April 28, 2009
Local SEO is Bullshit! SEO is all Blackhat!
Sometimes I like to be devil’s advocate and stir the pot. Since releasing MLBO, I have been getting amazing feedback, success stories and a lot of interest. I haven’t made a penny from it, yet I find myself immersing myself in my greatest passion, learning and teaching. I’m about to teach one of my philosophies that I’ve danced around with. I know many will agree with me, however many will disagree with me and I’m hoping to create controversy. I will add that I am not the first by any stretch of the imagination to write about this controversial topic.
Local SEO will not exist in a few years
OK, local SEO, is Local Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Optimizer. I no longer call myself an SEOer. I’m an Internet Marketing Guru. I do not ‘optimize’ a site for the search engines. I market a website using the Internet.
Is White Hat SEO just sugar coated Black Hat?
Alright, so the question of black hat and white hat rise. My clients hire me to get their site to #1. Some don’t care how I do it. Others buy my philosophies. I study black hat techniques and I can in fact play a game like Howie Schwartz. These techniques are used to dupe the search engines and simply won’t last for a sustainable business. Mom taught me, if you’re going to do something, do it right. Black Hat works, just won’t forever.
So what is black hat? Keyword stuffing, duh. What about optimizing a keyword into the H1 Tag? Enhancing the Title tag? Keyword Density? Keyword Proximity? Internal Linking with proper anchor text? I can argue that each, and every one of the above mentioned concepts is black hat, if you are using them for search engine purposes and NOT for an enhanced user experience.
On-The-Page SEO shouldn’t have a list, just quality Design and Marketing
What about validating your code? Using CSS over tables? Optimal use of flash and java? We know the search engines like certain standards, so we employ them. What about a dedicated IP, shared hosting, slow sites? Large pages? No alt tags on images? Large image sizes? These are among many factors that need to be considered when an SEOer gets to work. And this stuff only represents about 30% of your rankings weight, I haven’t touched on outside factors yet!
Point is, if you are top of your game for designing, and coding, you’ll know or will know enough to hire a quality developer who goes by the book. Your site should validate! You should reduce the size of your images! Tables are sloppy way of programming! Flash was designed to be a movie, NOT a entire website! It’s obvious to me, the search engines want a well built website using the technology the way is was meant to be used. As far as keywords, page design, content, it also makes sense. For example, you would not want to come back to this blog if new content never came in. So, the more fresh content I have, the more I’m favored by Google. Sure, you need to know what keywords people are using to find your site and put those keywords on your pages, but this isn’t optimizing a page for the search engines, this is marketing and understanding your audience, speaking their jargon. It so happens the search engines understand this and place value on those pages, and in turn we SEOers have reversed engineered the Search Engines and rarely have I found educations that says…UHM, lets just focus on proper marketing.
Don’t look for links, that’s not what SEO is about
So what about off the page stuff, that other 70%? It’s all about links, right? Of course it is. So I’m taught to analyse competitors links, in fact I teach strategies. I value links, spend efforts on the links that favor the most PR. I have people posting on forums, blogs, directories, writting articles, doing video. How shameful of me. Wait, sure, if we reversed engineers that this works, then deploy it, but in fact, I’m creating transparency and exposure in the most democratic medium we’ve ever seen. It’s no different than my local business by handing out flyers, business cards, attending trade shows and chamber meetings. Speaking at local events and getting involved with the school and churches. Transparency and Exposure. Sure, I also focus my time on the exposure that yields the highest traffic, like in the days selling cellular phones, it was the mall, not the park. If I wanted to meet womyn, it was the bar and to create trust and authority to pick up the woman, I brought my ‘player’ friends, not the geeks that I enjoyed spending time with chewing the fat on about computers.
The point is I learned sales and marketing at a young age and I’ve now realised that absolutly everything I do on the Internet can be related to my old school world. Links are merely endorsements and relationships. Like marketing my businesses in the old school world, it took time and hard work. I walked the pavement, knocked on doors, picked up the phone and made sure I played in places I needed to be, it wasn’t the park accross the street. It was those crazy early breakfast meetings at the chamber of commerce accross town, but it brought business.
SEO is Merely Quality Marketing
Alright, so I threw either water or fuel on the fire here. I’m saying that everything you do on the Internet to promote your business, local or online, if you’re going to long term growth, forget about 99% of the SEO noise you read about. Don’t worry about this or that. Close your eyes and ask yourself if what you are doing enhances either
- The visitor of your site
- The democratic value of the Internet
If you can answer yes to one of those truthfully, then chances are it’s something the search engines have already recongnized and have built into their algo.
If the answer is no, then chances are it’s black hat and don’t do it. It might work today and I challenge anyone on the Internet to this philosophy. There is nothing you can do to your website that doesn’t answer Yes to any of those and is a sustainable strategy to SEO.
Don’t hire your carpenter to sell your house
If feel sorry for all those web developers looking for work, studying SEO and calling themselves experts. They better learn marketing, or they’ll be out of business soon. I AM an Internet Marketer, not SEO guru.
Disclaimer: Notice the link at the top, Internet Marketing Guru? That’s a internal link on this post to help the search engine follow a link to my homepage, which is a keyword I begun optimizing for. So I’m contradicting myself. Of course I am. Read this post again and you’ll notice I’m not. That link sends people to a page about and Internet marketing. I live by a self fullfilling prophecy, act as if. There is no trickery here, just marketing. Keep your head focused on proper marketing and rankings will follow.
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Filed under General Small Business, Internet Marketing Training, eBooks and Courses, Keyword Research, Link Building, Local Search Engine Marketing, SEO, Search Engines, Social Marketing by scott
Comments on Local SEO is Bullshit! SEO is all Blackhat! »
Hi Scott
I agree the SEO is about building relationships with people, not websites.
But I disagree with a lot of things you wrote.
you wrote
“So what is black hat? Keyword stuffing, duh.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone whose practiced keyword stuffing since 1999.
And back then keyword stuffing was only one of many different techniques.
You then write
“What about optimizing a keyword into the H1 Tag? Enhancing the Title tag? Keyword Density? Keyword Proximity? Internal Linking with proper anchor text?
I can argue that each, and every one of the above mentioned concepts is black hat, if you are using them for search engine purposes and NOT for an enhanced user experience”- End.
really? that sounds like standard on page optimization practices to me. nothing remotely black hat about it.
There is no such thing as content for a search engine, there’s only content for people.
I don’t know anyone who would write content purely for seo purposes.
You might re-write your copy to be more seo friendly, but that’s another story.
Any way, just thought I’d toss in my 2 cents.
-Robben Salter
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We can agree to disagree. Thanks for your comments. My points about ’standard on the page optimization’ is that if you focus on the user, all of those other things come together. I am suggesting that if you are following a list and using keywords simply to get ranked, those are black hat and many, many people will disagree with me, that’s ok. We do agree that content is for the user, not the SEs. However my starting your marketing efforts for the SEs is the practice 90% of SEOers take, and I am saying that is wrong; hence that is why I’m calling them black hat.
I only used the ‘keyword stuffing’ analogy to demonstrate that there are extremely obvious, clear black hat techniques. Oddly, people still try it. There are many more techniques that are clearly black hat.
Again, I’m taking a stand that even standard optimization can be argued blackhat.
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Oh, okay, I think I misunderstood your point.
You’re saying people who are starting their SEO campaigns are focusing on seo, not on marketing and building value (which would actually improve their SEO)
And that, that way of doing seo is in your opinion, black hat?
I would agree.
I would say that it’s not even black hat per se, it’s just dumb. right?
Because if you’re focusing on the technical aspects of SEO without the marketing/value side you’re not going to build a business any way.
Whats the point of ranking on a website that doesn’t convert or give value?
So yeah, I think I getcha.
I just didn’t that of that as ‘black hat’.
By the way, I like your blog.
I found you on a face book ad.
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We’re on the same page now! Yes, I’m coming out and saying that focussing on technical aspects of SEO, which most people do, is actually black hat when there are tremendous publications calling them white hat.
That’s why we shouldn’t call it SEO, it should be simple Internet Marketing.
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SEO is Bullshit! SEO is all Blackhat! | Local Internet Marketing … | Product Reviews- VirtualReviews.net @ 7:12 am
[...] Read the rest here: SEO is Bullshit! SEO is all Blackhat! | Local Internet Marketing … [...]
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I found the blog very interesting. I especially liked the part where you were asking if one could truthfully say if their website enhances their customer’s experience.
Well, I didn’t close my eyes, but I thought about it, and not for the first time I must say. Yes, I do not have the relevant experience, but I’d like to think the answer is Yes. We’d also welcome any comments regarding the website, as brief as they may be.
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Seo is a must, Gorilla marketing in today’s economy is everything. If your interested in web optimization for your site, there is a free site for uploading video ads for your business, they also have image uploads if you are not yet up to videos. The more sites you can link to the greater your market will be. They have a free link exchange as well.
http:// adwido . com
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First, it’s Guerrilla Marketing, not Gorilla! Second, Guerrilla marketing is NOT a must! Guerrilla Marketing is not consistent, unproven, unrealiable and in many cases, a calculated risk many would never take. It’s not everything either. SEO, by definition, is not Guerrilla….buyers are expected to be using the search engine, search engines are now conventional and there is a clear and concise plan to SEO.
If you want to properly market your side using the Internet, stop spinning your tires and posting useless information that doesn’t add an ounce of value, in fact, you are dead wrong. Spend 60 seconds and practice what you preach, get a spell checkers and learn proper definitions of words before you use them.
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Google Discusses Local Internet Marketing at SES ‘09 in San Jose | Local Internet Marketing for Small Business | Small Business Internet Marketing @ 11:35 am
[...] I’ve been discussing for some time now, Local SEO is very different than Traditional, because of these [...]
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This subject reminds of me of the debate about why am I ranked for a certain keyword phrase but no conversions.
The other side to the coin for k phrases is the content that compels the user to take action.
I love your article and views! I am the minority that do view, some of the methods of SE is blackhat.
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All that SEO allows you to do is remove the barriers to being indexed by Search Engines. It’s a kind of Dewey Decimal system, so that web pages and web content may be better indexed, so as to be more relevant and easier to find. The marketing of a website does not require SEO, as a matter of fact. But we all know that being ranked in organic search engine results equates to better positioning towards conversion (whatever your goal maybe). This will change in the near future when all sites become better optimized and marketing becomes the primary means of differentiation. I do agree that the future may be a bit bleak for those who earn a living from only optimizing websites.
The discussion of whether all SEO is black hat or not is a moot point. If all SEO was black hat, then all optimized sites would be banned from Search Engine Results. The definition of Black Hat SEO is very clear and was explained nicely by the author, but in a very round about way at the end of the article. If your site ranks and its NOT relevant to the searcher’s query, then you have used a technique that is manipulating the search engine results.
Anyways, I thought I’d pit in my 5 cents… I’d be interested in knowing what percentage of time you spend on design and layout as compared to the entire process of professionally building and publishing a website to best practices – without any pay per click marketing?
Regards,
Vegas Dave
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your bent
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Thanks! I try to be different.
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I have an alternate definition of “Black Hat” techniques: anything that has a non-zero probability of getting your site dropped by Teh Google.
My sense is that outside of the really high-volume consumer markets (there are many significant B2B product categories where traffic is measured in thousands of pages/month), building websites to appeal to robots rather than users seems to still be growing.
The marketing gurus will say, “well, you shouldn’t compromise the user experience” but the subtext is that they’ve omitted the word “severely.” I see plenty of sites that exhibit “good SEO” and clearly prize that over the experience they deliver to the marginal user. Obviously the strategy is to make this up on low-cost volume brought by the engines. That’s a hat, but it’s more white and cone-shaped.
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Interesting perspective.
I would say that ANY on/off page optimization which is done with the end intention being the gaming of a search engine for ranking purposes is “black hat” SEO. That being said, who among us (internet marketers/SEO’s) doesn’t incorporate some form(s) of search engine manipulation techniques on a regular basis? I think the only question is; how far will we go to get the top spot and our risk tolerance level.
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LOL I never taught of some of these stuff you mentioned. Optimizing title tags blackhat? I can see your point, but I feel that these are playing by the algorithm, kind of like hypothesees. Blackhat is doing things you may know is slightly unethical, like submitting fake software to gain backlinks.
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