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This weekend, highly admire in the SEO community posted debates about what was termed the “SEO Boondoggle” - discussing the hacks of the regarding inexperienced practitioners claiming to be SEO experts.
In This Corner: Jill Whalen (aka @JillWhalen)
In one corner, you have Jill Whalen, an expert many. On Thursday, Jill posted a piece on Search Engine Land entitled “Is Most of SEO Just a Boondoggle?”. In the piece, many inexperienced SEO practitioners out there that spread misinformation about SEO and frankly make us all look bad.
In the Corner: (aka @MilwaukeeSEO).
Jill’s Anthony Verre, aka The Milwaukee SEO, to respond. Anthony clearly took offense at Jill’s post, and for some very good reasons, disagreed Engine Land post. For instance, Jill wrote of XML sitemaps:
Even the creation of XML sitemaps are for the most part, a boondoggle. sites, some value, but they are certainly not a necessity for most sites.
While this may be Jill’s experience, I know, personally, my feelings years because of new experiences with clients where they have been very valuable. So Anthony argued that Jill’s points may not all valid, agree.
Where This Come From? Back in May, Jill posted “85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business” on Search Engine Land. Around time, a new web designer to supplement some of our design work at the office. I did a Google search for local web freelancers, behold, the 20-30 local web designers I found, 90% of them claimed to know SEO - along with many other forms of marketing. furious! Frustrated! the websites of these folks and found that many of them broke the rules of SEO 101 - and I was MAD! be SEO practitioners when they get it all wrong! I literally had one guy tell me how he was so successful at - 36 on Google. Whoppeee! (For clarification, dude, that’s only page 4!).
I find the same frustration with large interactive/marketing firms as well. Many SEO, deeper and several signs will show you that they don’t know SEO from a hole in the wall - and I’m you’ve it. pleasantly surprised by Jill’s article back then, because she expressed so professionally what I wanted to say - BUTT OUT WEB DESIGHNERS DEVELOPERS! NOT EXPERTS!!
Then came last week’s post, and I expect that Jill, like me, had reached a boiling point. No telling what specifically frustrated her, some SEO hack spreading more misinformation out there. So I empathize with her on that. But What About Anthony’s Points? Anthony, however, points. Jill’s post was likely written in frustration - and therefore, as Anthony says, she may have damaged many other SEOs and their mix. instance, not value XML sitemaps, but, as Anthony points out, they are easy to do and can give much info via Google’s Webmaster Tools. best practice for SEO, even if they do not directly improve search engine ranking.
Moral of the Story: Ignore the Noise. So what “hacks” that spread misinformation? I agree with Jill on that point - it’s a problem! Guess what - it’s a problem in field. out, results speak for themselves. If you have good testimonials and case studies, flaunt it!
And to put a positive spin on trying right SEO company, we tried creating a checklist of what to look for in an SEO firm. Bottom line - noise. will prevail. Maybe I’m a Pollyanna, but I’ve got to believe that.
Janet Driscoll Miller is the CEO and Lead Search Strategist of full marketing firm. Her company offers both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services and Pay Per Click (PPC) Management services to help clients improve rankings.
Technorati Tags: Jill Whalen, Search Engine Optimization, SEO
