Barry Schwartz is one of the most respected journalists in the SEO industry and when he wrote this article called The Sadness In The Industry the other day I was a bit surprised.
When I wrote Why I dont Like 95% Of The SEO industry it seemed to upset a lot of people who thought it was a blanket statement about SEO. It was not at all. It was a statement about the PEOPLE in the industry. Pretty much every established SEO who has been around a bit that I know agreed with the post or atleast thought the points had some validity.
I had Danny Sullivan (the godfather of SEO) on my webmaster radio show and I felt it was a very good show. From the beginning it was pretty clear that we agreed knowing SEO obviously is a very powerful skill but the industry needs to be held to some standards. There was a lot more to the discussion but that is the just of it. After the show there was a huge backlash against Danny for not coming at me with guns blazing… I think that even opened Danny’s eyes a little more at what I was talking about in regards to all these people who call themselves SEO’s.
So the current state of SEO is no surprise to me. While I am not a professional SEO (I have never been paid to do SEO) we attend many internet marketing conferences and have become very good friends with the most accomplished SEO’s walking the planet.
You pretty much have 2 groups of “old school” SEO’s:
Those who have celebrity status for what they have written about - These people have become venomous… They hate the fact that new people have come along with their blogs and made them irrelevant. They are super jealous of anyone who is recognized more then they are. The occasionally make forum posts or blog posts outing other SEO’s tactics so that people remember they still exist.
Those who have celebrity status for what they have accomplished These guys have distanced themselves from the industry. They used to blog, be apart of forums, have radio shows but they have slowed way down. They never really cared about the spotlight in the first place and now that there is all this venom in the industry they would rather rack up contracts with companies for actually *DOING* SEO then writing or talking about it.
Honestly I think the SEO profession is a victim of its own success.
I love SEO… I love the way it works. I love optimizing sites for search engines. SEO is a important part of internet marketing. I still believe SEO will become less important as time goes on but that does not mean I do not respect the skill ATM.
I feel very insulted when I am labeled a SEO and have for a long time. Are you proud to labeled a SEO?
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August 9, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Black seo will get you into trouble really quick
August 5, 2008 at 10:31 am
SEO has white (legal) and black methods, I hate black SEO
July 31, 2008 at 4:05 am
Exactly, Shoemoney did not mention about this category, I think the best SEOs out there are those who stay out of light.
July 31, 2008 at 3:18 am
I also prefer the term “internet marketer” rather than SEO
July 31, 2008 at 3:05 am
Unfortunately this is what many people misunderstand, many directory submitters call themselves “SEO”..
July 31, 2008 at 2:53 am
Right but finding the “good” links is another story
July 31, 2008 at 2:49 am
SEO just needs better standards right now and nothing else
July 31, 2008 at 2:45 am
Am I the only one seeing the sarcasm here
July 31, 2008 at 2:40 am
Right, many people misunderstand this. And to call someone who just build links a SEO is way overrated, I guess those who has been able to get sites on top of the search engines can be called that way.
July 31, 2008 at 2:36 am
Yes, that’s true. I have noticed that many of these “SEO” companies just spam to try to rank higher, by spam I mean they’ll try to get links to your site in every way possible, not even taking into consideration if the link will help or not.
July 30, 2008 at 4:44 pm
SEO still the key to get targeted visitors!
July 30, 2008 at 4:43 pm
ya you should be selective
July 30, 2008 at 4:31 pm
SEO is important, J is a SEO for himself, not for other people.
July 30, 2008 at 6:27 am
I like getting results too… for me -))))
July 30, 2008 at 6:16 am
Seo is not a profession. Seo is creativity.
July 29, 2008 at 3:56 am
There is of course a third group you haven’t mentioned..
Those who’ve been around for years, view popularity as a closet toss, and never accept contracts. They’ve always been good enough at what they do to get by with their own practices and assets. Self made without the ‘hype’.
I suppose at the end of the day though – if appearances are what describes you, then labels matter.. it is after all, no matter what category you’re in, about audience
July 29, 2008 at 3:21 am
Hi Shoemoney ,
You rightly think about SEO’s. There is shortage of well skilled SEO’s.
July 29, 2008 at 3:08 am
Hi Shoemoney,
I think search engine optimization works as a back bone for the promotion of the page rank of a particular site. And it’s a challenging work and we can’ t ignore its importance.
July 28, 2008 at 8:07 pm
There are a lot of great web designers, CSS gurus, and kickass coders who can build killer sites that look amazingly professional and that a client will pay in the thousands of dollars for. These highly skilled people are adept at wonderful things like Flash and JavaScript rollovers. Then, the client comes back and says, Why aren’t I in the #1 spot in Google? I mean, I paid you all this money….” And you say, well it don’t exactly work like that. You have to “optimize” your pages. I find it really satisfying to work with these people because sometimes just minor changes in their pages can get them ranked pretty high up for the keywords that they should be ranking for in a short period of time. Then you feel like you’re doing your job–the client is happy, Google is happy, and you’re happy. But when you start getting into months and months and thousands of dollars, pages and pages of content, and sometimes on page add-ons that are borderline crap just to make a site rank higher, well, I can see the need but I sometimes feel like, as Charles T. Munger put it, “a one-legged man in ass kicking contest.” You’re just chasing ghost. But, there are large dollars involved and, more often, large egos as well. It’s kinda like having the biggest schlong, you know? But hey, as long as they’re paying for it. I’m sure it does help, but at what cost? Is it really possible to measure what a first-page Google ranking will mean to your bottom line? And what about those periodic “updates” to the algorithm? But I find it a fascinating field to observe and think about how people look for and find information. It’s pretty addicting…like a game.
July 28, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Sheila, agreed. As a matter of fact, that the problem with the IT industry in general, people feel it’s too easy to jump into the industry. The reality is that anyone can be a SEO, a Web designer, programmer, etc.. but very few can reach the professional status. (professional = doing it for a living, not really referring to people who do it when they get back from their real jobs)
July 28, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I love Google now that my pagerank has gone from a zero to a three!
July 28, 2008 at 10:13 am
Part of the problem is that too many people call themselves seo experts when they aren’t. I’m pretty new to all this but isn’t google always changing things around to kind of beat the seo experts at their game?
July 28, 2008 at 7:39 am
NOOOOOOOOO… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
July 28, 2008 at 3:10 am
Call the doctor…. Call the doctor…. -))))))))))))
July 27, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Hate on people…hate. on. SEO is a fine art and either you get it or you dont.
July 27, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Ed seriously has a lot of spare time on his hands, he has an epic ‘expose’ on his site. Not sure it was necessary though – any social voting site is corrupt like digg controlled by power users etc – we all know this…
July 27, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I use SEO, SEM, SM, lego blocks, oreo cookies and milk, plenty of beer, and an occasional blunt to work my mojo. I figured out a long time ago that a real marketer isn’t in the job to make himself/ herself famous, but making their customer famous. I don’t really care about the SEO “club” anymore. If they do a good job, then they should get paid for doing it, and let their reputation make them famous. This social thing for instance, has been weirdo crappy for the longest time, and now it’s hit the sphinn set. Yawn! I’d rather learn from Shoe how to make good sites that earn good money.
July 27, 2008 at 7:51 pm
This conversation is getting old. This industry is going to go through some serious changes soon and bottom line is that if you dont know your $hit you need to find a new job. Also, enough talk from so called “SEO experts” …start showing results. You want my respect? Show me what major keyword you own for a website you worked on.
July 27, 2008 at 11:41 am
As soon as you think you know it all, i’ve got you beat. There are always small adjustments to be made, always!
July 27, 2008 at 10:53 am
I definitely agree that content is king, but depending on your niche SEO could be essential to getting good rankings. If you are the only one out there, you’re probably right about not needing SEO, but if you are pushing ringtones without PPC (just an example, I don’t recommend that!), you’d better have great SEO.
July 27, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hehe. If you’re using it, and still don’t know whether or not it’s a good line, I’d wager it isn’t
July 27, 2008 at 10:47 am
Good poing Goran. I think that’s probably one of the first lessons learned when getting into online marketing. Having a boatload of traffic means nothing if your landing page doesn’t convert. That’s probably where a lot of people who consider themselves straight SEO need to cross the line into marketing in order to succeed.
July 27, 2008 at 10:46 am
Insulted to be called an SEO? No, Not at all.
I like getting results, for other people.
July 27, 2008 at 10:43 am
Agreed. I think the important distinction made here is between someone who offers professional SEO services for others in exchange for a fee vs. those who simply know how to optimize for search engines and are doing it for their own sites.
July 27, 2008 at 9:58 am
I am not fed up with it. I am just ashamed at the internal fighting that has been recently been going. I suspect things will get better, internally – as the summer passes. But I am in no way fed up with the industry.
I honestly love covering SEO/SEM topics and the industry.
July 27, 2008 at 9:05 am
Jeremy, you have to be an SEO…after all, Wikipedia says that you are.
July 27, 2008 at 7:33 am
I would not be able to, or have not thought of getting up on a stage with 1000’s of people, I think it takes a particular type of person to be out there. There are many experts that “just go about their business”
July 27, 2008 at 7:29 am
I think its a great pick upline for models that wish to me known, well done.
July 27, 2008 at 7:26 am
Simply put yeah, thats why SEO is only a component of a marketing strategy, SEO on its own only brings visitors, its the website that converts visitors into leads (business). I have seen so many sites with lots of visitors with no business.
July 27, 2008 at 7:21 am
SEO is a skill, it does not matter if you work for a company or do it for yourself, its still a skill.
July 27, 2008 at 5:21 am
Modesty is a very good quality. -))))
July 27, 2008 at 5:11 am
It’s rrue. We all are seo. Why is this bad?
July 27, 2008 at 12:28 am
Shoe. Great Post. I was nervous about the Calicanis style statement in the beginning but then the light made its way to the surface. PS you should consider a coffee table book of you in those Friday T-shirts, IT is funny.
July 27, 2008 at 12:22 am
LOL… maybe! thats why most se marketer dont offer services..
July 27, 2008 at 12:16 am
I like the point of Barry in his article.. very compellinh
July 27, 2008 at 12:15 am
I agree as he has said he’s never paid to do SEO work
July 26, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Amen! I know far from everything about SEO, but I think I know a hell of a lot and am proud of it!
July 26, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Haha- use it in the right way and it could be a great pick up line!
July 26, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I agree- some posts by Shoe with little content spurs on a conversation that I learn much more from. His blog is social media at its best- conversation!
July 26, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Oh but its so much more! I can see where you’re going with this- just include your keywords, use your alt tags, and build links and you’ll do okay. But there’s so much more to it…using keywords in vs. tags, decisions to put your business name or keywords in title tags…there’s hundreds of little things that can be done! That’s why I love SEO, personally. Because its so complex, if you want to be #1, but so simple, if you want to do very well!
July 26, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I am a SEO but i dont offer SEO services
what if a site is penalized ? sued
July 26, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I haven’t come across a single SEO site that looks respectable to me. There are way too many people that seem to be in it to make money from writing about how to make money.
July 26, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I was surprised that you just now are getting fed up with it. I got fed up with the crap a long time ago. Sorry I should have been more clear on that.
July 26, 2008 at 8:54 pm
What were you surprised about? What part? That I would write that or something else?
July 26, 2008 at 8:42 pm
SEO is just a fancy technical term for link creation, promotion, etc etc
July 26, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I’m more like SEM, but hey… we are what we do and after all I don’t care what people think about me. They call call me whatever they want, as long as I pay my own bills.
July 26, 2008 at 7:19 pm
oh so now you like SEO
seo is a skillset not an industry. A skillset that most developers will integrate into their designs. The other things lumped in with seo are mostly marketing techniques(linking,bookmarking,digging etc)
July 26, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I am real seo guru, just type dsfsdfsdf in G! and my name will pop out
July 26, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I am proud that I know a little about SEO.
July 26, 2008 at 5:24 pm
SEO is dying … Long live Social Bookmarks
July 26, 2008 at 5:21 pm
we ALL are seo , we know how to put and bold and get some backlinks and write comments on other blogs etc … and to make it faster we can just install wordpress with some plugin and that’s it !! we are PRO SEO !
July 26, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I think SEO will always live on. As SE’s become more efficient, we will find ways around it.
July 26, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I think SEO is definitely a skill that you can learn, it requires a lot of knowledge of search engine algorithm and testing to find best solutions and ways of optimizing.
July 26, 2008 at 4:45 pm
The SEO market is just over saturated, most of these services and are relatively expensive for people just starting a business. Most people want to actually make money not spend it. To most people surfing the internet at their home thinking on how to create a website to earn a few bucks, paying a big portion of their hard earned paychecks to try to get some sites to rank well just to see if they actually make something out of it is out budget unless that person happens to have butt loads of cash to invest. Some firms charge extremely high prices. Some principles of Economics if supply is far higher than demand disaster is bound to happen. As more SEO jump in and more people start their own do it yourself SEO service prices are bound to go down just like what happens in most markets.
July 26, 2008 at 4:16 pm
While some SEO experts are great in that field, I would not want to be labeled with such a narrow description. If you are an SEO chances are you are an expert at so much more like programming or marketing.
If you have the skills to be an SEO and other things to compliment it you would do so much better overall if people knew you could more than just SEO.
July 26, 2008 at 4:12 pm
While there are some very good SEOs out there, the industry seems to be flooded with wanabee SEO ‘experts’. Part of the problem is how do you know if someone really is anygood at SEO? Lots of people out there just want to make a quick buck.
My blog certainly isn’t the best and I do it just for the fun of it, but ultimately content is (and always will be) King. Build a great site with stuff that is useful or interesting and you don’t need SEO to get good rankings.
July 26, 2008 at 4:07 pm
There are quite a few “famous SEO” people who are looked as as authorities, yet the world has no idea if they were ever able to accomplish a single thing as far as SEO is concerned.
July 26, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I personally don’t like beeing called SEO guy…In fact, I’m trying to “integrate” it in Internet marketing guy
July 26, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Well I stopped using the term SEO once PPC took off – but I have no problem referring to myself as an online marketer or search engine marketer (SEM). As with any industry there are good and bad elements. Many of the professionals I know do a great job and still have a lot to give back to the community.
I think you may have a point about the whole celebrity thing getting out of control though. Newcomers to the industry complain about newbs being ignored because they have not reached the stars within 6 months. Name any other industry where you can move up that quickly. Blogs and social sites have leveled the playing field dramatically, there’s a much lower barrier to entry. I can understand why some of the old school have decided they are better off taking the money. Especially when the presentation of the message has become more important than the message itself.
July 26, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I personally think SEO is striving.
July 26, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I find it to be very similar to an auto mechanic. I know how to do a pretty good amount of work to my car, but by no means would I call myself a mechanic. Most of us do some amount of SEO to our own sites, much like Shoemoney does, but may not necessarily have the desire (or skills) to be hired to do it for someone else’s site. This is where I feel the difference comes in with knowing SEO, and being a SEO. I know a pretty good amout of optimization tips and tricks, but would never choose to do it for ayone else. Its not something I would enjoy doing on that level. Call me SEO or not, I’m not too worried about it.
July 26, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I would loved to be called an SEO dude. Its a valuable skill, but nothing which cannot be studied.
The very power of it comes from doing what you know than just knowing. It is a big deal
P.S: I occasionally use it to woo girls….you know, tell them you can make their name come on google tops and stuff
Don’t know if its a good pickup line!!!
July 26, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Usually, ya. But it also depends who I am Labeled by.
When word of mouth spreads amongst local businesses in my area that I am an SEO, I am very much proud. If someone calls me an SEO it’s likely because they don’t really know about the term Internet Marketer, they just know SEO.
July 26, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I take it you do not read many a-list blogs? ShoeMoney has about the most knowledgeable commenters I have seen.
July 26, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Its only in beta and there is less then 50 members in the beta so not much feedback… Hopefully people will be as interested after launch as they are during the beta =)
there are a couple posts/reviews so far:
http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-shoemoney-tools-beta546769.html
July 26, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I think the state of SEO is similar to the state of comments on shoemoney.com. I also think that anyone who has time to talk about SEO isn’t doing much. Where’s the feedback thread for your new tools offering Shoe?
July 26, 2008 at 2:06 pm
He is an SEO for himself, but not for others!
July 26, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I think the term SEO has become much more than “Search Engine Optimizer/Optimization” over the years because a lot of people don’t make a clear distinction between “SEO” and “Internet Marketing”. Also, SEO will become less important in the next couple of years but Internet Marketing will become more and more important. SEO is a buzz word and while it’s core definition is Search Engine Optimization, it will be associated with Internet Marketing a lot because it’s what will actually get you ranked better in SE.
July 26, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Eh, SEO. It is just finding the right keywords to optimize for, using the correct tags, and link building. It’s nothing more.
July 26, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Has SEO always been so meta? Honestly, I haven’t seen such a tempest in a teapot in I don’t know how many years. Why do people get so seriously freaked out when folks behave online almost exactly as they do offline – i.e. some are nice, some are jerks, some have no social skills, some are kiss-asses. Squabbles pop up and then calm down. Sadness in the industry? Please. Over this? Get over yourselves. As someone who has been participating in online communities for over twenty years, this little dust up ain’t nothing but a thang.
There’s a reason my .signature says “Watching idiots online since 1985…”
July 26, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Great post and very true. I know everyone has different opinions and perspective about all of this but this is crazy what has been going on the last couple weeks.
July 26, 2008 at 1:38 pm
great article shoe. People in the SEO industry love negativity just look at the success of wickedfire. I think these SEO’s need to toughin up a bit. Who cares if they call donna fat
July 26, 2008 at 1:36 pm
No he’s not SEO.
July 26, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Unfortunately I must agree Shoemoney
July 26, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Shoemoney, are you a SEO?
*looks at Title of site*
Nvm…