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Developers can and should take care of SEO themselves. No so-called experts needed. I did a talk about it this weekend at Lone Star Ruby Conf: http://www.slide

by luigi 16y ago

Developers can and should take care of SEO themselves. No so-called experts needed. I did a talk about it this weekend at Lone Star Ruby Conf: http://www.slideshare.net/luigimontanez/searchfriendly-web-development-lone-star-ruby-conference-2010 http://www.slideshare.net/luigimontanez/searchfriendly-web-d...

sosuke 16y ago
SEO is great for developers but he was paying for SEM, those folks cold contacted sites to link back to him, that takes a lot of time to do and SEO alone won't get you to the top of the SERPs for common keywords.
- luigi 16y ago
  Cold contacting sites to ask for linkbacks is not marketing, it's a lame and rarely successful attempt to game PageRank.
  - sosuke 16y ago
    I haven't done it myself because my wallet isn't deep enough but I've seen it be very successful for my competitors who's emails make it into my inbox and I then check their Google link: list that shows it does actually work. Lame or not the proof is in the search engine result position.
  - byrneseyeview 16y ago
    1. It's PR. PR via email, but still PR. 2. Maybe it's lame. 3. Rarely successful? Any data there? It has certainly worked for the people I've done it for. 4. PageRank is not the goal. Qualified, revenue-producing traffic is the goal.
    - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
      Of course PageRank increases qualified, revenue-producing traffic.
  - tommizzle 16y ago
    Rarely successful? How can you say that? Obtaining quality linkbacks are one of the cornerstones, if not THE cornerstone of a successful SEO campaign.
byrneseyeview 16y ago
How do you recommend selecting keywords? There can be an order of magnitude difference in ROI between a high-competition, low-conversion keyword and one with the opposite characteristics. And should the average developer really rediscover the best-converting way to ask for a link? Your presentation has lots of solid on-site SEO stuff, which is great. But if you're going to do an active SEO campaign--i.e. you're trying to get the maximum amount of high-converting traffic--it's not enough to have a site that's fully indexable. That's one coefficient, so you ought to maximize it, but it's not the only one.
- luigi 16y ago
  Why should one even engage in the practice of asking for links? If your content is good, people will link to it organically. If you try to game the system, or hire "experts" that do, you'll be severely punished for it, which this guy was.
  - byrneseyeview 16y ago
    I'm sure there are lots of great websites that have adopted that philosophy, most of which I've never heard of. There are three groups of people who should have an interest in a given site: A) The site owner, who wants it to get relevant traffic and generate business. B) People who write online, and need new content to write about--especially if it's useful to their target audience. C) Potential customers of A), many of whom are part of the target audience of B). Now, it is in nobody's interest for A) to refuse to speak to B) on the grounds that C) will somehow find A) naturally. I believe this guy was punished because his "experts" used paid links. Can you find a reference for the assertion that he was punished for hiring someone to help him rank well, or that Google believes in punishing such activity? Bear in mind that the head of Google's webspam team routinely speaks at SEO conferences, where presumably all of the attendees are in the results-gaming business. If your worldview is correct, that's really weird; like the CEO of Brink's making a habit of speaking at safecrackers' conventions.
    - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
tommizzle 16y ago
Nice presentation, but that's only on-site SEO - You're never going to drive traffic to your site doing that alone.
- luigi 16y ago
  SEO isn't about driving traffic. It's about optimizing your site to work best with search engines. Driving traffic is done through marketing, outreach, and advertising.
  - chollida1 16y ago
    I think the problem you're having on this discussion is that there is no set in stone definition of SEO. Some people consider driving traffic to your site to be a part of SEO, you don't.
    - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
      I think they both are right, just focusing on different parts of SEO. Ranking higher produces more traffic. That can be achieved mainly through on page SEO and, he calls it outreach and marketing, others call it link building. The confusion therefore is caused by the use of different terminology.

by luigi 16y ago

sosuke 16y ago

SEO is great for developers but he was paying for SEM, those folks cold contacted sites to link back to him, that takes a lot of time to do and SEO alone won't get you to the top of the SERPs for common keywords.

luigi 16y ago
Cold contacting sites to ask for linkbacks is not marketing, it's a lame and rarely successful attempt to game PageRank.
- sosuke 16y ago
  I haven't done it myself because my wallet isn't deep enough but I've seen it be very successful for my competitors who's emails make it into my inbox and I then check their Google link: list that shows it does actually work. Lame or not the proof is in the search engine result position.
- byrneseyeview 16y ago
  1. It's PR. PR via email, but still PR. 2. Maybe it's lame. 3. Rarely successful? Any data there? It has certainly worked for the people I've done it for. 4. PageRank is not the goal. Qualified, revenue-producing traffic is the goal.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    Of course PageRank increases qualified, revenue-producing traffic.
- tommizzle 16y ago
  Rarely successful? How can you say that? Obtaining quality linkbacks are one of the cornerstones, if not THE cornerstone of a successful SEO campaign.

byrneseyeview 16y ago

How do you recommend selecting keywords? There can be an order of magnitude difference in ROI between a high-competition, low-conversion keyword and one with the opposite characteristics. And should the average developer really rediscover the best-converting way to ask for a link? Your presentation has lots of solid on-site SEO stuff, which is great. But if you're going to do an active SEO campaign--i.e. you're trying to get the maximum amount of high-converting traffic--it's not enough to have a site that's fully indexable. That's one coefficient, so you ought to maximize it, but it's not the only one.

luigi 16y ago
Why should one even engage in the practice of asking for links? If your content is good, people will link to it organically. If you try to game the system, or hire "experts" that do, you'll be severely punished for it, which this guy was.
- byrneseyeview 16y ago
  I'm sure there are lots of great websites that have adopted that philosophy, most of which I've never heard of. There are three groups of people who should have an interest in a given site: A) The site owner, who wants it to get relevant traffic and generate business. B) People who write online, and need new content to write about--especially if it's useful to their target audience. C) Potential customers of A), many of whom are part of the target audience of B). Now, it is in nobody's interest for A) to refuse to speak to B) on the grounds that C) will somehow find A) naturally. I believe this guy was punished because his "experts" used paid links. Can you find a reference for the assertion that he was punished for hiring someone to help him rank well, or that Google believes in punishing such activity? Bear in mind that the head of Google's webspam team routinely speaks at SEO conferences, where presumably all of the attendees are in the results-gaming business. If your worldview is correct, that's really weird; like the CEO of Brink's making a habit of speaking at safecrackers' conventions.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago

tommizzle 16y ago

Nice presentation, but that's only on-site SEO - You're never going to drive traffic to your site doing that alone.

luigi 16y ago
SEO isn't about driving traffic. It's about optimizing your site to work best with search engines. Driving traffic is done through marketing, outreach, and advertising.
- chollida1 16y ago
  I think the problem you're having on this discussion is that there is no set in stone definition of SEO. Some people consider driving traffic to your site to be a part of SEO, you don't.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    I think they both are right, just focusing on different parts of SEO. Ranking higher produces more traffic. That can be achieved mainly through on page SEO and, he calls it outreach and marketing, others call it link building. The confusion therefore is caused by the use of different terminology.