster education.
In other words, the SEOs certainly haven't lost value, because search still isn't perfect. But we're in an environment in which the margins that SEO firms can win by are getting slimmer all the time, because the engines get smarter and smarter every day -- and clients can learn more on their own than they ever could. The engines haven't killed off SEO, but they're making it a lot less valuable all the time.
How small are those SEO margins now? The answer to that question depends on too many factors to answer with a blanket statement -- but it's a question that every SEO client should consider today.
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As long as there are products and services being searched for online that are provided by multiple vendors, there will be work for SEO companies. SEO will continue its evolution from simple parlor tricks and spammy techniques to a truly useful process of researching, identifying, and targeting the ideal consumers for products and services through keyword and market research, development of relevant content, use of best practice Web design techniques, elimination of code bloat, and tracking of ROI.
Usability is the next SEO, IMHO. I always tell clients that I can drive hundreds of thousands of visitors to any site, but the real question is whether the site is good enough to convert any of those visitors to customers. Too many so-called Web designers create sites that look unprofessional and inspire zero confidence in the company and/or are difficult to use, often having paid little to no attention to the buying funnel. Similarly, too many SEO firms get you ranked for terms that may or may not even be useful but then do absolutely nothing to help your site convert that newfound traffic. The SEO companies and consultants that start providing usability consulting in conjunction with SEO will be the real winners, I believe.
Kevin Ryan Low-G Marketing http://www.lowgmarketing.com
SEO is like any other marketing specialism. Not everybody can afford to hire inhouse expertise.
>>"Dave’s written a series of articles arguing that SEO should be managed in-house — and that, rather than serving on retainer, SEO firms should serve primarily educational/consultative positions from now on."
No, no, no, no. That's not Dave's position, regardless of how you try to spin the issue. For the most part Dave is trying to defend two preposterous remarks: that SEO is a "fix-it-once" task, and that "SEO is not rocket science". To say that this is suddenly all about "SEO should be managed in-house" is a clever change of tack, but it isn't fooling anyone.
I AM an in-house SEO! My company employs me as an in-house strategist, with my 3-man team. We also employ an off-site American SEO consultant on retainer, and we occasionally employ the services of two exceptional firms in India when needed. Any decent in-house SEO, in any industry worth pursuing, knows damn well that SEO is NOT a fix-it-once task! By trying to appeal to in-house SEOs, Dave and the rest of the buffoons at did-it.com have shot themselves in the foot. I would find the crude cover-up attempts amusing, except for the fact that they promulgate dangerous misinformation that could easily sink any online business!
>>"And the Ph.Ds are having huge success. Thanks to them, spiders have made leaps forward in reading content on dynamic pages, and even in understanding images. They’ve also learned to recognize spamming tactics like cloaking and excessive keyword stuffing."
Is this guy stuck in 2003? Does he have the slightest idea what SEO actually is? Search engine optimization is alive and well, to the point where some companies use SEO to the exclusion of all other marketing efforts. This is not something I advocate, as I feel aggregating multiple streams of defensible traffic is the best course of action for most businesses. However, despite the author's insistence that Google has magically eradicated all webspam ...or SEO efforts... (the Pasternack/Calacanis axis of evil seems to blur the line between the two) I'm here to tell you that SEO is amply rewarded with high rankings in search engines. Done correctly, SEO can be the single biggest income stream for an online business. Why, isn't it AMAZINGLY SELF-EXPLANATORY to say that, WHEN YOU'RE #1 IN GOOGLE, PEOPLE CAN FIND YOUR SITE MORE EASILY AND BUY STUFF FROM YOU? ISN'T THAT WHAT MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT? Sheesh.
The author seems to think it's perfectly okay to be on page three of Google. This flies in the face of common marketing sense as well as acceptable business practice.
Business owners: if you apply the "Dave Pasternack recipe" in any competitive industry, you can expect dire failure. On the bright side, in a few years, I'll be doing some SEO consulting, and I'll be happy to train your in-house team ;)
While folks seldom go past page 2 of a search result, the fact remains that in today's fast-paced world, blogs most often provide the most relevance - in content and link referrals - so, blogs rule. SEO companies, and web design firms should be embracing this new technology and learning how to work WITH it, instead of bad-mouthing it or ignoring it altogether.
Are things so bad for the PPC/SEM industry that there is a need to create FUD about SEO?
Either the author does not understand SEO, or is being fed information from others that is false and misleading. Is Kevin aware of this article? I would like to think not. It is un-professional and just so wrong I don't know where to start. Sure, there are some valid points made, but some are naive, such as to think that black hats will ever be forced to find honest work...
Disclaimer: The core of my business is SEO, but I also manage some multi-million dollar PPC campaigns.
Having said that, good basic SEO is like a good medicine that cures an illness. PPC is like crack. Any questions?
One easy way for search engines to reduce spam is to try to stop affiliate marketing. If people don't get paid for traffic, they won't take the time to build out sites.
If we look at Web content as part of a sophisticated, balanced marketing program, and at the results of searchers at major search engines to find that content as one method by which the public will reach a clients' products, then balancing the methods of presenting that content in a way to best present that material on those engines -- in natural, ethical, serious ways -- is incredibly important.
It is another aspect of advertising and marketing acumen, isn't it? I go to my advertising agency to find out the best ways to reach a specific market for my budget. In this case, my "budget" may consist of content, key words and the time of my content creators. But if I want to write about a particular subject, there are countless ways to do so, aren't there? And it isn't even "grey hat" for my SEO firm to suggest to my copywriters that I refrain from using a competitor's most popular branded key-words because it drives up their traffic... is it?
If I'm creating pages of good, honest, wonderful content about a subject and can get more interest by using words/phrases that are more specific -- and less "expensive" in terms of SEO competition -- to my audiences' viewpoint, that's a win-win. This is not trickery; it is narrow-casting. And who is going to do all the heavy-lifting of monitoring what's going on in the search marketplace in terms of these developments for me?
I've actually suggested to a number of my smaller clients that I'd be happy to do training sessions for them.
Most of the time, their answer is ... "We don't have the time or the resources, you handle it".
Handle what you ask? There shouldn't be anything to handle of the search engines are smart enough to figure it out for themselves.
Right - Have you seen some of these sites? Pages with nothing but Flash, no keyword discovery or strategy, lousy conversions.
But, they can learn to do all that. Right - But they probably won't unless someone holds their hand. And you'd be amazed at how many of them have no web analytics, or have some but don't know how to read them.
I've had web site owners glaze over when I try to talk to them about search engines and their sites. They actually say to me "Stop, I don't want to hear it". "We will do what we do best, you do your thing."
Maybe the search engines will get very smart, but I can assure you there will still be plenty of web site owners who will miss out because they've built a site that just doesn't cut it.
My 2 cents.
Regards,
Frank Baxter SEO Experts To Go www.SeoExpertsToGo.com
The Ecommerce Guru www.TheEcommerceGuru.com