UPDATE 1/26/10: The Boston Globe just published an article that echoes the opinions I expressed below. It includes the quote “Being charged $5,000 a month to manage the SEO process is crazy.” You can read the entire article at
In Web world, a successful marketing effort means gaining inside track on searches
Photo: from the Mel Brooks movie “Young Frankenstein”
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big deal these days. For anyone who doesn’t already know what it is, it’s basically doing whatever you can to make sure your web site shows up on the first page of search results given a specific set of words (keywords). You can pay a search engine directly for this or you can contrive through content manipulation to make it happen.
Before computers, how did a local business get noticed? Besides the usual marketing activities, you could list your business in the yellow pages. Remember the days when businesses named themselves “AAA Roofing” or “AAA Mattress” so they would show up first in their category? Marketing companies are charging big money under the premise that they can use SEO to do the equivalent of “AAA” for you on the web.
There’s no doubt you can artificially promote your site, but I’m skeptical about what works and how much it’s worth. For example, I was hired to write web page content for a business I’ll call The Widget Company. What I wrote was then sent to a 27 year old vice president of SEO at a high priced marketing firm. (That a 27 year old could be a vice president should be the first tip off something isn’t right.)
To increase the probability the web site would come up first whenever a user typed “widget” on Google, he stuck the word “widget” in front of every possible noun he could, usually creating awkward noun strings. And stuck the word “widget” inside of product names, creating incorrect product names. He also introduced grammar and spelling errors. For this The Widget Company is paying a retainer of several thousand a month. Does anyone besides me smell snake oil?
Because The Widget Company is always running promotions of various types, there is no way to prove a cause and effect relationship between SEO and increased web site activity, in spite of the multitude of charts SEO people create to back up their claims.
But one fact is irrefutable – SEO did create awkward to read text that would have also made the company look like yokels if I hadn’t been able to go back and correct the bad grammar and spelling.
Why is The Widget Company paying for it? There is one answer – fear. The management doesn’t understand technology and this creates insecurity. And, as long as everyone else is doing it, they’re afraid they’ll be left behind if they don’t do it, too.
There are some common sense practices to follow regardless of SEO. You do these things because they enhance user interface design, impart information, and help people navigate your site.
- Ascertain key phrases to identify your business and message and use them strategically – in page titles and headings, for example.
- Write straightforward text and organize it logically.
- Present it with legible, user intuitive typography.
You can also artificially plug keywords into your content, but it probably won’t do much good. Search engine companies are always rewriting search algorithms to ignore such tactics.
Lets do a reality check. How many web sites are there in the world? If you own a floral business, isn’t it sort of wacky to think you should come up on the first search page when there are 28,700,000 other florists out there? However, Google is happy to list you on the first page when a user enters a type of business and a zip code – if you’ve included zip code/location information on your web site. And that’s common sense, you shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars for it.
Frankly I’m skeptical of SEO and paying a bunch of money to snake oil salesmen preying on people’s lack of experience with technology. Common sense, good writing, and strategic marketing along with intelligent web design should be all you need for visibility in your local market.
Commentary by Smart Alice Web Design, smart web design for businesses who want a unique and effective presence on the internet.
Videos are a great addition to your web site, especially if you want to explain how a product works, create a case study, or do something wild and creative. Hiring professionals is expensive but it’s entirely possible to make a powerful video yourself. I like the videos made by Lee Lefever for Common Craft who created the “…in Plain English”series. They’re very simple. The props are a whiteboard and Post Its. You can see their videos on their web site or on YouTube.
