Jacks_Searching Advantage

Why has Search Engine Optimization be come a big deal? Why do people call them selfs experts in a field that has that is not held accountable for its results? Why do I get spam asking me to increase the Search Engine Optimization of a site that has really high results? Lets ponder these problems, shall we...

Search engines where created to help make since of things on the Internet. An "Internet phonebook" if you will. You know what you want but you don't know how to find it. So clearly, you turn to a search engine. Many very smart people have put their heads together to find the best way to bridge that gap from seeking person to website. Our friends at Google came up with their page rank and linking system that has by far proven to be the best method. So when you search Google, you're trusting Google to return the best possible results. After all that is Google's job. They work hard to make you happy.

Enter egoistical person or company we will call "Mr. Me". Mr. Me wants more traffic on his website. Mr. Me makes his living through his website and he knows that the more people who visit his website, the more likely that someone will end up sending some money his way. So one way or another, Mr. Me hears about something called Search Engine Optimization (hence to be called SEO). So he hires some guy who says he knows a lot about SEO. He says that he has been certified so, he must know what he is doing. Mr. Me. works with website developers, or takes charge of the website him self. He starts throwing around all these weird words but he is trusted to do his job. A lot of money later, Mr. Me's CEO expert leaves.

So what is the result? Probably nothing. See Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan". It talks a bit about professions that have no experts. Evaluate the track record of a SEO expert, I am willing to bet that most of the time, there is no change. Lets assume that there is a result after the SEO expert is done. And lets pretend that you got exactly what you wanted: more people willing to give Mr. Me more money. Thats the propose of marketing. If that where the case, your CEO expert is in the wrong profession. I'm pretty sure Marketing Expert is higher up on the pay scale ladder than a CEO expert, so we shall rule out this unlikely scenario. (Search "salary guide" and see how many of them are trying to sell you something)

I ask again, what did the SEO expert do? If he did his job as defined by what he is selling him self as. He increased the amount of people coming to Mr. Me's website. Visitors are no longer coming to the site from the set of keywords the search engine has deemed relevant to your website, but other keywords that are likely to be misleading. He increased your bounce rate. A hight bounce rate is just a waste of bandwidth or worthless traffic. On the other hand, if the bounce rate is decreased, if you get more leads. You have stepped outside the realm of SEO. What your doing now is marketing. Your bridging the right people to what they want. This is a very similar goal of our search engine pals like Google. The only one not helping is the SEO expert. (And Mr. Me for paying him)

What harm has been done I ask you? Personally, I think a lot of harm has been done. Now, your search engine results are not what your looking for. Its become even harder to bridge people to what they want. It is Mr. Me trying to sell you something you don't want and have no interest in, not what you have been looking for. Then the search engines have to fight all these bogus search results to combat the work done by our CEO expert. For example, search for information on a product you have. Without going through the manufactures website, try to find information or a review of it. Chances are, you'll end up with a list of sites that want to sell it to you. I bet if Google had their way, they would rather websites don't try to improve their rank. Just be yourself.

Being one who has a couple high ranking keywords throughout my sites, I end up getting spam on some of my contact forms. These emails tell me that they can improve my search rank if I give them money. The problem is, I am already in the first 10 results of every keyword I think is reliant. So, why don't they focus on other fools? I think these people might be as dumb as their clients.

My SEO advice: Follow accessibility guidelines and you'll be just fine.