State of SEO Industry: Shoemoney & Danny Sullivan’s Most Significant Podcast Yet
January 24, 2008 by Pablo Palatnik
The Shoemoney post about disliking 95% of SEO Experts is bringing quite a few topics up. If you haven’t heard the latest Shoemoney show on Webmaster radio with guest Danny Sullivan, it is one of the best podcast discussions I’ve heard in a while. Two guys that just spoke honestly and truthfully about their views on the SEO industry as it stands today.
SEO and Affiliate Marketing are two industries that are very un-regulated. I can even get deeper to my passion and my biggest concern of an un-regulated industry and that is the lead generation industry which has a horrible, horrible, horrible rep among business owners but that may be my next post.
So, in regards to SEO. Lets take this Google ad for example which a company is promoting SEO:
Rank Top 3 For 1 Year
$159.95 For Top 3 & Top 10 Rankings
+ 1 Year Search Listing Guarantee.
www.servicewrap.net
You can’t promise results with SEO and that should be standard practice in the industry. I have to say, compared to recent years, all the ads read, “Rank #1 in Google Today!†The problem may be with too many people offering a service they aren’t too good at or just in general, have promised too much without delivering results.
I think SEMPO is a start to regulating the industry but it is a fairly young industry so it will be a while until it is really regulated. Affiliate marketing faces a very similar problem. I think we can all agree there are many shady tactics used by both CPA networks and publishers to get results and who gets hurt? The advertiser. The one factor that helps build the industry by providing their business.
How do you really qualify your SEO firm before going with them? I’ve touched on this before in a post, experience or results? What would make a client feel comfortable when putting $5-20k for optimizing a site without a guarantee of results?
I have to agree with Shoemoney on something that I’ve learned myself over the years. Good SEOs mostly work on their own projects and are too busy to take on other clients. I think Danny also agreed with that.
Even if you hire a big search marketing firm to do your SEO and pay the big $, whose to say that firm will give you results. Keep in mind, these “big†firms also hire Joe Shmo from the street if they can’t find anyone else for the position.
You may have someone doing your SEO that has very little experience in SEO and I’ve seen this for myself. The good SEOs are mostly laying low or again, too busy optimizing their own projects to take on other jobs.
I have to disagree with one of their points, and this is if I remember correctly. I think both Shoemoney and Danny Sullivan touched on link building and it not be really part of SEO. I both agree and disagree. I think with algorithm changes, etc in the search engines, SEOs have to adapt and bring in new strategies to the “job duties†of SEO. I think everything that has to do with ranking a site should be part of SEO, wether it be link building, article distribution, etc. That’s just my opinion.
If you haven’t checked out the podcast on the discussion, listen to it here.
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Comments (2)
I always enjoy listening to Danny on this topic. I’m a big fan of the idea of SEMPO or somebody getting a standardization or cert together, but it’s such a difficult industry to do so.
As for SEOs being too busy, I used to think that would be a good thing (before I was actually busy). But now I see posts like Shoe’s and I get upset and wish I could dedicate more time to my blog, or educating new business owners at an SBA workshop…or anything to do this industry better.
However, I don’t agree that good SEOs are always busy, just the good ones that have been doing it for a while. There are some good new guys out there that find it difficult to find work. Thus my problem with all the black eyes we get. It makes it hard for new people to move up when they have to justify their services more than they get to actually provide the service.
Maybe I’m too compassionate.
As with practitioners of most all professions, practitioners of SEO come in all shapes and sizes. There are good ones and bad ones; there are ones that practice their skills on their own and ones that practice their skills as a part of larger organizations; there are ones that love interacting with clients–from the initial sales call to the finale of a successful project; and there ones that can’t stand client relationships so prefer to work on their own sites.
In my experience, self promoters looking to rustle a few feathers tend to be the most boisterous dismissers of the SEO profession and ones that have a hard time understanding just what it is we do, come in a close second.
I think we can all agree that Shoemoney is nothing if not an avid self promoter–and I’m sure he would agree with that, as well. As far as the statement that Danny Sullivan is dismissive of the SEO industry, I have a feeling that was taken out of content.