SEO Apologia with a Trust Me as Spice

December 30, 2010

I chuckled when I read “SEO Events Help Seal The Legitimacy Of The Industry.” The write up contained better jokes than those told by a part time juggler entertaining in last night’s hotel cabaret. Example:

But what really gets me is that these events are less about the learning and more about the industry and the community. What makes people in our industry grow in their profession both financially, practically and intellectually are these conferences.

The “events” referenced are conferences that purport to teach people how to get traffic to their Web sites. Today this boils down to finding ways to get Google to put a Web site high in a search results list. However, there is increasing interest in using Facebook as away to generate sales leads or just make sales.

So, the “events” are really about teaching people to bend Google to some degree to the purpose of the marketer, not to the purpose of the person looking for an answer to a question.

But the real hoot came from this passage:

So even if you know it all, trust me, you will learn something. Even if you know everyone, trust me, you will make a connection that will become golden in the future. And if that doesn’t do it for you, then help make this industry something special by coming out and supporting your colleagues.

At age 66, the reason one goes to a conference or does work is to cope with our pal Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Altruism kicks in after some other needs have been met. I enjoy “trust me” statements and assurances that for fee events are not about money derived either directly or indirectly.

Ho ho ho. Yep, trust those search engine optimization experts to get a Web site traffic. Ho ho ho. (This last “ho ho ho” is the sound of a person laughing on the way to the bank.) Does SEO yield traffic? Spend some money and find out. Our approach is content centric, not so much SEO. Objective search results: going the way of the dodo I fear. If SEO works so well, why is online advertising thriving in a lousy economy? The SEO crowd has an answer, of course. Do SEO. Do online ads. How is that working out for you?

Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2010

Freebie

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Financial, Marketing, News, SEO

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.