There has always been debate about professional search engine optimizers’ motivations. Why would someone who could rank web pages at the top of Google offer to work as a consultant to others? A good SEO could make more money working for herself than for others, right?

Not exactly. Just as in any other line of work, we humans thrive on satisfaction. We seek it out, work hard for it, and feel really, really good when we get it. Thing is, people are all different, and different things satisfy different people. Some SEOs are satisfied with money… true. But others seek the praise of others. Some seek the thrill of dominating a fierce competitor. Some get high off the underdog thing: David beating Goliath. Still others get satisfaction out of finding and exploiting a little known secret or undiscovered market opportunity, kind of like playing a game of spy v. spy or Clue or working through a complex puzzle. For some, the money isn’t the goal. The win is the goal. For some, it’s the journey that matters.

I have held several of those perspectives at different times in my life, and I believe I understand them. I also expect there are many more perspectives out there driving SEOs to do their magic. For me, there is no need to debate “Why would an SEO work for others” because the answer is simple: because she wants to. A better question might be, is it cost-effective to SEO for clients?

Lately SEO for Clients has gotten much harder than it used to be. And there is one reason: CHANGE.

I believe the only barrier to SEO is change. Anyone can learn to optimize websites. The basics parallel webmastering - proper code, proper design, complete details. The SEO part comes from paying atention to the details of search engines. The competitive aspects of SEO come from the fact that SEO is always changing, and SEO practitioners need to adapt and keep up to remain competitive in the SERPs. There is a TON of free SEO information on the web. Most of it is junk. Much of the junk is outdated, but most of the junk is assumption based on minimal experimental evidence or simply anecdotal evidence. With so much changing, novice SEO detectives cannot deduce anything meaningful. Still, they deduct. So much well-cited published information is outdated by change, that SEO self-study isn’t easy or inexpensive. Lately, there is more change than ever before.

Client work is expectation management with a little SEO sprinkled on the top. That can be easy money for a smoozer (think Ad Agency) provided the SEO part is easy enough. But as things change rapidly (as they are now), client expectations become harder to manage. SEO is harder to manage, but the client expectation side is even harder. It’s much easier to fire your low-level SEO and pay 5 times more for a short stint with a top-tier SEO than it is to explain to your client why you were 100% incorrect with your last SEO strategy document. Why your judgement was bad. With rapid change, even the best clients get anxious. The worst clients become nightmares.

When you work for yourself you can turn on a dime. You see opportunity in change. When you work for a client, change is a P.I.T.A. that creates more work for everyone. If that work is 80% client expectation management, you better like client expectation management.

It’s simple, really. There are two kinds of SEOs. Those who work for clients, and those who work for themselves. Two sets of objectives, two skill sets to match, and two perspectives on the changing world of search engine optimization. Many of us wear both hats at different times, but that just means we are able to function from differing perspectives, and perhaps are good communicators. In the end, the best SEOs will outperform everyone else provided there is adequate change. If the change slows down, the client expectaton management people will do well. If change picks up, the independents are likely to enjoy more satisfaction than the client-serving SEOs.

Of course there is one exception: the snake oil salesmen SEOs. They do well with very high levels of change, and they are exposed by periods of minimal change. It looks to me like we can once again expect to see high-pressure snake oil SEO making a comeback.

When I commented on the New York Times doing a good job optimizing content (see The New York Times Flexes its SEO Muscle“, I didn’t expect the bashing that followed in the so-called “SEO world”. Some said the New York Times was cheating, some said spamming, and there were many nagative comments. I think one needs to view the source when reading such commentary… it seems odd to me that a competitive search optimizer would view the NYT successful efforts at search inclusion and indexing as cheating or spamming. Personally, I think it speaks more about the quality of the SEOs making such comments than anything else.

That said, this johnon.com blog is a simple, one-off personal blog. I don’t do much research for this bog, and I don’t edit posts beyond the quick draft -> review -> publish. I hardly ever hold a post in edit mode for more than an hour. It’s a personal blog. Mostly opinion, based on experience and personal observation. What you read here is not portrayed as fact; it’s JOHN writing ON topics that come up in my own practice of competitive webmastering and SEO.

I say this because there are so many others writing well on the same topics, sometimes influenced by opinion writers like me. I think Scott Karp did a great job over at Publishing 2.0, where he framed the issue with quotes from the New York Times’ financial statements. Scott discussed the publishing industry’s approach to Google, but inside he noted how the NYT was openly proud of their SEO efforts:

Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times’ Q1 2007 earnings call:

As of March, the Times Company was the 12th most visited parent company on the web in the United States with 43.5 million unique visitors, up 12% from March of 2006, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Traffic growth has been accelerating as we optimize our website for search.

And here’s what New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger had to say about the importance of search at the recent New York Times shareholders meeting:

Moreover, About is having a powerful effect on our Company by providing NYT.com, Boston.com, IHT.com and our regional sites with critical, digital expertise. This includes optimizing content so that it is more visible to search engines, which leads to significant increases in traffic and thereby makes our online pages more profitable.

Thanks for the research, Scott, and the work put into to publishing such a good web site. We now see that being “the 12th most visited parent company on the web in the United States” is an claim to fame for the publisher of the New York Times. Raw traffic counts in that context. We also know that they are 12% up from a year ago, largely due to SEO efforts. And we know that increased exposure for archives leads to higher profits on the home page. All good to know. SEO works.

But Scott was the exception, as so many wrote that the NYT was “cheating” and “spamming”. Some even said that if you don’t do extra steps to comply with Google’s recommendations for web publishers, you are technically a spammer. I think that’s just plain wrong, and encourages Google’s bad-boy behavior. Such chatter casts an ugly shadow on the so-called SEO world.

Here’s an idea: maybe someday the world will recognize SEO as a competitive sport. Then whining about not winning will be branded as unsportsmanlike behavior, and maybe even worthy of a technical foul and penalty. The real SEOs will get a league of their own so they don’t have to suffer the wannabees so much, and the armchair quarterbacks can pay $130/month for a DigitalCable version of the SERPs, marked up with highlights of rankings, performance stats, and disabled lists. Split SEO into two parts: participants and spectators. For spectator sports, the entertainment side of competition belongs to the fans. The way we’re going, it seems that SEO is destined to become more like the WWF than the NBA. BUT, and here’s the dirty little secret… SEO is not about blogs and SEO websites. The real SEOs are already separate from the crowd of wannabees, the talking heads, and the high-profile spam reports. The real SEOs are already performance based and in a separate league. It’s the clients that need to catch up.

Google took a bold step today and announced a commitment to “universal search”. We’ve seen the vertical search “beta” programs for years.. Google local, Google maps, Google Financial, Google Video, Google Base, etc. Truth is, nobody uses them because everyone takes for granted that Google has already integrated everything they have into “google”. Don’t believe me? Turn to the non-SEO in the cubicle next to yours and ask her “If I told you Google had access to the entire pubic database of the stock exchange, and had indexed and categorized it, would you expect that data to be included inthe results sets when you searched Google for information about stocks?” Of course she thinks they incorporate that data.

But they don’t. They only present stuff they found on the web, in web pages.

Google says it will now integrate all that “other stuff” with web search results, *and* rank it all for relevancy. Of course the key word there is “will”.

What does this mean for Google? One, Google is clearly threatened by “vertical search”, those non-Google search engines that limit their focus to specific industries like financials or local commerce (like an online yellow pages). Everybody knows Yahoo! is kills Google when it comes to Finance, for example. In case you were wondering just how Google was going to keep user loyalty as specialized vertical search engines deliver better, more highly-focused results, this announcement says “we’re working on it”. I suppose Universal Search also takes the wind out of the sails of some upstarts looking for venture money to challenge Google in a vertical… who wants to fund something Microsoft Google is already working on?

What does it mean for search marketers and SEO’s? More business, of course. More specialization, as well. For the current Google search engine, SEO is all about the web pages. How they are crafted, what is on them, and how they relate to each other and the web as a whole. But for many publishers, the web has been about data. How to present it so it is consumed by users and search engines. SEOs work all of that, although many focus on database-driven dynamic websites publishing massive amounts of data, while others work on creative content, where a single web page can”go viral” and earn assive market attention (and rank well in Google). Same story, but perhaps with a renewed energy because more data means more confusion (more need for signals of relevancy, and therefore more need for optimization on those signals). It also could me more use of Google, as (potentially) a wider audience is satisfied by Google’s results. And that is a double-edged sword. Google is loved in large part because it is simple and easy to use. How many consumers actually want to know all of the options? Most probably just want “a good answer” followed by 9 obviously lesser answers, not “here are the best 10 good answers, sort them out for yourself”.

I think Google’s personalization efforts are the real answer to Google’s future, if it’s possible to actually achieve it (I have serious doubts). But “Universal Search” is a sexier concept to sell and easier to implement. So, everything’s changed now; expect more of the same.

John Andrews is an independent search engine optimization consultant out of Seattle.

Prompted by Google’s public efforts to warn the world of evil lurking, I thought it might be interesting to highlight where Google could easily do more to protect the public. Let’s highlight some “low hangng fruit” for the good boys and girls of Google, should they care to improve SERP quality in the name of Good.

Where are the Google SERPs doing evil?

For me, Google should be ashamed for including www.quackwatch.org and it’s network of sites in the top 10 for so many consumer health searches (acupuncture, chiropractor, naturopathy, dental mercury, fluoridation, chinese medicine). I’m convinced Google is doing a serious bit of evil by recommending that site to consumers interested in learning about health issues. I’ve heard for years of reports and even successful law suits over the misleading “medical reporting”, the commercial bias, and the questionable credentials of the publishers of quackwatch. Still, numerous page 1 and often top 3 results for core one-word consumer health information queries. (If you read health information, see WebSite Review on this page for the kind of criticisms the quackwatch site receives from smart people).

What SERPs in your field are so incorrect or misleading that Google should be ashamed for compiling them?

Anna Quindlen was quoted “I hate to write, but I love having written“. It reflects what many of us feel.
Some other areas of competitive webmastering that fit Quindlen’s quip about writing:

I hate to code, but I love to see my code run.

I hate to blog, but I love having blogged.

I hate to go out on a limb with an opinion, but I love having been right.

I hate to optimize, but I love to rank.

So many have said before that the time to publish content on that unused domain name is yesterday, the time to stop thinking and start doing is today, and the first thing you need to think about is “why are you thinking when you should be doing”. The truth is, you simply have to do something in order to achieve success. It doesn’t matter what you do, so the first order of business is to just do something. Chances are good that if you do it, you will learn sooner rather than later if it was worth doing. If it was not, there is still time to do something else.

Is that all it takes to be successful? Just doing something? Yes. If you do it, you will have done it, and you therefore will have succeeded at your task.
Now if you had intended to make money or get backlinks or make the Digg front page or rank #1 in a SERP, but didn’t, did you fail?

No. You still succeeded at what you set out to do. But you probably set out to do the wrong thing. So now do the right thing. You know what it is. You may not like doing it, but it’s the thing you need to do. So do it. I guarantee you, after you do it, you’ll love having done it.

Yes, I used “American Idol” and “SEO” in the same title. American Idol and SEO Baiting are the same game, successful for the same reasons. Some people know that, and exploit it. One of those exploiters is preparing a new assault on the market as we speak. Others are suggesting we ignore it.

Allow me to explain.

SEO baiting is the process of inducing search engine optimizing types to pursue an SEO objective in the public eye. It’s not done to get some page to rank, but to get attention. Most SEOs know this. Many so-called SEO’s participate anyway (fall for the bait).

American Idol is a fabulousy popular TV show that panders to the public’s thirst to mock those who try and fail. It sells to the widely held belief that everyone deserves a shot, yet plays on the emotional fears of failure that are responsible for the “average” status of the majority of the audience - the ones who never try. Did you ever see someone succeed and think, “I could have done that!”. Did you feel resentment? A little guilt or disappointment for not having done it?

Guilt is a powerful and painful emotion. American Idol relieves the pangs of guilt and self doubt in those who never try, by showing us that “to try is to fail, most of the time”. And it doesn’t just show us… it laughs along with us, mocking those who fail. It makes a mockery of trying. It helps you feel better for not trying, while you sit in your comfy barcalounger with a cold beer. Google VoteForTheWorst for more on how American idol reportedly games the competition by selecting not the best candidates to compete, but the ones that will make for the most entertaining failures.

And so it goes with SEO baiting. A true competitive SEO will not participate in an SEO Contest because it doesn’t serve a productive purpose. As a consequence, those who do participate end up representing SEO. And when they fail (they always fail), the rest of the world can point and say “see, SEO doesn’t win”. This happens so much it’s like the reported shenanigans of American Idol gaming the competition. The exploiters use that to sell their oily message to the thirsty audience. People like the guy copying wikipedia. See? SEO isn’t so great.

This is a problem for those who defend the SEO industry. Is the solution simply “ignore the bait”? Nah. The very vacuum created by the ignoring provides opportunity for the next wannabee SEO celebrity to gain some attention market share. If no “real” SEO takes the bait, GeekWannabeeSEOGrrrl can step up to the plate, claim to be an SEO, and roar like a lion taking on all challengers. The basics of SEO are easy to learn. Most tricks are short-lived current events. That’s all you need to create an appearance of trying hard at SEO, since the audience is fairly ignorant of real SEO, and even the real SEOs will grant credit for having tried the basics and a few tricks.

If the SEO “contest” lasts more than 4 months or so, and GeekWannabeeSEOGrrrl has an outgoing personality, she’ll have achieved Junior SEO Rock Star status no matter the outcome. She’ll get invited on SEO talk shows. Among her new peers (the real SEO people and their fans), she personally looks good for having tried to defend the industry. Her looks and personality will substitute for her SEO skillz. She will no doubt meet alot of SEO people along the way, and get quality feedback in the form of criticism of her public SEO efforts, or support for trying. From “no where” to junior celebrity SEO status inside 6 months.. not bad. If she’s smart, the next step is publicly seek out free internships with the BigBoys…offer to run their errands and sort their keyword lists. Puffery will get you everywhere, including all the SEO dinners and “exclusive events” where “to-be-seen” is viewed by many as equivalent to being a good SEO.

It’s SEO as an industry that takes the beating. And I doubt that will ever change.

The cycle continues with the next generation seeing GeekSEOGrrrl’s success. She’ll be in the Flikr photos of SES and PubCon next to the Rock Stars. She’ll get linked. SEOs that didn’t participate will feel a little resentment, a little disappointment, and a little guilt for not having done what she did, or not having at least tried. And the next generation of scheming exploiters start planning their next round of SEO baiting, no doubt timed perfectly.

And the real SEOs will continue to rank at the top of the SERPs in whatever search engine the public prefers to use at the time. Just like they always have. I think it’s natural law.

Lisa Barone says SEO is in the details (”sweat the small stuff“)

Jill Whalen says the details don’t matter (”don’t sweat the small SEO stuff“)

Who is right?

What matters in SEO is what gets you to the top spot. Not the second spot, or the third spot, but the top spot for which your web page is qualified. If your page has what it takes to be #1 for your target term, you need to do whatever it takes to accept that reward. That’s when you listen to Lisa. Make it perfect, and get what you deserve.

Now, what qualifies your page for the coveted top spot? Of course that varies with the market niche and particular competitive situation. Often it involves off-page factors you do not control with on-page SEO. Eager to do what it takes to earn that top spot? Listen to Jill. She’ll help you get to the point that you need to hire Lisa. Really.

Now ask me how I know. I’m competitive. It’s what I do.

We knew it was coming, and we knew the New York Times was “getting” SEO. And it didn’t take long. The King of Content is now dominating the Google SERPs across a wide swath of the keyword space, via the re-published, re-purposed, New York Times Archives. Each “article” is re-purposed on a clean, CSS-driven text page, clearly dated TODAY and not-co-clearly labeled as “originally published” back in 1997, 1998, or whatever all the way back to 1981. Of course cross-referenced, categorized, sub-categorized, ad-infinitum.

You can check for yourself on your own “current events” topics of interest. Look for query.nytimes.com (search results) and topics.nytimes.com (archives) showing up in the #1 spot for search phrases, as if the re-published content was “fresh news”. Via Google referral, many of them are full articles. Via the New York Times archive search pages, my tests mostly returned pay-per-article results sets. Yes, there are ads on the pages.

Clearly if Google is going to rank “newly published” results as most relevant in a SERP, there is a nice big fat incentive to “re-publish” such archives fairly often. I wonder what the plan is, and what the monetization looks like?

[Update: Within a few hours of this post Google updated the SERPs.The result set mentioned in the comments was apparently “hand edited” - the NYT no longer ranks for that result. I just did my own re-check of one of my queries and it’s still query.nyt as #1 and topics at number 4. I suppose if it were important to me,  I would list them here and get the NYT removed. Isn’t that good to know? (that was “sarcasm“, by the way)]

SearchEngineLand says VW is search spamming, because the site has a content area set via CSS to “invisible”. The main page itself loads in Flash, which they also note. Last I checked Flash was a visible medium. A visual display of data. In other words, invisible to people with disabilities. Other SEO people followed on today enhancing SEL’s assertion that VW is “spamming”. Lisa Barone suggests that this hidden text is “ridiculous” and that VW’s SEO people should “evolve”. (Sorry, Lisa… no backlink. I couldn’t find a permalink). I suppose it’s all the rage these days to “out” competitive webmasters who push beyond the obvious and try to accommodate their markets as best as they can.

Now take a look at this web accessibility project article on “invisible content”. Wow. Imagine that. Someone actually bothers to create alternative content for those people with visual impairments, such that when they go to Volkswagon’s website using their screen readers, they “see” more than “Flash banner loading” or some other uninformative nonsense. They actually get informed (via that invisible-to-you-and-me alternative text) that they are on the Volkswagon site… the one about those nice little VW cars.  Oh and look - the article is named “invisible content” and the URL is “invisiblecontent”, an exact match for “invisibleContent”. . I guess that’s why it was so easy to find in Google.

Sometimes it seems Google is unfair, but other times it sure seems that SEO people are pretty quick to jump on the judgement trail. Does it really matter that VW has “invisible content”? Does it really matter if you notice it? Is it really cause for one SEO to call another SEO primitive?

If you want to compete on the web, stay home or die trying. But please, stop whining. It’s ugly.

Update May 4: VW has taken the invisible content div off the site. The home page is still flash, and much less accessible than it was before. So now the more interesting bits should get discussed in the blogosphere:

• Q: Did a fear of Google cause VW to purposefully violate best-practice (and civil rights law in the US at least) by making the site inaccessible to people with visual impairments?
• Q: Did fear of an SEO blogosphere’s knee-jerk overreaction and hostile language do the same?
• Q: Does Google, by fostering an environment of secrecy surrounding search placement and supposed penalties for “hidden content”, encourage an inaccessible web? Does Google reward webmasters for remaining inaccessible to people with disabilities?
• Q: Does anyone care?

Note: I spent 10 years in disability research, including early involvement in the ADA and 508 as applied to the web. I worked for and with advocates for people with disabilities. Disability is a part of the world, and at least in this country, the law says people with disabilities should be accommodated.

I say FOCUS because that is what it helps you to do: focus the indexed content of your pages.

Just when I thought Yahoo! was the most boring search engine, they introduce this interesting tool for content publishers. I have a few tests to reset, but I don’t mind. Yes it’s strange to use class attributes. Yes it’s weird to require a unique attribute inside content. But really, this isn’t a tool for the average website, right? This is a tool to be used strategically.

Now it’s up to Google to adopt it and steal the thunder back (I’d quickly skip Yahoo! again if Google supported this attribute) or will there be two search engines again?

Source: Search Engine Land.