3 ms·

I'm always at aw at how people can psychologically say SEO is easy. Getting to the top of many SERPs can mean millions of dollars in monthly revenue. If it's

I'm always at aw at how people can psychologically say SEO is easy. Getting to the top of many SERPs can mean millions of dollars in monthly revenue. If it's so easy, and the author is so smart about it, why doesn't he just take it? It's like people who say 'well of course CRO is easy, you just make it easy for people to check out and check the stats and iterate'. Overly arrogant engineers many times think everyone else is stupid for not being an engineer, but forget that more than just engineers are needed. I'm guessing that is how you end up with Google +.

bdcravens 7y ago
Dunking a basketball is easy: you just have to jump high enough.
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  It reminds me of myself and my nerdy friends in high school. We would say 'being a football player is so easy you just run and grunt, not like us who love math... math is for those who are REALLY smart'. It took me a long time before I could look back at that attitude and cringe at the arrogance and lack of understanding of the complexities of the world. The fact that this article is getting upvoted while my comment is getting downvoted is telling.
bscphil 7y ago
>If it's so easy, and the author is so smart about it, why doesn't he just take it? The title suggests one possible answer to that question - the author has moral qualms about turning the Internet into a landfill. (Then again, given that this article is itself almost certainly supposed to double as shitty SEO marketing / clickbait, I have my doubts.)
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  Well every site that ranks does SEO. So the issue shouldn't be in the methods, but in the end game. Like, what value are you bringing. He could bring value and get a ton of money. For example mortgage calculators. There are a million. Pick one, and rank it. You'll be making millions while providing value. Strange he isn't doing it, since it is so easy and all. I mean, whatever his goals in life, a few million a year will probably help push that.
arcticfox 7y ago
The author is annoyed that the game is who can produce the most garbage, not that they think they could personally win at it (or not).
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  But it's not exactly that. Volume doesn't win in SEO. That's like talking about lines of code and whoever writes more can win as a programmer. It's... an oversimplification that doesn't quite fit. Are incentives misaligned? Sure. But saying it is easy, while not succeeding at it, just feels a bit... arrogant. No other word for it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I dislike how sausage is made. You can talk all you like about how bad the mafia is. Doesn't mean being a top mobster is easy. Are they intellectually smart like a brain surgeon? No. But they are smart in ways that brain surgeons aren't. Considering them stupid would be a grave mistake. It also would be arrogant, it takes a certain type of person to see someone else's job and say 'that's easy' when they never practice that job ever, let alone succeeded at it. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sun Tzu.

bdcravens 7y ago

Dunking a basketball is easy: you just have to jump high enough.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
It reminds me of myself and my nerdy friends in high school. We would say 'being a football player is so easy you just run and grunt, not like us who love math... math is for those who are REALLY smart'. It took me a long time before I could look back at that attitude and cringe at the arrogance and lack of understanding of the complexities of the world. The fact that this article is getting upvoted while my comment is getting downvoted is telling.

bscphil 7y ago

>If it's so easy, and the author is so smart about it, why doesn't he just take it? The title suggests one possible answer to that question - the author has moral qualms about turning the Internet into a landfill. (Then again, given that this article is itself almost certainly supposed to double as shitty SEO marketing / clickbait, I have my doubts.)

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
Well every site that ranks does SEO. So the issue shouldn't be in the methods, but in the end game. Like, what value are you bringing. He could bring value and get a ton of money. For example mortgage calculators. There are a million. Pick one, and rank it. You'll be making millions while providing value. Strange he isn't doing it, since it is so easy and all. I mean, whatever his goals in life, a few million a year will probably help push that.

arcticfox 7y ago

The author is annoyed that the game is who can produce the most garbage, not that they think they could personally win at it (or not).

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
But it's not exactly that. Volume doesn't win in SEO. That's like talking about lines of code and whoever writes more can win as a programmer. It's... an oversimplification that doesn't quite fit. Are incentives misaligned? Sure. But saying it is easy, while not succeeding at it, just feels a bit... arrogant. No other word for it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I dislike how sausage is made. You can talk all you like about how bad the mafia is. Doesn't mean being a top mobster is easy. Are they intellectually smart like a brain surgeon? No. But they are smart in ways that brain surgeons aren't. Considering them stupid would be a grave mistake. It also would be arrogant, it takes a certain type of person to see someone else's job and say 'that's easy' when they never practice that job ever, let alone succeeded at it. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sun Tzu.