On Media Bullseye, Sarah Wurrey blogged about a search engine optimization (SEO) discussion at the Boston Social Media Club where, apparently, some of the assembled SEO experts were “less than willing to share many tips on how their business works.”
Come on guys, get over yourselves.
I’m no “expert” but I have been giving talks on basic SEO for a few years now, and the fundamentals still hold. There are essentially only two things you need to think about to maximize your rank on search engines:
- The quality of the text and code of your pages
- The quantity and quality of the links pointing your site
That’s it. Honest!
A short post on e-Consultancy.com this week about the Google juice wielded by Wikipedia has it dead right. It contains some terrific points about how a clean, clear, simple site with proper HTML formatting and text content, as well as a lot of in-bound links, will always rule in Google no matter how their mythic algorithm changes.
This is not to say SEO experts or expertise doesn’t exist. Fine tuning sites to optimize links and traffic from search engines is definitely an art. But it’s not black magic.
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It’s a good way of looking at it, simple is always great, and helps too.
But, SEO is a science dude, and there are a whole host of activities that an SEO expert will engage in that go far beyond the two items in your list. And it’s those items that the SEO experts won’t share with you, because cash is the bottom line.
I’m sure you know that though.
Personaly, I am a “white hat” SEO (an in that are hundreds of options), but “black hats” do exist, which do apply black magic tricks, illegal ones too.
:)
Thanks Chris. I totally agree there are a tonne of tactical things you would do with a specific site to make sure things are being optimized to achieve their specific goals. I’ve done a bit of this kind of work and you can get pretty far into the weeds. It’s this weird “I won’t share my secret sauce” thing that some SEOs have that I don’t get.
More to the point, why would you sit on a panel about SEO and not answer SEO questions? Come on!
hehe.
I totally understand what’s “gritting your shit” man!
It’s typical all over, every SEO meet or conference I have been to is the same. Nobody really gives secrets away. I suppose it’s a bit like when the mechanics of the formula 1 teams won’t share engine tweaks, for fear of other SEO geeks being better at the job…. and obtaining higher ranking for a client, etc.
If you are used to social media where it is about being open, it is a very different mentality, cause there it is about unique conversation, every time, no secrets exist, conversation is conversation.
Just a thought.
Chris, yeah on the one hand I sort of get it, on the other hand I’d compare it to Stephen King…
King wrote a book called “On Writing”. In the book, he describes his creative process, how he gets over writers block, all kinds of “tactical” stuff about writing. And lots of writers read it.
And a funny thing happened. They didn’t all become Stephen King.
I think in most fields if you’re actually good at what you do, you can afford to explain it to people ‘cus they’re not actually going to be able to wake up in the morning and do what you do, even if they understand it.
If it did work that way, I’d be a completely amazing guitar player by now ‘cus of all the back issues of Guitar Player magazine I’ve read.
[…] n SEO is NOT Black Magic - Media Driving with Jay Moonah […]
Hey Jay, I have some thoughts about this. I am a relative newbie to the social media space, but I find that I have been ranking pretty well just tagging my relevant terms. Now I do realize that Wood Turning is not the most sought after terms, but there are many many ahead of me in Google. However, “Woodturning Podcast” I’m usually within the first two lines on Google. All I need now is a Woodturning Podcast
Anyway Jay, my question is…how does a guy like me in a very niche market, get guys like yourself to add them to their Blogrolls? My information as an artist may not be relevant to your listener, however your listeners may very well be interestewd in art. On the other side of the coin my subscribers may not be directly interested in the social media space, but at the same time maybe a good percentage of them would? Who knows?
Sorry I am rambling here, but the way I think I may handle this on my site is to have a relevant to the topic links, and a separate blogroll for friends and people I find really interesting like you. Anyway Jay, thanks for doing what you do, and of course I can’t wait to see you at Podcamp Toronto again next year. Hoping to be at PAB, so maybe we’ll catch up there as well.
Keith
Actually Keith, when I actually get ’round to doing my blogroll you are totally going to be on it.
I guess the problem here is that, yeah, there are a lot of folks who will look specifically to put stuff on their blogrolls that is of obvious immediate value to their audience, which is totally understandable. I think the thing is, if you’re getting the most links within your particular vertical, in your case woodturning, which is a niche thing, you are always going to win out in terms of links overall for people who are searching for that thing.
You do also need to look within your particular vertical — where are the people looking for woodturning, or related arts, looking? Make sure you are there too, ‘cus that’s going to help you both with direct links and in SEO as well.
Hope that helps a bit!
[…] In the wake of my “SEO is NOT Black Magic” post from a couple of weeks back, the very excellent Sarah Wurrey from Media Bullseye contacted me about doing an interview for their podcast on search engine optimization basics. […]
We have created an SEO comic and one of the topics was SEO Black Magic. Have a look and have a laugh.
http://www.bigoakinc.com/rankedhard/black-magic-seo/
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