The Guru had a comment from a rabid
fan, (not to be mistaken for an AVID fan), to a post last week about how to
find a good plumber or SEO. I was going to reply to the comment but as it turns
out it is appropriate for the opening of the follow-up post I had planned to
make today anyway. So, I'll use the comment and my reply as the foundation for
the clarification I had wanted to post.
The comment was:
>I was expecting to find
specifics on how to find a good, credible SEO based on your experience in the
field. Coming from you, that would be golden!
Although this lists solid general
rules for finding any reputable business I was hoping you'd tackle SEO
specifically, with examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly SEOs out there.
I know you're not afraid of a good argument, so why did you lay up from the
last post to this one?
You're not getting soft on us, are
you old man? 
<
*******************************************
The Guru will address this comment
specifically just a little further down in this post. For the moment I would
like to point out that I've amassed quite a body of work over the last 11 years
even though since the Google right-to-sell-my-own-links lawsuit, I rarely spoke
publicly. Even before that, going back to my days of moderating at JimWorld for
my dear friend Jim Wilson, (whom I still miss dearly), I always chose my
battles carefully and tried to only speak out when I honestly felt I had
something to contribute.
I rarely post without purpose. I try
not to let emotion dictate my words and I usually have a strategy to hit a
specific objective with every post I make. One reason I don't post more often
is simply because it takes me so long for each one. Sometimes it can take me
several days to have a purpose in mind and then write, edit and re-write until
I'm confident I'm saying what I REALLY want to say. And often that is only for
a brief reply.
I freely admit that I have a
tendency to piss some people off when that is not the intent. It is just that I
can be brutally honest and opinionated. That's a dangerous combination in
anybody's book. Even so, if someone were to waste the time and look at every
public remark I had made, I'm sure they could find several instances of
justification, or clarification on my part, but I honestly don't think there
would be a single instance of retraction or apology.
This latest series of posts, the
slapping, the tips, and this one as a closer, is no different. I had a definite
purpose in mind and it was not to simply offend a peer. This one happened to be
two-fold but a purpose nonetheless.
My primary purpose was to attempt to
sway the collective mindset of the online promotion industry from perpetuating
a negative perception of the industry it serves and is served by. My secondary
purpose was to actually do what I felt I could to help online business people
feel more comfortable about seeking professional assistance in the face of such
negative perception being promoted by the people within the very industry
itself for little more than a few cheap links.
As to the primary objective, I have
been reading for a long, LONG time how SEO is chock full of con men and
incompetents, (the number usually thrown about was 90%) by some of the most
well known and widely read figures within the SEO community. It has always made
me uncomfortable and often downright personally offended seeing the hand that
feeds being bitten and with so little reliance on historical reference or
anything close to scientifically arrived at data. There have actually been two
strangely symbiotic discussions going on simultaneously within the seo
community one perpetuating the other so neither needed any real facts to back
up either.
One of course being that 90% of SEOs
are con men or incompetent and the other, "Why does SEO have a bad reputation".
It is true that there have been
stories about the reputation problem of the industry in the mainstream press
but where do you think the journalists got their reference material? They get
it from the SEO community itself. The bad press the industry gets is being
handed to the media by the very same people who stand to benefit most from an
improved public image.
Every profession has it's share of
people who can not be trusted either due to the fact they are a thief or simply
incompetent and SEO is no different but the truth is much closer to 90% of the
people in the profession being hard working business people trying their best
to build a quality service compared to only 10% being untrustworthy or
incapable of delivering quality results. AND, anyone that has had the occasion
to attend a conference or get together of any kind focused on SEO, met some
SEO's or dealt with them directly by phone or email knows full well that the
vast majority of the people they know are decent, honest, hard working people
that can be trusted to perform to the best of their ability. You could ask no
more from anyone in any other profession. So, why on earth are these same
people who know this to be fact writing articles and blogs perpetuating the
misperception that anyone needing SEO assistance had better be VERY careful and
watch out for all the 90% of rip offs and then the next week writing another
article bemoaning the bad reputation of the industry?
Now that you think about it, does
seem a little odd doesn't it? Of course it does and I believe it is time for
the practice to stop. It doesn't have to be this way and the mainstream media
would be quick to change if we would change first.
My primary purpose was to use this
series to throw down the gauntlet to those in the industry who have the voice,
have the following and the leadership to sway the perception of their readers.
To challenge my colleagues and peers to stop talking about the abstract
negative that doesn't even exist and seek their links from articles and comments
extolling the positive contributions of the people they know within the
industry. To do as the Guru did and encourage their readers to learn and
exercise a little more business principle and use that to find SEO services
that can understand their needs and deliver based on solid business objectives
and strategies.
If the prominent figures in the
industry would start talking about the good that comes from SEO and good people
in it, as opposed to spreading more FUD, SEO would clean up it's own reputation.
It is the people with the voice who made it bad and it is the same people who
could make it good. It is time for the whole thing to change and I'd like to
see it start changing today and I hope I'm not alone.
It's not hard just take a quick look
at what the Guru did with his blogroll and his article
http://massa.techndu.com/default.aspx?page=admin#ac0e4c85c-7f39-4431-b0c6-09d49be04085.
It's easy to find nice things to say about the people you know and admire. And
here's the kicker. Guess what saying nice things about people you like can do
for you? IT CAN GET YOU LINKS !
So, I'm challenging all those who
have a voice in the industry. You are the leaders and are the ones who shape
the present perceptions and the future of the industry as a whole. Speak out for the positive aspects of SEO
when you write your own articles and call out those who would continue to
perpetuate the unsubstantiated bullshit!
If you can't say something nice about the profession you have chosen,
then don't say anything at all and you'll soon see the affect.
Remember this when next you choose
to publish something negative about the game you have chosen to play. If it is
bad and you are a part of it, then you not only belittle THEM, you make
yourself appear smaller as well for only a fool would choose to be a part of
something bad and expect others to see them as better than the game they play.
In whatever field of endeavor you
choose, do the best job you can do, be proud of what you do and do what you say
you will do ---- and charge accordingly.
Now as to the comment and my
secondary objective.
One part of the comment was:
“I was expecting to find specifics
on how to find a good, credible SEO based on your experience in the field.
Coming from you, that would be golden!“
Remember when I said I don’t always
tell you what you want to hear? One problem with we humans all face is that we
tend to not hear what we don’t want to hear. The entire point of the article
was that I was giving the specifics.
Finding a good credible SEO is not
hard and the choices you have are great. The hard part is in you not expecting
the SEO to be golden. Rather to make sure your own business objectives are
golden. THEN just about any seo can help you if you know the help you need but
expecting anyone to recommend someone to eliminate the hard work required to
run a successful online business is a recipe for disaster and THAT is from my
experience.
I can certainly understand how
thinking an SEO is going to take a little money and make you a lot without you
having to actually run a business is very appealing but that is at the root of
the problem.
The next part of the comment was,
“Although this lists solid general rules for finding any reputable business I
was hoping you'd tackle SEO specifically, with examples of the good, the bad,
and the ugly SEOs out there”
That was EXACTLY the point. That
finding a reputable SEO is no different than finding any other reputable SEO
and that is tackling SEO specifically.
If you tell me exactly what issue
you want help with, I could give you a list of people that I would recommend to
do that job without hesitation. But if you want me to give you a list of the
good bad and ugly, that no one can do for the simple fact that just about every
SEO has the ability to be exceptionally good or exceptionally ugly depending
on what service you need.
Again, it keeps coming back to you
needing to stop thinking in terms of needing to get your site SEO’d and start
thinking in terms of your site needing more traffic, (I know a lot of people
who can help you with that), and what risk level you are willing to accept to
get more traffic how fast, or your site needing more conversions, (I know a lot
of people who can help with that), or your site needing better functionality,
etc. You need to define what type of service you need and set verifiable levels
of performance and THEN I can help find you the good, the bad and the ugly and
so can a LOT of other people. Once you do the work you need to do, it becomes
no more difficult than finding a good plumber but as long as you are looking
for some kind of magician to solve your problems, you are going to find a whole
lot of ugly regardless of who anyone would recommend. That was the point.
And finally:
“. I know you're not afraid of a
good argument, so why did you lay up from the last post to this one?“
You are right. I am not afraid of an
argument and I laid up from the last post because I honestly thought it was the
best help I could give the most people. I knew that a lot of people would not
like hearing me blaming them for the problem instead of going with conventional
wisdom and letting people assume they didn’t need to take responsibility for
their own business, rather to blame fraud and incompetence. I can see how
blaming the other people can be popular but it is simply not the truth and like
I said in the last post, you can blame anyone and everyone else all you want
but you’re still stuck with a failing business. Once you accept and address the
fact you need a solid business plan and to identify specific problems that need
an experts help, now you will be able to easily find the professional help you
need with little worry.
Now, I can’t think of much more I
can say on this subject without further belaboring the point. This will bring
this short series to a close. I hope the Guru has been able to make an impact
and maybe help to have start making things a little better. (probably not. :(
Next week I'll start on a series discussing what I see as the differences between SEO as an art versus SEO as a process , what the costs involved are for each and when and why you would want one or the other. This is also the single biggest factor in my decision to set up operations in India and I'll explain why getting malaria and typhoid fever is so worth it.
You kids get outta bed and git ready
for skool
Peace Ya’ll
G