Search Engine Optimization
I’ve been involved with a few projects lately where the company doing the hiring has brought on special SEO consultants for the purpose of optimizing the SEO of a particular site. I know for a fact that many web companies look at SEO like it’s the proverbial cash-cow, so I’m really curious to understand just what it is that SEO specialists are doing. And while doing a search for that, I came across this website, that I thought interesting.
First, I’m going to exclude black-hat SEO, because I don’t think it’s ethical, and it’s definitely something I never want to be involved in. At a personal level, I think proper SEO would involve client training (or retraining rather), instead of a one-time-fixes-all approach. Sure, you can temporarily increase the traffic to a site but dropping a pile of links on various sites or changing a few keywords, but that doesn’t help anyone long term. It’s like dropping off a pile of solar panels and batteries in Africa and hoping that will make some long term difference to the community there.
With regards to WordPress sites, most are SEO friendly out of the gate. You’ll need a few plugins, namely the All In One SEO pack (which allows per-post titles and keywords), and the Google XML Sitemaps plugin (which when combined with the Google webmaster’s toolkit), allows Google to better index your site.
Without a doubt, both of those plugins will help your WordPress site, the former because it generally switches the titles tags around, and the latter because it increases Google’s ability to index content that falls off your main page. But on top of that, I’m struggling to understand what SEO specialists do.
Going through a website and changing keywords around may help (and I’m not entirely convinced, as Google is pretty good at deciding which keywords are relevant), but only temporarily – if the people writing the content aren’t trained in this capacity, it’s not going to make much of a long term difference IMO.
The number one axiom in engineering is that you can’t improve upon anything you don’t measure. You may think you’re making improvements, but real engineering requires real data to support that notion. And if that data isn’t measured, I really have no idea how any company can claim to have made an improvement. If you’re a SEO company that isn’t setting a baseline before doing adjustments, I really have to wonder what metric you’re using to gauge improvements, other than cost.
I’m not trying to bash SEO consultants (I believe many SEO consultants actually think they are providing real value), but a quick Twitter I dropped earlier asking for some real-world data to support the claims (and justify the costs) of SEO consultants came back pretty empty. So I’m curious as to what benefit companies can expect to see on-top of WordPress (with the two plugins installed above) from SEO? And I’m not talking about starting from a clunky theme without any TITLE or ALT tags — I’m talking about a properly designed theme.
I’d be the first to admit that doing a proper (i.e. scientific) SEO study would be hard, if not impossible. It’s really hard to do the experiment in a controlled style, since any small adjustment will change the playing field for future adjustments. But that directly implies that the data is lacking about the benefits of SEO.
So by all means, if you’re into SEO, drop some arguments below. Like agent Mulder in the X-Files, I want to believe.
Duane Storey is a Vancouver-based photographer, writer, traveler, and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of BraveNewCode, a web design & development studio that focuses on professional WordPress plugins. 
I had a 600 word comment ready to post but I’m going to leave it at this:
If you want to talk about it, I’m more than willing to chat about it with you in person. But a large part of this business is kept out of the public eye. I explain everything to my clients and tend to do more teaching than actual work.
What you have come across is bad SEOs. Now I consider myself a ‘good’ SEO – along with a lot of other reputable companies. I share a lot about what I do, with clients, and everything I do is measurable. It’s hard to do a perfect SEO experiment because it’s just science as much as it is art – as you said if I make a change and get a result then make another change the results are skewed, would they have been different if I did the 2nd change first?
What you’re focusing on is on-site optimization. There are lots of other factors in SEO and they go beyond making sure you have your meta keywords and description.
First, I need to point out that you put good in quotations. Does that mean at some level you don’t believe it’s good?
If you don’t want to talk about your techniques, that’s fine. But can you provide some quantitative measure of improvements on previous projects? Did you increase traffic by 50%? 100%? Do you have data to support that you did?
Something else to toss into the mix:
http://www.miss604.com/2009/05/wordcamp-san-francisco-matt-cutts.html
I sat in on this session as well (can’t recall if you were in the same one). Real WordPress/SEO tips from someone who works for Google.
You’re obviously just trying to start a fight here. I don’t care about your opinion on my profession.
I used good in quotes because I was referring to skill – there are many more SEOs that have a lot more experience than I do. I’ve been at this for 2-3 years now, an SEO who has been around since 2000 will have much more knowledge than me.
I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m just confused by a profession that can’t seem to provide data to support it’s assertions. I mean, it’s pretty convenient that all this data is private, don’t you think? I would love nothing more than to go to clients and tell them to hire a SEO consultant because they would find real value in it. But telling my clients that this value will only become apparent after they go to a few closed-door meetings doesn’t exactly fill me with a lot of confidence.
Duane, sorry, you are being obtuse and I agree fully with Michael. Yes, there are “good” and “bad” SEOs, in the same way that there are “good” and “bad” plumbers. And doctors. And painters. SEO itself is not “good” or “bad”. Only the people who practice it are. If you get someone who is “bad” at their job, you suffer. If you get someone who is “good” at their job, you win.
Anyone who is “good” at SEO won’t even work with you unless you’re willing to implement a solid web analytics program and track and measure results, unless you’re willing to learn about SEO and make it a part of your overall business strategy and long term development plans and willing to understand that it is NOT a quick fix or overnight process.
SEO is NOT about “tweaking a few keywords” or site hacks or title tags or XML sitemaps, etc. It’s about having a useful, usable site that is full of content relevant to what your users are searching. A “good” SEO is also a usability expert and a content strategist. A “good” SEO understands your target user base and how they’d search to find your product, service or site. A “good” SEO researches your competitors to see who and what they are targeting. A “good” SEO does understand website best practices (at least as far as the search engines are concerned) and will help make sure they are properly implemented. A “good” SEO will also spend the bulk of their engagement with your client educating and training them in these strategies and best practices so that you can roll forward and operate an ‘optimized’ site long term without paying your SEO consultant.
A “good” SEO consultant will also be scientific about tracking statistics and analytics so at the end of the day they can show you EXACTLY what your ROI on using them is.
These are all aspects of a “good” SEO consultant and there are a lot of clients out there super satisfied with the investment they made in SEO or there wouldn’t be an entire industry devoted to it. Don’t shortchange YOUR clients by being uninformed about this stuff–you crap on SEO’s but I am fully shocked by the number of people out there billing themselves as “website” and “online business consultants” who clearly have no idea of the value of this stuff.
It works both ways.
Well, I’m not really crapping on SEO, I’m just asking for more information. I actually take offense to being called not educated on the subject — I do full time web development, and have not only organized web conferences, but routinely speak at them as well. I’d say I’m more educated on the subject than most of my clients, and yet I fully admit I don’t see all the value (that doesn’t mean it’s not there, I just don’t see it).
If you do a Google search regarding SEO, you’ll clearly see a lot of what appear to be snake-oil vendors. I pointed out that I’m a bit put off by the lack of public data on the matter, and you said on Twitter you didn’t have any to provide – so how do you propose people become educated on the matter if SEO experts aren’t willing to share their data? Simply take the SEO expert’s word for it? In that case, it’s more like a religion than a science.
Judging by the responses on my Twitter stream, and the fact that WordCamp Portland is having a whole panel dedicated to this subject, it’s clearly not just me that is having a hard time understanding the value add here. I’m all for discussion on the matter. I have some friends who own SEO companies, and I truly believe they do add some value. But I wish more SEO specialists would make their data public, not just for the sake of people like me, but for the sake of the clients I run into daily as well.
If I saw some real-world data from a SEO company showing a 300% increase in traffic or a 100% increase in sales, with the numbers to back it up, I’d probably be their next client.
What do you mean by ‘make their data public’? We all take client statistics that we signed NDA’s not to disclose and publish them on the internet? Come on.
It’s not easy to build public sets of data around SEO because each client is incredibly unique. You may have a client in a vertical that’s not very competitive who spends very little and gets a 300% increase in sales attributable to their investment in SEO and you may have a client in a highly competitive vertical that sees only a 5% increase but that increase is considered massive given the difficultly of ranking well on their keyword terms. It’s too variable and every client’s benchmarks for “success” will be different.
A client site needs to be properly assessed and audited and a strategy presented in advance. If the SEO can show projected increases and demonstrate that there is potential for significant enough ROI for a client to hire them on then they are worth hiring. Any “good” SEO would do this and any smart client would demand nothing less. A smart client also does due diligence to ensure at least part of compensation is based on ROI of the project–and any SEO that is pissed off I suggest that is also not worth hiring.
Yes, there are snake oil salesman out there. There are in every profession. Don’t paint SEO with a tar brush just because you don’t understand all the in’s and out’s of it and also take a hard look at what you consider ‘SEO’. Most people build their sites around themselves (their products, their services, what they think looks pretty) and not around their users (what matters to my user? what are users looking for? how can they find it easily? etc). As I said before a big part of SEO is ensuring you have a content strategy and are relevant and in line with what users are looking for. I can assure you no user ever purchased from a site based on its title tag.
Also: I wouldn’t hire an SEO that couldn’t provide checkable references of happy clients and at least some hard data/case studies/white papers on past successes. Anyone reputable or “good” will have this all readily available and any smart client would again be diligent about checking it out.
Wasn’t that what I was asking for on Twitter?
I’m still waiting for a few people to provide it.
Gee, so glad I took the time to write a comment cause clearly you bothered to read it.
I read your comments, and thanks for taking the time to write them. You make good points.
But you’re arguing two different things here, so please clarify — you’re saying that every respectable SEO company should “provide checkable references of happy clients and at least some hard data/case studies/white papers on past successes”, but you’re also saying “What do you mean by ‘make their data public’? We all take client statistics that we signed NDA’s not to disclose and publish them on the internet?”
Which is it? Do you have any data or use cases for any of the sites you’ve done? If so, can you please post a few links?
Firstly: You were asking for public data from the SEO industry and what I said is that there is no way to make sweeping generalizations or averages on the effectiveness of SEO because it varies too much by client to make any data set that is accurate. This is why no such thing exists.
Secondly: If you want to email me I am happy to provide you with specific data and we can talk. Doesn’t make sense for me to post links unless I know what specifically you are trying to optimize. Sure, I could show you a site that saw a 300% increase related to organic traffic optimization but it might not be realistic or feasible for your individual client or the industry they reside or their budget so that would be misleading. There are too many variables, and that’s what you don’t seem to understand. A “good” SEO would look at your benchmark stats, get an idea of your goals, look at your competitors and develop a strategy based around the needs of that individual client. Achieving that goal could take 2 days or 2 months and could produce a 5% or a 500% increase in revenue. There is no point in generalizing. Again it very much depends on what your client defines as “success”.
Incidentally: One could also say that all of your “snake oil salemen” showing up on the first page of Google results actually may know what they are doing–you know, based on the fact that they are showing up on the first page of results? Clearly they are doing something right.
You know, you just demonstrated my point exactly. I wasn’t asking for just public data, I was also asking for case by case data, as is evidenced by one of my early tweets = “@kmore just do some before/after data. That would be enough. I’m not saying there won’t be value, but nobody seems to have data showing it”
In terms of providing data, I really don’t understand why it’s so hard — I don’t care which industry, or which web variable you want to showcase. I just would like someone to post one link to something that they’ve done that shows some increase in something that was obtained from SEO. Why is that so difficult, and why does everyone want to do this in private? If you want to see my web portfolio, I’ll gladly post a link. Pretty much every web designer has their portfolio online so you can see what they do before you ever approach them. Every one of our web clients all represented various different industries, and yet the websites are all online so you can get a sense of what we do and how we do it.
“Incidentally: One could also say that all of your “snake oil salemen” showing up on the first page of Google results actually may know what they are doing–you know, based on the fact that they are showing up on the first page of results? Clearly they are doing something right.’
I don’t agree. You could easily get that way by doing black-hat — it doesn’t make it right.
Anyways, if you’re not going to post a link, let’s just agree to disagree.
Unless you can specifically point out what those sites are doing that is black hat then you have no business saying they are doing anything wrong. You’ve been asking for specifics so please–list them off. Just because a site is on page one of results it must be undertaking black hat measures? Did you just say that? Seriously? If so you really clearly just demonstrated your lack of knowledge about this industry.
As for everything else: Nothing is ‘closed door’, there is just no ‘one sized fits all’ solution when it comes to SEO. This is what I have said repeatedly and you can’t seem to grasp. If you hire someone based solely on the fact that their website says they got JimsWidgets.com a 300% increase in traffic on the term ‘widgets’ then you really need to get your head checked. What I’ve been trying to say is that no “good” SEO will charge you a cent or have you sign on a dotted line until they can show what they’ve done for sites similar to yours, what their strategy for your site will be and what they project the ROI on your investment will be.
How is this a bad thing? How would you be hoodwinked and scammed by full disclosure like that? Everything I’ve said in my comments indicates what a “good” SEO should do before funds ever change hands.
Only scam artists would publish stats like you’re asking for and that’s why I wouldn’t do it.
“I don’t agree. You could easily get that way by doing black-hat — it doesn’t make it right.”
Did you not read that properly? Re-read it — I never said it implied that it was black hat, only that you can obtain the front page of Google by doing black-hat techniques.
I fully grasp there is no one size that fits all, I get it. I’m asking you to post one size that fits one person. Why is that so hard?
Also: Seeing something you designed online in a portfolio is very different than what you’re asking to see. Let’s see your bank statment, Duane. How much money have you earned from your web developing? That will prove to me how good you are. Post it up. Also, can you show me your health records? I want you to prove you’re healthy so I can compare you to another web developer I might hire.
Do you get my point?
Asking site owners to disclose their statistics is sensitive and anyone professional does handle it privately and on a case by case basis. I’m sure all of their competitors would LOVE to know exactly how JimsWidgets.com grabbed 30% of the market share and how specifically we optimized their site around the term ‘widgets’. It would save all their competitors a lot of time and work of their own.
Then don’t disclose absolute numbers. Call the moment you were hired 1 visitor per day, or 1 dollar per day, and scale everything accordingly.
Again: Numbers without context are misleading.
On your portfolio do you post the ROI of the work you’ve done? Of each site? Is that there? Can I go see it? If I hire you to build my site, how many visitors will come to it? Can you prove that? Can you tie numbers to every design? What is the conversion rate of each site? Can you provide that to me here, now, publicly?
I think we should just agree to disagree on all of this as you honestly don’t seem inclined to have a real conversation about it.
You got a lot of gull, you know that? I’m trying to have a real conversation. You seem to ignore every point I make and instead attack me instead of my arguments (i.e. “Seriously? If so you really clearly just demonstrated your lack of knowledge about this industry”). If your numbers don’t have context, then add context to them.
I’m asking you to show some kind of data that shows that you’ve done some work for a client that resulted in a client success, by whatever metric you think is appropriate. It’s the same thing I’ve asked other people, and nobody seems willing to provide it. I’ve conceded some of your points, but I still don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for someone to show me a SEO success story. Contrary to what you may think, I actually think that they do exist. I just don’t understand why nobody can provide me one.
Anyways, you’re right about one thing, this conversation isn’t leading anywhere, so I’m shutting it down.