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How hard is SEO?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:56 am
by pickle
Hello all,
My aunt has a website that she would like to be more easily found through searching. Yes, I know - anyone with a website wants that. However, after looking through the relevant search results & other websites in her industry, I don't think it'll be too hard.
My questions is - is this something that I could do on my own? I've been building web applications & websites for years so I can do that in my sleep. I know there are aspects of SEO centered around semantic markup. That's no problem, I can do that. However, I hear of so many SEO firms dedicated to the art, I'm wondering if me doing research & attempting it myself will yield comparable results, or do the SEO firms have some super voodoo magic that makes your page rank go through the roof?
I'm not asking for techniques (that may come later

), I'm just wondering if it's worth my time to try & increase her page rank myself, or should I just resign myself to the fact that I'll never be as good as the SEO firms & hire one of them.
I guess I should add that the website is pretty small - less than 10 pages.
Thanks all!
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:14 pm
by VirtuosiMedia
I think it's definitely something that you can do on your own, but it will take a little bit of time. Personally, I would have a hard time hiring an SEO company. The truth is, most of the SEO companies out there really don't know what they're doing. They'll do silly things like article, directory, and search engine submission. As a rule of thumb, if an SEO company talks about PageRank or promises you the number one spot in Google, steer clear of them; they don't know what they're talking about.
Here are a couple resources for you to begin:
An SEO social bookmarking community
Search Engine Ranking Factors
5 Secrets of SEO
Probably the most knowledgeable SEO I know of
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:18 pm
by pickle
VirtuosiMedia wrote:if an SEO company talks about PageRank or promises you the number one spot in Google, steer clear of them; they don't know what they're talking about.
Ya, I knew that much.
Thanks for the links!
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:58 am
by seodevhead
SEO is a community effort... in that I mean, you could never possibly learn all there is to know about SEO by yourself. But this very facet of SEO is also it's greatest downfall, because when you have to rely heavily on a "community", you then have to be weary of who to trust, and be good at discerning what knowledge is credible, and which isn't. My biggest advice to others about SEO is... be sure the information you are getting is valid. Usually this comes down to knowing who the big players are in the SEO industry, and constantly keeping in contact with them, either through email, phone, blogs, etc.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:02 am
by seodevhead
As far as pagerank... completely forget it ever existed. It has next to no bearing on what your SERPs will be. Today, SEO is a links game still, but it's no longer about quantity. I also think a lot of people are being too quick to jump off the onpage-optimization wagon. From my experience... a PERFECTLY tuned website will do wonders for your SERPs. Things like inbound linking structure and website age are also very important... new websites are extremely hard to rank well, because new sites don't have any reputation built up yet.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:24 am
by matthijs
I would also start following the googleblog and Matt Cutts' weblog and reading the webmaster guidelines. Tons of very good advice there. Google might be secretive about their exact search algorithms, they are completely open about what you should do to do well in the search rankings. Of course there's more then Google, but let's not complicate things yet.
In other words, there are no secrets.
There's on site optimization, see for an informative article (on wordpress, but the principles are the same for any site)
http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/
On site optimization comes down to quality markup, using good titles, keywords, urls, a good link scheme within your site, etc
There's off site optimization: getting quality links. That's basically marketing, getting known, maybe some advertising, etc One way to get good links is to have good content in the first place. Very important I think.
So, I don't think there are "secret" SEO techniques. I also don't think SEO is hard. It's just a bit of work. First to find out what you have to do (reading and keeping track of all the good info there is). Second to implement it all. getting everything right on your site takes some time, and marketing your site as well.
pickle wrote:I'm not asking for techniques (that may come later

), I'm just wondering if it's worth my time to try & increase her page rank myself, or should I just resign myself to the fact that I'll never be as good as the SEO firms & hire one of them.
I guess I should add that the website is pretty small - less than 10 pages.
I would say it's worth your time. You can use all the knowledge you pick up in the process for each site you build from now on. And if it's only 10 pages, it'll probably not take too much time to optimize everything on site.
Last, I think the time you have to spend finding a good and trustworthy SEO company is better spend on doing stuff yourself. There might be good companies out there, but there are also a lot of bad ones. To figure out which ones are good and bad you have to know enough about proper SEO yourself.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:42 am
by pickle
Thanks for the advice everyone!
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:37 pm
by seodevhead
I'd actually stay away from Matt Cutt's blog. I mean, it's good reading and I read it just cause.... but I personally believe they purposely steer people away from quality SEO techniques, that Google "doesn't like". Matt Cutts also has a tendency to overly "scare" people into not doing certain things... when in reality... there is no fear to doing those 'certain' things. It's just a whole bunch of stuff... but I wouldn't take Matt Cutts' blog as gospel. He's not some Santa Clause that everyone makes him out to be... he's Google and he is keeping in their interest at all times.
For some reason people always think of Matt Cutts as being a "nice guy" and sharing his secrets and insights with fellow webmasters. Just know he is a google employee with a purpose. Good guy... generally great info, but never take as gospel.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:47 pm
by pickle
Good to know.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:00 am
by matthijs
@seodevhead: of course I would not take
any blog as gospel and I hope every intelligent person would do the same. Although I believe a whole generation is growing up now that does believe everything on the internet is fact. But that's another discussion
But, can you be more specific? Can you give some concrete examples? You talk about "certain things" and "his secrets". What "quality SEO techniques" are you talking about? I'm curious now, because to be honest I don't think there are any secrets.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:31 am
by seodevhead
I apologize if it sounded as if I was coming down on you for referring Cutts' blog... I just go a little crazy after awhile reading so many forum/blog posts at other sites about how people take their SEO advice from Matt Cutts. I will give credit to Cutts for at least alleviating some fears people have about certain things (there I go with 'certain things' again...hehe), but like I said, on the other side of the spectrum.. he tends to scare people.
The most notorious of his overly frightening posts was in regards to buying links and nofollowed links. He scared a crap load of people away from buying links, which is good for Google... but hey... buying links still work, and it always will... if it's done correctly.
I'd have to think back to some other examples of where he went a little overboard trying to steer SEO's away from certain techniques, but it's been a while since I've read his blog more than just simple skimming over his text. His spat with Aaron Wall at SEObook is a prime example of some disagreements with SEO's that definitely know their stuff. A lot of takes place on the PPC side of things... which I generally don't refer to when most people speak of SEO.
I definitely know there are some "secrets" out there for SEO... as I am using them with great success. How big of an effect they give is anyone's guess, and it's nearly impossible to pinpoint any given tactic or strategy as the reason for success since Google's algorithm changes daily. But there certainly are secrets... and the one's I know are probably not too razzle dazzle compared to some of the bigger fish out there.
Here is my single greatest tip...
90% of SEO is in the keyword research. Learn how to figure out the statistics on the search terms lucrative to you, and know how to implement sites to form around them and you will succeed. My method of research is fairly simplistic compared to other SEO's, so it's not too hard.
Aweomse tip #2:
View the metrics for the search terms that will be lucrative for you in the arena you can compete in. You can't compete in arena's that are too glut to begin with. Know where you can compete, and figure out how much time it will take to compete and how much money you can make. The keyword metrics given by the right tools will tell you everything you need to know if you know how to read them.
Sorry for being so vague.. I just don't want you guys to be my competition.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:35 pm
by matthijs
seodevhead wrote:I apologize if it sounded as if I was coming down on you for referring Cutts' blog... I just go a little crazy after awhile reading so many forum/blog posts at other sites about how people take their SEO advice from Matt Cutts. I will give credit to Cutts for at least alleviating some fears people have about certain things (there I go with 'certain things' again...hehe), but like I said, on the other side of the spectrum.. he tends to scare people.
No problem. I do believe that - overall - there can be some good info found in his advice. You are correct that you should not forget that he is a Google employee.
seodevhead wrote:The most notorious of his overly frightening posts was in regards to buying links and nofollowed links. He scared a crap load of people away from buying links, which is good for Google... but hey... buying links still work, and it always will... if it's done correctly.
Yeah, with changing algorithms and sometimes unpredictable results some people get scared.
seodevhead wrote:I definitely know there are some "secrets" out there for SEO... as I am using them with great success. How big of an effect they give is anyone's guess, and it's nearly impossible to pinpoint any given tactic or strategy as the reason for success since Google's algorithm changes daily. But there certainly are secrets... and the one's I know are probably not too razzle dazzle compared to some of the bigger fish out there.
Here is my single greatest tip...
90% of SEO is in the keyword research. Learn how to figure out the statistics on the search terms lucrative to you, and know how to implement sites to form around them and you will succeed. My method of research is fairly simplistic compared to other SEO's, so it's not too hard.
Aweomse tip #2:
View the metrics for the search terms that will be lucrative for you in the arena you can compete in. You can't compete in arena's that are too glut to begin with. Know where you can compete, and figure out how much time it will take to compete and how much money you can make. The keyword metrics given by the right tools will tell you everything you need to know if you know how to read them.
Sorry for being so vague.. I just don't want you guys to be my competition.
Well, if you won't share your "secrets", I won't share mine!
Anyway, you admit yourself that you aren't even sure about these "secrets" of yours yourself. I bet every SEO out there has some of those. Probably because it's all so unpredictable and there are so many factors to deal with, it's almost impossible to really prove some things works and some don't. And then there's the whole white-hat vs black hat thing, with the grey area in between. In a discussion here, I asume we're talking white hat SEO. And in that area I still think that you get 95% of the results with the common things.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:47 pm
by pickle
Good discussions folks. I think I'll tell my aunt I can do it myself - see if she still wants to pay me

Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:08 pm
by seodevhead
I only do white-hat... I don't have the nerves to risk my income... considering all my sites share the same adsense account.
You're right on about not ever being totally sure what is working good and what isn't. There's no such thing as split A/B testing in SEO, contrary to what some may say. I think testing strategies in SEO is equivalent to testing the electrical conductivity of a group of kites in a lightning storm. If you can't predict where the lightning will be or when it will strike, what can you possibly do? Nothing.
Re: How hard is SEO?
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:28 am
by VirtuosiMedia
seodevhead wrote:You're right on about not ever being totally sure what is working good and what isn't. There's no such thing as split A/B testing in SEO, contrary to what some may say. I think testing strategies in SEO is equivalent to testing the electrical conductivity of a group of kites in a lightning storm. If you can't predict where the lightning will be or when it will strike, what can you possibly do? Nothing.
Testing in SEO is tough. You can't do straight A/B testing because there are too many factors outside of your control, so isolating a single one is almost impossible and plus it takes a long time. However, iterative A/B testing for conversion rates is what I personally would concentrate on. At the end of the day, it isn't necessarily how much traffic you get, it's what you do with the traffic you do get and how that traffic benefits you through sales and conversions.