Before we get down to business, I wanted to note that I’ve updated the Glossary with some new terms I thought might be helpful. Click to read:
But on to other things. I read another great blog post from a few months back about “the changing face of search engine optimization.” It’s called, “The Face of SEO is Changing Are You?” and, bad grammar aside, it’s a good read.
You see, historically, the way that SEO companies did business was to pay for links and blog posts; they would pretend to be their client companies and post articles on various “fake” blogs. I say “fake” not because they were not actually created with blog software or anything, but because what makes a “blog” a “blog” is the human(s) behind it who actually have interest in creating community and having two-way conversation with their customer base. That’s an idealistic opinion, but you’ll see that sometimes idealism counts for something later on in this piece.
With regard to the paid links – you may recall that I wrote in an earlier piece that one of the key items that search engines look for in judging a site’s relevance is how many sites link to it. Well, an old-school SEO company will pay companies that create pages that are purely a collection of links. Have you ever accidentally mistyped a web address and ended up at a page that had a bunch of unrelated links on it? These pages are created by SEO companies to increase the number of incoming links to a site. Seems like a dirty trick, and it is.
Google serves almost 70% of all web searches.
But, because this is technology, it evolves. I mentioned idealism, and we’ve all been told at one time or another that idealism has no place in business. Well, maybe, but one exception to that rule is Google. Google is in a unique position in the business world – it is the 800 lb. gorilla in the most important kind of business of the next century: information management. Almost 70% of searching done on the Internet is done through Google outlets. So Google has the power to choose standards that all must follow. It’s a lot of power, and it can be abused, but Google does have certain ideals. Google’s corporate mission statement is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” And the truth is, “fake” blogs and “paid links” do nothing to add useful content to the Internet.
So Google is beginning to penalize companies that use these techniques to boost their sites’ relevance. Their goal, of course, is to reduce the number of pages out there that have worthless content on them, which will, naturally, make it easier to find the things people are actually looking for.
The author, Dave Freeman, put it well:
Well in times when businesses are struggling to stay profitable a website is a must for any business trying to attract new customers. If either your in-house SEO or your SEO agency is undertaking a link building strategy that includes buying blatant paid links then not only are they placing your website at risk of a penalty, they are also placing you business at huge risk of losing its biggest revenue generator and in these economic conditions that could spell the end for the business. What you have to ask is, is it worth the risk of using an SEO or a search agency that is stuck in the past?
Once again, poor grammar aside, the point he’s making is valid. Why waste your money on an old strategy that risks your site being banned by they #1 traffic driver on the Internet?
The key to SEO’s future is understanding how to embrace social media, build links based on legitimate content without resorting to “spamming,” and manage your site’s user experience so that when people come to your site, they’re landing on the page that is most relevant to them, and are able to find the information they want. It doesn’t take a lot to do these things, in terms of technical expertise, it just takes knowing how to look at a site critically and interpret the web site’s metrics to determine what people are doing on your site.
The bottom line is this: ask smart questions of the people managing your SEO business, and you will be in a better place to handle whatever the future holds.
